The 'Thirty Caprices' of Sigfrid Karg-Elert: A comprehensive study

The Thirty Caprices, Op. 107 by Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933) are widely known and highly valued by professional flutists for their great usefulness in developing advanced performance techniques. Karg-Elert intended these Caprices to be used as by flutists as a comprehensive pedagogical method that would elevate their ability to master some "impossible demands" founded in the orchestral works of his contemporary composers, such as Berlioz, Wagner, Strauss and Mahler. In the edition of the Caprices, published by Carl Fisher in 1969, a preface and an appendix that were written by the composer in 1919 are included. These two sections served as a compendium of the melodic and harmonic structures of the pieces, and were intended to help flutists to understand not only their progressive pedagogical logic, but their musical sensibility and expressivity as well. Unfortunately, many other editions failed to include Karg-Elert's preface and appendix. This deprives flutists of a fuller understanding of the musical values that the composer meant to enrich the caprices' function as technical exercises.;The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate how the caprices help flutists comprehend music unfamiliar to them. The first part of this dissertation gives an overview of Karg-Elert's desire to create a suitable literature for early-twentieth-century flutists that would enable them to master the technical challenges of newly-developed instruments and equally new musical languages. The second part analyzes the musical contents of the Thirty Caprices and their pedagogical purposes in four areas: motive, harmony, texture, and tonality. The third part examines performance practice issues raised by this work, including articulation, embouchure flexibility, and rhythm. The fourth part contains an in-depth analysis of the Thirtieth Caprice, which integrates all the compositional ideas presented partially in the other twenty-nine caprices. A table provides a concisely instructional compendium of all the thirty caprices, as well as a list of probable misprints from the various editions. This table may serve as a tool to promote a more comprehensive knowledge of Karg-Elert's Thirty Caprices for flute and, consequently, better-informed performances of this important work.