Claudio Maccari : Toccata – Capriccio : DOz

Claudio Maccari

Les Productions D’Oz : 8 pages

There is a curious Preface that apparently explains the plot of  this latest piece by Maccari, involving a heavy wind , a thunderstorm, a village party  and someone falling in love and finally, and I quote, ‘ because Paganini is still blowing sarcastically’

After a very slow opening of 3 bars where the melody glides up and down the fingerboard, the main section , marked Allegro Ventoso takes over  where the melody is often in large runs of semi – quavers , deliberately key – less and generally full of accidentals. The time signatures move from 4/4 to 3 / 4 to 2/4 continuously and there is considerable use of augmented chords that do help to lose any ideas you may have about key structure.

The large amounts of runs, up and down the fingerboard, are difficult and so any player has to have a good technique to cope properly with this piece. There is a slightly different idea then, where the semi – quaver runs take a small rest for much of the time only to return   before leading to a new section marked Allegretto festive set in 6/4.This is in a very different style  with much more use of chords. Then a Tempo Primo leads us back to the second idea from the opening before finally the semi – quavers return for a loud decisive final coda.

This was an interesting piece that is in a quite unique style and really does need a good player to do it full justice.

Chris Dumigan