\"The Rondo alla ingharese quasi un capriccio in G major, Op. 129, is a piano rondo by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is better known by the title Rage Over a Lost Penny, Vented in a Caprice (from German: Die Wut über den verlorenen Groschen, ausgetobt in einer Caprice). This title appears on the autograph manuscript, but not in Beethoven's hand, and has been attributed to his friend Anton Schindler. It is a favourite with audiences and is frequently performed as a show piece. Despite the late opus number, the work is now dated between 1795 and 1798. Beethoven left the piece unpublished and incomplete; it was published in 1828 by Anton Diabelli, who obscured the fact that it had been left unfinished. The manuscript disappeared for many years and was considered lost until it turned up in the United States just after World War II. From the original manuscript, musicologist Erich Hertzmann prepared a new edition, published in 1949.
The performance time runs between five and six minutes; the tempo of the piece is Allegro vivace (132--160 quarter notes a minute). The indication alla ingharese is of interest, as no such word as \"ingharese\" exists in standard Italian. To people of Beethoven's day, \"gypsy music\" and \"Hungarian music\" were synonymous terms. Beethoven seems to have conflated alla zingarese (in the gypsy style) and all'ongarese (in the Hungarian style) to come up with a unique term alla ingharese. Robert Schumann wrote of the work that \"it would be difficult to find anything merrier than this whim... It is the most amiable, harmless anger, similar to that felt when one cannot pull a shoe from off the foot\", citing the work as an instance of Beethoven's earthliness against those fixated upon a transcendental image of the composer.\"
Marked Allegro vivace and in 2/4, the Rondo a capriccio combines a familiar rondo scheme with Beethoven's singular variation technique. The Rondo theme itself has two parts, each consisting of an eight-measure antecedent-consequent phrase. The statements of this darting, quicksilver theme are separated by episodes that are just as frenetic. In one of the Rondo's most distinct features, each return of the main theme is different from its initial presentation. Such alterations range from graceful ornamentation of the melodic line to changes of mode from major to minor. During one statement, the tune appears in the left hand, while in the lengthy coda, Beethoven's treatment of the material becomes conspicuously developmental. It is possibly this departure from a more conventional conception of the rondo that led Beethoven to use the expression \"quasi un capriccio\" (like a fantasy).
(Wikipedia, AllMusic)
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