Carlo Briccialdi – Il carnevale di Venezia, Op. 77

An introduction of sorts brings us into the piece with a gradual rallentando. Following this, there’s an accelerando accompanying ascending chromatic runs. It sounds to me like these should be increasing in their dynamic but there is a decrescendo instead. After a brief rest, we are brought into the main body of the composition.

I would have to say that this is a theme and variations. The first instance of the motive is the theme because it is at its simplest state at that point. The first variation of it has the flute adding some extra notes alongside the melody. The third variation has a rhythm change and there is some double-tonguing present. The fourth variation is much smoother and legato than any of the other variations we’ve seen up to this point. Variation five includes a lot of trills. Variations six and seven start to sound similar. The motive is relatively short and simple and they way they are varied are not always very different. It starts to get more interesting in the eighth variation. There is a multitude of arpeggiations here. The ninth variation seems to experiment and play around with the idea of moving the motive from the low octave on the flute to higher octaves. A big change can be noticed in variation 10, which is minor and very legato in style. The eleventh variation remains in minor and includes a modulation back to the major key. Variation twelve is the first to include the piano as a slight part of the motive instead of being solely for accompaniment purposes. A cadenza follows this variation, and then variation thirteen sounds very similar to the first variation and I start to get bored again. It picks up in the fourteenth variation with all the notes being played twice in succession. Variation fifteen has the notes of the motive being played lighter and shorter. Finally, the sixteenth and final variation contains the flute and piano both in unison on the motive. After this, there is a terminative section containing mostly scalar run passages in the flute part, both ascending and descending. The last two runs are chromatic, a few arpeggios follow, and then the piece closes with a V-I at forte.