The Caprice d’Adieu (autograph unknown) is appended to Eduard Eliason’s Six Caprices Caractéristiques pour le Violon, Op. 12, which was published in Mayence by B. Schott in 1833. This piece, which Paganini dedicated to Eliason, is part of a series ofcompositions for violin solo that have been widely ignored by both performers and scholars of the great Genoese musician. It is a composition whose size and structure (A-B-A, with two refrains) follows the pattern of some of his Capricci, Op. 1, but,unlike these proper studies, the Caprice d’adieu is lighter and more lively in character. Although not as brilliant, musically, as the Capricci, it still contains some original musical ideas, mostly articulated in two parts with a few complextechnical passages and a central, contrasting section featuring different dynamics and a range of chords and trills.This critical edition is based on the first edition and is collated with the most important nineteenth and twentieth-century editions.
