Search - Sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca :: Balli, Capricci and Stravaganze: 17th Century Italian Music for Strings

This CD showcases a variety of 17th-century Italian composers and their virtuoso art. Recognizing the importance and vitality of dance music, these composers used dance forms to fashion their own original art music. The popular sounds of dance music thus suffuse the entire musical output of the 17th century. Their unfailling power - 'the power of rhythm' (Descartes) - lies in the brevity of the phrases and the simplicity of the material. Carlo Farina, a pupil of Heinrich Schütz, composed the Capriccio Stravagante for the court of Dresden. It is virtually a musical description of the Saxon city at the beginning of the 17th century. Set against the background of the Thirty Years' War, it tingles with the adventurous spirit of picaresque literature, which gives the work wit and surrealistic impulses.