Carlo Farina: Consort Music

Many musicologists regard carlo Farina as music history's first composer of program music because of his most famous work, Capriccio Stravagante. However, his great expressive variety of other works enlarge our modern picture of the composer. We now need to consider the boldness with which Farina endeavored to employ all technical and expressive resources of the violin, which made hime one of the most important and enduring models for the leading representatives of the German school, from Johannes Schop to Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber. A close look at Farina's dances demonstrates that he took a decisive step toward modernity in his ten sonatas - as we see in their fuller formal elaboration on this release.