06/15/2026
Hello Everyone and Happy Musical Monday!
Today we would like to share with you a work by Carlo Farina entitled, Capriccio Stravagante.
Carlo Farina (1600–1639) was an Italian composer, conductor and violinist of the Early Baroque era. Farina was born in Mantua, Italy. He received lessons from his father, who at the time was sonatore di viola at the court of the Gonzaga in Mantua. Later, he got further education, presumably by Salomone Rossi and Giovanni Battista Buonamente. From 1626 to 1629, he worked as concertmaster in Dresden where he worked with Heinrich Schütz, who got him interested him in composing. From 1629 to 1631, he was a prominent member of the electoral court orchestra in Bonn, until he returned to Italy, where he worked in Parma and later in Lucca until 1635. In 1635, he held a position at the court of
Carlo I Cybo-Malaspina, Prince of Massa, and between 1636 and 1637 in Gdańsk. From 1638, he lived in Vienna, where he died of the plague a year later.
Farina was one of the first virtuoso violinists and one of the most important early composers for his instrument. He made many contributions to violin technique. Often being credited for the invention of the double stop, although nearly a century earlier in Ganassi’s Regola rubertina (1542–3) describes the technique, suggesting it was common among contemporary viol players. He wrote some of the earliest violin sonatas and helped introduce that new Italian genre in Germany.
The Capriccio stravagante, is a humorous chamber piece written for string instruments published in Dresden in 1626. It utilizes new effects on the violin for example glissando, pizzicato, sul ponticello (bowing close to the bridge), col legno (playing with the wood of the bow), and tremolo. It is also full of musical jokes, imitating the clucking of a hen, the crowing of a rooster, an organist getting lost in his improvisation, the meowing and fighting of cats, the barking of a dog, and a closing section that ends in no particular key but simply slows down, gets softer, and fades away.
Here is a performance of this work from a past Music From Angel Fire season.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKmb8VzpoYs&list=RDBKmb8VzpoYs&start_radio=1
We hope you enjoy!
