Cadenza indication from Beethoven's Concerto in C minor: fermata over rest indicates beginning, fermata over shake indicates close.^[1]  Play (help·info)

Cadenza indication from the first movement of Mozart's Piano Concert in B, K. 595.^[2]  Play (help·info) The I6/4-V-I progression at the cadenza is typical of the Classical concerto.^[2]

In music, a cadenza (from Italian cadenza, meaning cadence) is, generically, an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist or soloists, usually in a "free" rhythmic style, and often allowing for virtuosic display. Indicated by a fermata in all parts if improvised, a cadenza is usually over a final or next-to-last note in a piece or important cadence and the accompaniment rests or sustains a note or chord.^[2] Thus it is often before a final coda or ritornello.^[2]

In concerti

The term cadenza often refers to a portion of a concerto in which the orchestra stops playing, leaving the soloist to play alone in free time (without a strict, regular pulse) and can be written or improvised, depending on what the composer specifies. This normally occurs near the end of the first movement, though it can be at any point in a concerto. An example is Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto, where in the first five minutes a cadenza is used. The cadenza is usually the most elaborate and virtuosic part that the solo instrument plays during the whole piece. At the end of the cadenza, the orchestra re-enters, and generally finishes off the movement on their own, or, less often, with the solo instrument.

As a vocal flourish

The cadenza was originally, and remains, a vocal flourish improvised by a performer to elaborate a cadence in an aria. It was later used in instrumental music, and soon became a standard part of the concerto. Originally, it was improvised in this context as well, but during the 19th century, composers began to write cadenzas out in full. Third parties also wrote cadenzas for works in which it was intended by the composer to be improvised, so the soloist could have a well formed solo that they could practice in advance. Some of these have become so widely played and sung that they are effectively part of the standard repertoire, as is the case with Joseph Joachim's cadenza for Johannes Brahms' Violin Concerto, Beethoven's set of cadenzas for Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 20, and Estelle Liebling's edition of cadenzas for operas such as Donizetti's's La fille du Régiment and Lucia di Lammermoor.

Nowadays, very few performers improvise their cadenzas, and very few composers have written concertos or vocal pieces within the last hundred years that include the possibility of an improvised cadenza.

In jazz

Perhaps the most notable deviations from this tendency towards written (or absent) cadenzas are to be found in jazz, most often at the end of a ballad, though cadenzas in this genre are usually brief. Saxophonist John Coltrane, however, usually improvised an extended cadenza when performing "I Want To Talk About You", in which he showcased his predilections for scalar improvisation and multiphonics. The recorded examples of "I Want To Talk About You" (Live at Birdland and Afro-Blue Impressions) are approximately 8 minutes in length, with Coltrane's unaccompanied cadenza taking up approximately 3 minutes. More sardonically, Jazz critic Martin Williams once described Coltrane's improvisations on "Africa/Brass" as "essentially extended cadenzas to pieces that never get played."^[3] Equally noteworthy is saxophonist Sonny Rollins' shorter improvised cadenza at the close of "Three Little Words" (Sonny Rollins on Impulse!).

Cadenzas are also found in instrumental solos with piano or other accompaniment, where they are placed near the beginning or near the end or sometimes in both places (e.g. "The Maid of the Mist," cornet solo by Herbert L. Clarke, or a more modern example: the end of "Think of Me", where Christine Daaé sings a short but involved cadenza, in Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera).

Notable examples of cadenzas

• Concertos are not the only pieces that feature cadenzas; Scena di Canta Gitano, the fourth movement of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol, contains cadenzas for horns and trumpets, violin, flute, clarinet, and harp in its beginning section.
• The end of the first movement of Bach's fifth Brandenburg Concerto features a harpsichord solo.
• The coloratura arias of Bel Canto composers Gaetano Donizetti, Vincenzo Bellini, and Giacchino Rossini.
• The first movement of Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor has a long and impassioned cadenza which ends with the orchestra and piano playing together in a dramatic and rousing finale.
• Mozart wrote a cadenza into the third and final movement of his Piano Sonata in B-flat major, K. 333, which was an unusual (but not unique) choice at that time because the movement is otherwise in Sonata-Rondo form.
• Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto contains a notated cadenza.^[1] It begins with a cadenza that is partly accompanied by the orchestra. Later in the first movement, the composer specifies that the soloist should play the music that is written out in the score, and not add a cadenza on one's own.
• Beethoven famously included a cadenza-like solo for oboe in the recapitulation section of the first movement of his Symphony No. 5.
• Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3, in which the first movement features a long and incredibly difficult toccata-like cadenza with an alternative or ossia cadenza written in a heavier chordal style.
• Fritz Kreisler's cadenzas for the first and third movements of Beethoven's Violin Concerto.
• Carl Baermann's cadenza for the second movement of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto.
• Aaron Copland uses a cadenza in his Clarinet Concerto to connect the two movements.
• Karol Szymanowski's two violin concertos both feature cadenzas written by the violinist who was intended to play them, Pawel Kochański.
• In the third movement of Elgar's Violin Concerto, there is an unexpected cadenza in which the orchestra supports the solo with a pizzicato tremolando effect. ("cadenza accompagnato")
• Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 features a short cadenza at the end of first movement.
• Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 for piano contains a cadenza.^[1] This cadenza is completely improvised by the pianist and it is at the pianist's discretion that such a cadenza is added.
• Pianists Chick Corea and Makoto Ozone incorporated jazz cadenzas into an otherwise traditional performance in Japan of the Mozart Double Concerto.

References