Caprice, Op.20
Cello and Piano
In brief

This Caprice for cello and piano feels like a lively, galant piece that alternates virtuosic bursts with singing episodes, creating an elegant but nervous dialogue between the two instruments. Technically, the Passages rapides (5.0/5) require nimble fingers and economical motion to maintain clarity and articulation in fast runs, while Intonation (cello) (4.0/5) calls for sustained attention to finger placement and a keen ear in the upper registers to keep pitch accurate under tempo pressure. The period and the exact place of this piece within the composer's catalogue are listed as unknown, so it should be approached as a short salon-style work for cello and piano. No specific reference recording is provided here.

Listen to this work

No verified recording for this work yet. We add more every week.

Sheet music

Public-domain sheet music on IMSLP ↗

Is this the right work?
Formation

Cello and piano · 2 performers

Required forces
Cello 1 performers
Piano 1 performers
Playable parts
Cello Piano
MusicCoach difficulty
72/100
Advanced
Likely range : 60–84/100
Confidence : 36% · to confirm
BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedVirtuoso
Exam grade
About grade 7 to 8

Estimated from our difficulty score, not taken from an exam syllabus. Checked against 333 works on the ABRSM syllabus: the exact grade is right 7 times out of 10, and within one grade 99 times out of 100.

Difficulty estimate by MusicCoach on a scale of 1 to 100.

Where this work sits
050100

Most works cluster between 45 and 65: a small score gap often marks a real step. The highlighted bar shows this work among those for the same instrument.

The MusicCoach difficulty measures a work's overall demands (technique, reading, stamina) on a shared 0-100 scale, consolidated from editorial and pedagogical reference points (Henle, exam syllabuses, curation) and our own analyses. It measures neither musical value nor the practice time YOU will need: two musicians of the same level can experience the same work very differently depending on their strengths (hands used to octaves, quick sight-reading…). The confidence reflects how many reference points sit behind the score and how well they agree — a lightly documented score is flagged “to validate”. For a truly personal bearing, the diagnostic and your space compare each work to YOUR estimated level, which the score alone cannot do.

Does this rating look right to you?

This rating is computed automatically from heterogeneous sources. It gets things wrong, sometimes badly. If you know this work, your answer is worth more than our computation: it tells us which ratings to review.

Add a note (optional)

Your note is not published on the site: it is read in review.

Relative difficulty
75%
Among Auguste Franchomme
84%
Era
Genre
Estimated skills
Technique
Fast passages
2
Technique
Intonation (cello)
2
Interpretation
Phrasing
2
Style
Character and style
1
Technique
Stamina
1
Technique
Position changes (cello)
1
What to play next?

Each suggestion combines difficulty gap, risk, confidence and skill overlap. The first two cards in each column are the most useful pedagogically.

See the whole progression