Caprice d’aprés l’Étude en forme de valse de Saint-Saëns (c1900)

Much though he deplored virtuosity for its own sake, Ysaÿe clearly couldn’t resist Saint-Saëns’s Study in Waltz form, the last of his Six Studies for piano completed in 1877. Writing this unlikely Caprice round about 1900, the great violinist made a brilliant and witty job of it. If it would be going too far to say that he makes fun of the original, he does tease it at little, particularly when keeping the ear waiting for each of the reappearances of the main waltz theme. While he clearly enjoyed that main theme and its charming little pirouette at least as much as Saint-Saëns did, he also had the good taste to make a discreetly stylish adaptation of the piano material where he considered it unsuitable for the violin.

In a sense, or even in two senses, Ysaÿe’s Caprice on a Study in Waltz Form by Saint-Saëns should never have happened. The Saint-Saëns original – the last of his Six Studies for piano Op 52 completed in 1877 – is an essentially keyboard inspiration. Its material was chosen for the effect it would make on the piano and its technique derives directly from Liszt in full froth. So it was highly unlikely that anyone would think of converting it into a show piece for violin. It was just as unlikely that the violinist to do it would be Eugène Ysaÿe who, though one of the most accomplished instrumentalists of his time, did not approve of virtuosity for its own sake. As a composer, remembered now mainly for his unaccompanied Violin Sonatas, he was just as serious: his Poème élégiaque, for example, had more than a little influence on Chausson’s Poème.

Round about 1900, however, Ysaÿe did write this unlikely Caprice on the Saint-Saëns Study, and a brilliant, delightfully witty job he made of it. One reason for his success is his understanding of the fact that several key elements in Liszt’s piano technique derive from Paganini’s violin playing and that Saint-Saens’s keyboard bravura can be translated back into violin terms. Another is that he does not take the original Study at its face value. It would be going too far to say that he makes fun of it but he does tease it at little, particularly when keeping the ear waiting for each of the reappearances of the main waltz theme. Yet another is that, while he clearly enjoyed that main theme and its charming little pirouette at least as much as Saint-Saëns did, he had the good taste to make a discreetly stylish adaptation of the piano material where he considered it unsuitable for the violin.

[Next time see Monsieur Croche p35]