Room 58--The cadenza

Anytime you find a cadenza in a piece, it should say "Please show off here." That is basically what it is. A place where the soloist can show off his virtuosity. Hundreds of years ago, it was a chance for the soloist to improvise passages. Some performers wrote out their own cadenzas. In the case of the contemporary fortepianist Robert Levin, he will improvise a cadenza in the middle of the first movement of a Mozart concerto. Here are some examples of cadenzas, the first one by my old teacher, Paul Mayo.

Paul Edward Mayo

In his press kit, his publicity used to read that he was “one of Southern California’s busiest tenors.” And he was. This example is from a wonderful performance he gave in 1969, when he was the featured tenor in Handel’s Messiah, conducted by William Hall (a former teacher at Chapman College). At the end of the opening tenor aria, Ev’ry Valley Shall be Exalted, the words are merely "and the rough places plain." Paul extends them with a brief but impressive cadenza. Listen!

That was a stylistically correct performance in a Baroque style using ornamentation. When it came to the music of Bach, it’s always tough to add ornaments because many times he wrote them out in full, because he knew how it was supposed to go. In the case of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D, a concerto for Flute, Violin, Harpsichord and Strings, the keyboard is clearly the star considering the expansive cadenza that is required. Unfortunately, the harpsichordist in this recording is not identified. Listen!

Philippe Graffin

One of the longest cadenzas, running nearly 7 minutes in length, is the one heard in the final movement of the Violin Concerto by Sir Edward Elgar. It begins with solo violin accompanied by orchestra, then during the final minute or so it gets down to the solo instrument. Please note that in spite of the fact that there are some difficult passages in the cadenza here, that Elgar was shooting more towards the expressive side of music, rather than the virtuoso side. The violinist is Philippe Graffin. Listen!

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