A 'Where's Waldo' for Paganini Caprices

July 21, 2011 at 10:50 PM ·

Virtuoso violist Emanuel Vardi died this past January, and the American Viola Society asked me to write a piece in his memory. Vardi was known as the first violist to record all of Paganini's Caprices, so in the 7 minute piece I made references to 12 of the caprices.

Even though the piece is for 3 violas, I thought some of the violinists here might enjoy the bits of Paganini scattered throughout (and really piling on one another toward the end.) It was fun putting it all together!

(It's just a read-through in our livingroom, not the world's greatest acoustics.)

For any violists who might want the sheet music, it is available via free download from the American Viola Society's website. Here is their general page with a number of compositions and here is the PDF of Capricious.

best,

Scott Slapin

www.scottslapin.com