La Capriola is an ensemble founded in Lyon in 2021, bringing together musicians associated with the Conservatoire national supérieur musique et danse de Lyon, united by a shared passion for discovering early repertoires. Specializing in Renaissance violin consorts, the group revitalizes this tradition by combining musicological research, improvisation, and interdisciplinary dialogue. La Capriola is a laureate of the European S-EEEmerging+ program as well as the Première competition (Brussels, 2025). The ensemble performs both in France and abroad.
During its residency in Poland, La Capriola will present a special line-up devoted to seventeenth-century music. It consists of three musicians fascinated by the contrasting aesthetics of this transitional period. The formation focuses on reviving the rich expressiveness of the Italian and German early Baroque. Although linked to the main ensemble, it develops its own identity—more intimate in character and oriented toward sonic experimentation within this repertoire.
Between Light and Shadow
1660, 1669, 1696—between the first Sonate for violin by Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi Mealli and the second collection of Sonate en Trio by Dietrich Buxtehude, a musical landscape emerges in which intimacy and spirituality meet. Between Light and Shadow—a title borrowed from the thought of Albert Camus—evokes this fragile balance between clarity and uncertainty, a space where art relinquishes unambiguous meaning and leaves room for doubt.
Little is known about Pandolfi Mealli. He was a gifted violinist and a brilliant Italian composer who most likely worked at the court of Archduke Karl Ferdinand of Habsburg in Innsbruck between 1660 and 1669. During this period, he published two collections of six violin Sonate with basso continuo, as well as a collection of Balletti. His music captivates with its freedom, expressiveness, and unpredictability—a true tribute to sudden turns and musical liberty.
The second collection of Sonate en Trio by Dietrich Buxtehude, published in 1696, comprises seven works for violin, basso continuo, and viola da gamba—here entrusted to the tenor violin. Buxtehude combines refined counterpoint with lyrical, at times almost theatrical gestures. This is music that speaks both to the soul and to the intellect, full of contrasts and surprises.
Albert Camus wrote:
“I know that my source lies between and betwixt, in this world of poverty and light in which I lived for so long, and whose memory still protects me from the two opposite dangers that threaten every artist: resentment and self-satisfaction.”
This music, too, exists in between: never embittered, never self-satisfied, always striving toward something higher—fragile, free, and profoundly human.
