capella is a musical notation program or scorewriter developed by the German company capella-software AG (formerly WHC), running on Microsoft Windows[3] or corresponding emulators in other operating systems, like Wine on Linux[4] and others on Apple Macintosh.

The program was initially created by Hartmut Ring, and is now maintained and developed by Bernd Jungmann.

Capella is one of the earliest computer programs for music notation and has a relatively moderate price compared with Finale or Sibelius, though up to version 7 it ran only on Windows.

The German Protestant hymnal Evangelisches Gesangbuch has been digitized using capella software.

Capella is a practically oriented application suited for amateur and professional musicians alike.

The following modules are advertised for Capella 7 (February 2016): For the production of large complex music scores.

Documentation of CapXML and the binary CAP file format, as well as of the programming interface is available for download at the Capella website.

Capella-programmer Bernd Jungmann used the Python scripting to produce a Braille-interface to Capella for blind users with a refreshable Braille display.

Braille printing is possible using the MakeBraille service of the German Central Library for the Blind (DZB - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Blinde) in Leipzig, which accepts CapXML and MusicXML files as input, and offers its service for private, non-commercial uses only.

), composition aids (tonica fugata, with automatic composition of polyphonic sets, canons, and fugues), and production of accompaniment music files or CDs for karaoke-like uses for amateurs and professionals (Capella Playalong).

Since some people used tonica mainly to print musical scores, the idea for a scorewriter was born.

The first version was published in 1992 as a program named "Allegro", running under MS-DOS with its own graphical interface.

The only alternative back then was the much more expensive Finale on Atari ST or Macintosh, or since 1993 Sibelius on Acorn Computers.