La Capricieuse op. 17
Violin and Piano
In brief

The piece comes across as a lively, capricious showpiece for violin and piano, built around sudden changes of mood and sparkling passages that call for verve and wit from the players. With an estimated difficulty of 62/100, expect technically demanding writing for both instruments: rapid agility together with precise rhythmic control and careful balance between violin and piano, noting that no further technical details were provided here. Within Elgar's output it stands as a small character piece for duo, more at home in salon or recital programs than among his large-scale orchestral works. I do not give a reference recording because I am not fully confident of a single widely recognized interpretation for this specific piece.

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Sheet music

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Formation

Violin and piano · 2 performers

Required forces
Violin 1 performers
Piano 1 performers
Playable parts
Violin Piano
MusicCoach difficulty
62/100
Intermediate
Likely range : 56–68/100
Confidence : 48% · to confirm
BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedVirtuoso
Exam grade
About grade 6 to 7

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.

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Difficulty sources
Henle Verlag
6
62/100 normalised
Relative difficulty
69%
Among Edward Elgar
76%
Era
Genre
Estimated skills

Skills not yet identified for this work.

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.

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