Cadenza - Notable Examples of Cadenzas

Notable Examples of Cadenzas

• Concertos are not the only pieces that feature cadenzas; Scena di Canta Gitano, the fourth movement of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol, contains cadenzas for horns and trumpets, violin, flute, clarinet, and harp in its beginning section.
• The end of the first movement of Bach's fifth Brandenburg Concerto features a harpsichord solo.
• The coloratura arias of Bel Canto composers Gaetano Donizetti, Vincenzo Bellini, and Giacchino Rossini.
• The first movement of Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor has a long and impassioned cadenza which ends with the orchestra and piano playing together in a dramatic and rousing finale.
• Mozart wrote a cadenza into the third and final movement of his Piano Sonata in B-flat major, K. 333, which was an unusual (but not unique) choice at that time because the movement is otherwise in Sonata-Rondo form.
• Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto contains a notated cadenza. It begins with a cadenza that is partly accompanied by the orchestra. Later in the first movement, the composer specifies that the soloist should play the music that is written out in the score, and not add a cadenza on one's own.
• Beethoven famously included a cadenza-like solo for oboe in the recapitulation section of the first movement of his Symphony No. 5.
• Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3, in which the first movement features a long and incredibly difficult toccata-like cadenza with an alternative or ossia cadenza written in a heavier chordal style.
• Fritz Kreisler's cadenzas for the first and third movements of Beethoven's Violin Concerto.
• Carl Baermann's cadenza for the second movement of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto.
• Aaron Copland uses a cadenza in his Clarinet Concerto to connect the two movements.
• Karol Szymanowski's two violin concertos both feature cadenzas written by the violinist who was intended to play them, Pawel Kochański.
• In the third movement of Elgar's Violin Concerto, there is an unexpected cadenza in which the orchestra supports the solo with a pizzicato tremolando effect. ("cadenza accompagnato")
• Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 features a short cadenza at the end of first movement.
• Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 for piano contains a cadenza. This cadenza is completely improvised by the pianist and it is at the pianist's discretion that such a cadenza is added.
• Pianists Chick Corea and Makoto Ozone incorporated jazz cadenzas into an otherwise traditional performance in Japan of the Mozart Double Concerto.
• Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade features numorous cadenzas for violin.