Caprice à la Bolero by C. Schumann arr. Martin Blessinger

I arranged Caprice à la Boléro by Clara Schumann (1819-1896) in summer 2020 as part of a year of creative activity dedicated to interaction with the composer’s life and legacy and in connection with her bicentennial celebration. The Caprice comes from her piano set 4 Pièces caractéristiques, op. 5, published in 1836 when Clara Schumann (then Clara Wieck) was only seventeen years old. Her early works, of which this set is a part, were composed under the watchful eye of her domineering father, largely to support her burgeoning and lucrative international concertizing career. As such, these pieces tend towards the virtuosic, a showcase of her talent both at the keyboard and as a composer, which attracted the attention of the European musical cognoscenti of the day—names like Mendelssohn, Chopin, Liszt, Paganini, and, of course, Robert Schumann.