This week we are traveling to Italy, a country known for its beautiful architecture, the development of many musical forms such as opera and wonderful food like pizza!  In the first two clips you will hear some of the traditional music of Italy.   In the first example see how many different instruments you can identify as I counted seven different instruments being used throughout the entire post.  In the second example you will see people dancing the Tarantella which is a fast-foot-work dance with a colorful history.  Some say it was the dance people did after having been bit by a tarantula which they would dance until they died and others claimed that if one was bit by the spider and you danced this dance it would keep you from dying.

The next two clips will be of two Italian composers, one from the Romantic era and one from the 20th century.   The first is music of Paganini who was a virtuoso violinist  (1782-1840) and composer of music for violin, and the other a 20th century Italian composer, Luigi Dallapiccola, who lived from 1904-1975.  You will hear the Paganini Caprice as the sound track to a short video, illustrated by some music-loving cats, created by the violinist who is playing,  and then to a composition written by Dallapiccola based on four of the Paganini caprices.  See if you can hear the caprice from the video in the sonatina- hint- it is the fourth part of the Sonatina.