A capriccio or caprice is a piece of music, usually fairly free in form and of a lively character.

The term has been applied to a variety of works: in the Baroque era is was often used for short keyboard pieces (for example, by Girolamo Frescobaldi). Niccolo Paganini used it for a set of twenty-four virtuoso solo violin works, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov used it for orchestral works (the Capriccio italien and Capriccio espagnol respectively).

Capriccio is also an opera by Richard Strauss; see Capriccio (opera).

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