During this past month, I made videos of the Six Caprices for solo violin by Salvatore Sciarrino. I’m very proud of them. I hope you’ll listen and watch. They’re very beautiful music.

I first played several of these caprices back when I was starting to explore a lot of contemporary music. The pieces mean a lot to me and I feel strongly about the expression and sound world of this music. There’s a lot I can say and explain but I’m not in the mood to write it down at this time, so for now, I’ll post the interview I did at the West Cork Festival in Ireland after I’d performed the six of them. Suffice to say: while they’re certainly drawn somewhat from Paganini’s caprices, I feel their wonder and sparkle comes from the combination of notes, noise, and silence-as-environment, and the effect of Sciarrino’s caprices is much more Mendelssohnian than noisy. As in Midsummer Night’s Dream. Or perhaps, as my interviewer suggested, The Tempest.

My interpretation is that Sciarrino’s many written harmonics mean different things: some produce noise and some are actual harmonics that create notes, which give the music a gorgeous radiance and also melody, rather than being an ongoing pile-on of frenetic effects.

Youtube playlist of all six Caprices is here.
I will probably make an audio recording someday but I’m actually very happy with the videos for now, as the detail and physicality are very enjoyable in this medium.