Capriccio espagnol, Op. 34, is an orchestral work based on Spanish melodies and written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1887. Rimsky-Korsakov originally intended for the work to place a solo violin against an orchestra, but he later decided that a purely orchestral work would do better justice to the lively melodies. The piece has five movements.

1. The first movement, Alborada, is a festive and exciting dance to celebrate the rising of the sun.
2. The second movement, Variazioni, begins with a melody in the horn section. Variations of this melody are then repeated by other instruments and sections of the orchestra.
3. The third movement, Alborada, presents the same dance as the first movement. The two movements are nearly identical, in fact, except that this movement has a different instrumentation and key.
4. The fourth movement, Scena e canto gitano (Scene and gypsy dance) opens with five cadenzas – first by the horns and trumpets, then solo violin, flute, clarinet, and harp – played over rolls on various percussion instruments. It is then followed by a dance in triple time leading attacca into the final movement.
5. The fifth and final movement, Fandango asturiano, is an energetic dance from the Asturias region of northern Spain. The piece ends with an even more rousing statement of the Alborada theme.

The piece is often lauded for its orchestration, which features a large percussion section and many special effects, such as in the fourth movement when the violinists and cellists are asked to imitate guitars. Despite the critical praise, Rimsky-Korsakov was annoyed that the other aspects of the piece were being ignored. In his autobiography, he wrote:

The opinion formed by both critics and the public, that the Capriccio is a magnificently orchestrated piece – is wrong. The Capriccio is a brilliant composition for the orchestra. The change of timbres, the felicitous choice of melodic designs and figuration patterns, exactly suiting each kind of instrument, brief virtuoso cadenzas for instruments solo, the rhythm of the percussion instruments, etc., constitute here the very essence of the composition and not its garb or orchestration. The Spanish themes, of dance character, furnished me with rich material for putting in use multiform orchestral effects. All in all, the Capriccio is undoubtedly a purely external piece, but vividly brilliant for all that. I was a little less successful in its third section (Alborada, in B-flat major), where the brasses somewhat drown the melodic designs of the woodwinds; but this is very easy to remedy, if the conductor will pay attention to it and moderate the indications of the shades of force in the brass instruments by replacing the fortissimo by a simple forte.

References

• Laki, Peter. Cleveland Orchestra program notes for performances on January 28 and 29, 2005.