Announcing the publication of Volume 1 of the piano accompaniment to Carlo Alfredo Piatti’s Twelve Caprices, Op. 25.

This article is an expanded version of the Editorial Notes that can be found in the published edition, available digitally here or here. Promotional videos can be watched here (No. 1) and here (No. 12). The printed version is available on demand.

EDITORIAL NOTES

Carlo Alfredo Piatti (Bergamo, 8 January 1822 – Mozzo, 18 July 1901) published his Twelve Caprices for Solo Cello with the publisher N. Simrock, Berlin, in 1875, nine years after their initial completion. The autograph bears the date 26 June 1865. Piatti dedicated the set to his esteemed colleague Bernhard Cossmann, who, in turn, dedicated his 5 Concert Studies, op. 10, to Piatti in 1876. Since their publication, these caprices have become a cornerstone of the cellist’s repertoire, valued both for their musical beauty and for their enduring pedagogical contribution to the advancement of cello technique.

This two-volume set presents the Twelve Caprices with piano accompaniment: Volume 1 includes Caprices Nos. 1, 6, 7, 9, 10, and 12. All piano parts were composed by Yuriy Leonovich, with the exception of No. 7, which is Piatti’s own. Volume 2 is forthcoming and will contain Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, and 11.

The main source of the cello part is the autograph preserved in the Biblioteca Musicale Gaetano Donizetti in Bergamo, Italy. The first edition was also consulted. The inspiration for the piano accompaniments was twofold. First, I frequently accompany my students at the piano so that they have a reliable pitch reference and, in the case of études, I typically improvise an accompanying part. Second, Piatti himself provided a piano part for the Seventh Caprice, a simple melody set above the cello’s arpeggiated figuration. The present first volume gathers six caprices that are especially suited to performance in this accompanied format. They are also the caprices I tend to teach most often.

In composing the piano parts, I generally followed this approach: when a caprice functioned as a pattern prelude, a more melodic accompaniment was composed, as exemplified in Nos. 1, 9, and 10—an approach akin to Piatti’s own in No. 7, and not unlike Bach’s treatment of similar textures in the Prelude from Suite I in G major, BWV 1007, for solo cello, or the Prelude in C major, BWV 846, from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I. In Nos. 6 and 12, by contrast, the piano serves more to fill out and punctuate the harmonic content. Since Piatti’s style tends towards the late-Classical Italianate idiom of Paganini and Rossini, I also drew inspiration from their works.

The cello part is presented in a critical edition, adhering closely to the primary sources with minimal editorial intervention. All editorial deviations are marked in the musical text with brackets, and a few additional changes are noted in the critical commentary at the end of the volume.

Yuriy Leonovich

Greenville, South Carolina — March 2026

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CRITICAL NOTES

Sources:

• A: autograph of the working manuscript, Biblioteca Musicale Gaetano Donizetti, Bergamo, Italy, shelf-mark Piatti-Lochis PREIS.I3.9041. Title (autograph): Dodici capricci | per Violoncello | composti da Alfredo Piatti | op. 25 | Londra 26 Giugno. This manuscript features numerous edits and deletions, making it challenging to decipher. Additionally, the arrangement of the caprices is tentative.
• B: autograph (fair copy), same location as A, shelf-mark Piatti-Lochis PREIS.I4.9092. This source functioned as the primary reference for the engraver during the creation of the first edition (C) and features numerous annotations associated with the engraving process.
• C: first printed edition, published by N. Simrock (Berlin, 1874), plate no. 7496. Copy consulted: personal copy owned by the editors (modern re-print bearing the same plate number).
• D: autograph of the piano part, same location as A and B. D contains only the piano part and deviates in several places from B and C. Almost certainly subsequent to B.
• E: printed edition, published by Edition Peters (no. 4260, plate no. 10961) and edited by Joachim Stutschewsky, n.d.
• F: printed edition, published by G. Ricordi & Co. (plate no. E.R. 2014), New York, 1939. Title: A. C. Piatti | Twelve Caprices | for violoncello | Op. 25 | Revised, with preparatory exercises and additional bowings by | Luigi Silva. The consulted copy was provided by the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where this edition is preserved in the Jackson Library Special Collections – Elizabeth Cowling Collection, shelfmark COWLING BOX 72-5.
• G: printed edition, published by G. Henle Verlag (plate no. 746) and edited by Christian Bellisario, 2003.

For the purpose of these notes, the middle C on the piano is designated as C3.

Unless otherwise specified, the source being referred to is B.

No. 6

• b 8 Violoncello: source C and G show the staccato dots over notes 5–6, while B, E, and F do not. Analysis of the autograph reveals that what had been read as two staccato dots was, in fact, the opening segment of the slur over notes 5–10, partially erased in two spots.

No. 7

• bb 3–4 Violoncello: in source B, the voices are flipped in these bars. This has not been reproduced in our edition because the reason for this notation in the source was a lack of vertical space. The only other source respecting the autograph’s choice is source F.
• bb 9-10 Violoncello, downstem voice, note 3: there is no accent in B, G, while there is one in C, E, F. Added in square brackets.
• b 23 Piano: in D the SF marking is oddly placed. It could be referring to either note 1 or 2.
• bb 31–2 Violoncello: in B, C and G the MF dynamic is placed under the penultimate note of b 31. From B, it is clear that this placement was dictated by the lack of vertical space under the first beat of b 32. Sources E and F are the only other available printed editions to correctly interpret this.
• b 58 Violoncello: the ‘dim.’ in this bar has been written and then erased in source B, possibly to move it forward to the next bar. Sources C, E, F, and G keep it. Our edition omits it.
• bb 59–61: Source B has ‘poco rall.’ under b 60, but no ‘a tempo’ in b 61. Sources C, E, G follow B. Source D, by contrast, writes ‘rall.’ in b 60 and ‘a tempo’ in b 61. Source F is the only printed edition to add an ‘a tempo’ in b 61. Assuming that source D was compiled after the B and possibly even after C, we have treated this version as representing Piatti’s final intentions, and have incorporated it into our edition.
• b 68 Violoncello: a diminuendo hairpin has been added to the cello part in dashed typeface to conform to the piano part in source D.
• b 93 Piano: the notation of the tremolo has been modernised in this bar. In D it was written as a single stem with three slashes on both staves.

No. 9

• b 14 Violoncello, note 8: the sharp in front of the G2 is missing from sources B, C, E, G, while it is present in source F. The harmonic context makes clear that this is an omission. A sharp has therefore been added in square brackets in our edition.
• b 30 Violoncello, notes 4, 6: in B and G there is no flat accidental for the E2, while it is there in C, E and F. The latter reading has been adopted in our edition.
• b 49: in B, C the tempo indication is written as ‘affretando’ which does not conform to standard modern Italian orthography. This has been corrected to ‘affrettando’ without any further editorial mark, as sources E, G have done as well. Source F provides a unique variant, rendered as ‘affrett. sino alla Fine’.

No. 10

• b 29 Violoncello, note 10: the sharp in front of the G3 is missing from sources B, C, G, while it is there in sources E, F. Harmonic and melodic analysis confirms this as a clear omission. A sharp has been added in square brackets in our edition.
• b 41 Violoncello: the crescendo hairpin is present in B, G but absent in C, E, F. Our edition preserves it.
• b 67 Violoncello, note 1: sources C, E, F show fingering 0 (open string), while sources B, G omit it. Our edition restores it.
• b 70 Violoncello, notes 15–16: source B omits the slur, which is instead present in C and G. Sources E and F write neither slurs nor articulations beyond b 4, tacitly treating those of the opening bars as continuing unchanged throughout. Our edition adds the missing slur in dashed typeface.
• b 76 Violoncello, note 8: this note is an F#3 in sources B, C, E, G, but it is a D3, a major third below, in source F. Although beats 1 and 2 in bb 75–76 are identical in those sources, note 8 of b 76 is more idiomatically rendered as D3 rather than F#3, as this keeps the string crossings between adjacent strings.

No. 12

• b 27 Violoncello: no F dynamic in sources C, E, F while it is there in B, G. Sources E, F replaced it with a crescendo hairpin.
• b 28 Violoncello: no F dynamic in source E while it is there in B, C, F, G. Our edition shows an F for both b 27 and 28.
• b 34 Violoncello: fingerings are shown as in source C, not B, where they are absent.
• b 55 Violoncello, note 5: no staccato dot in B, C, G. Sources E and F have it and even add a tenuto dash on it. Our edition adds a staccato dot in square brackets.

Michele Galvagno

Saluzzo, Italy — April 13, 2026