"Caprice Viennois", op. 2

Fritz Kreisler's Caprice Viennois for violin and piano embodies in name what almost every one of his other compositions aims toward in spirit: a certain turn-of-the-century Viennese gaiety and grace, as passed through the prism of Kreisler's own good-natured but complex character. Here there is no legerdemain of authorship (the piece is, in fact, one of just a handful of works to which Kreisler applied an opus number and which he initially admitted having authored), and no effort at musical complexity for its own sake. Instead, the Caprice Viennois is just a good three and a half minutes of well-crafted gemütlichkeit with which Kreisler could charm his audiences.

The piece is a caprice in the real sense of the word, shifting musical perspective at a moments notice to afford violinists the opportunity to indulge in some new trick -- like the false harmonics and the strangely aristocratic downward glissando of the opening quasi-cadenza passage, or to invite the listeners to join in enjoying a warm melody (the B major of the andante con moto melody in parallel thirds is warmth itself), all the while bursting forward and holding back, rhapsodically and mock-improvisationally (or, with the liberties that Kreisler himself invariably took with his music, truly improvisationally), with that amazing rhythmic elasticity that Kreisler alone was really able to bring to his music. A middle section, marked brillante and complete with ricochet bowing and rapid repeated notes, brings some fire to the table, but just enough to light the way back to the engaging andante con moto. Two elfin pizzicato chords are tacked onto a much-abbreviated reprise of the opening to draw a delightfully unsentimental conclusion in the same B minor that began the affair.