In addition to personal information, the stories of these singers tell a great deal about contemporary musical life, about musical and dramatic ideals of the time, and Greenwood Publishing Group Bolero Ozon. Five Centuries of Women Singers. Laura Peverara c Vittoria Concarini Archilei c Virginia Andrea Ramponi Andreini c Adriana Basile c c Francesca Caccini c Anna Renzi c or later. Jenny Lind It is highly probable that she was involved in teaching; Carter believes for example that Giulio Caccini's second wife, Margherita, was a pupil of Vittoria and Antonio Archilei and suggests that she came with them from Rome to Florence.
Five Centuries of Women Singers (Music Reference Collection)
Wherever and however long she lived, Archilei enjoyed a long career and a reputation as one of Italy's finest singers. In addition to her participation in the Medici wedding festivities of and and her performances of Cavalieri's works, she performed and inspired the music of the avant-garde composers of her time—Caccini, Peri, Monteverdi, the Spanish composer Sebastian Raval, and Luca 12 Five Centuries of Women Singers Marenzio whose appreciation is expressed in his madrigal "Cedan l'antiche tue chiare vittorie" in II secondo libro de madrigali a sei voci of The comparison with Adriana is telling, for Adriana Basile was the most famed singer of the time; the beauties of her voice and of her singing were praised without exception by audiences and composers alike.
The court reporter Federico Follino, described the effect of the most famous and only extant number from the dramma per musica: Unfortunately we can learn little about her voice from her role in this opera, since the only surviving number is the famous lament and it survived only in the madrigal setting created by Monteverdi probably in response to demand, Book VI, The lament, while extraordinarily expressive, depends for its effect on harmonic and dramatic intensity rather than on virtuosity.
Colin Timms attributes the very lack of virtuosity in the lament and in the women's parts in Ballo delle ingrate in which Andreini also sang to the fact that it was composed for an actress, i. Still, if we consider the fact that hers was the title role, it is reasonable to assume that it must have been a significant part both in terms of length and vocal demands.
Moreover she performed in a large theatre in the Gonzaga palace in Mantua for an audience of between four thousand one eye-witness and six thousand the court historian, Federigo Follino ,39 which Ladies of Italy 13 indicates that her ability to project vocally and emotionally must have been remarkable. It has been suggested that it was precisely her strength as actress coupled with lesser ability as singer that contributed to the development of the "genuine dramatic manner"40 that became one of the most powerful ingredients of the new monodic style, the seconda prattica. It is surely safe to assume that Andreini must have enjoyed a certain amount of training as a singer, which coupled with her abilities as actress made her a formidable performer.
Little is known about Virginia Andrea Ramponi Andreini before her marriage in Her husband, Giovanni Battista Andreini c. In Lapazzia which she is credited with having authored , she played all the major parts maschere both male ano female of the commedia'. Undoubtedly Giovanni Battista would have sought and found a wife whose abilities would enable her to take on this function, and it is surely safe to assume that to supplement her native ability and earlier training, Virginia would have had in her mother-in-law at least a model if not a teacher.
This marked the beginning of a series of visits to foreign countries. They returned to France for lengthy visits between January and June ; in they performed in Prague and in in Vienna. Virginia died either during this visit to Vienna or during the plague of Her husband soon after married Virginia Rotari, an actress in the company, whom he had been in love with for years45—a sort of reverse Pagliacci scenario? The career of Virginia Ramponi Andreini is closely tied to the development of 14 Five Centuries of Women Singers seventeenth-century music drama.
Clearly her abilities as actress were valued not only by audiences but by such composers as Monteverdi, Peri, Caccini. Her success points up the importance placed on dramatic expression in early music drama. Colin Timms's point about the significance of composing for an adequate but nonvirtuoso performer is surely well-taken and should be considered in tandem with the importance of dramatic representation for the new stile rappresentativo.
Newcomb stresses in his essay, "Courtesans, Muses, or Musicians? The links between the work of these troupes and the developing dramma in musica are further revealed by several of her husband's stage works—for example, Laferinda Paris, , which includes much sung music and is entirely in verse, and which he himself described as a "commedietta musicale. Andreini's training and career reflect the connections between the commedia dell'arte and early opera.
The training of actresses, like that of the "well-educated" gentlewoman, emphasized the ability to sing and play music, as well as to dance and know something of letters and the visual arts see Castiglione's requirements, above, page 6. In the main the difference between the education of the noblewoman and that of the professional musician lay in expectations of competence and of readiness to perform at command. The fact that courtesans, too, were expected to be highly skilled in all these areas plus the art of conversation may explain the extreme care displayed by so many women musicians for their reputations.
They were wary lest they be treated or viewed as women of easy virtue. Not only were women moving into a world dominated by men but they had to fear confusion with women of a different and much older profession. Her voice was a contralto, and it was extraordinary. But she was also highly skilled in performing on various instruments—lira, harp, Spanish guitar.
Even when she is silent and tunes up, she has qualities to be admired and worthily praised. A letter to him from Abbot Angelo Grillo refers to "a perfect singer with a heavenly voice, such as the Signora Adriana" and continues "When Signora Adriana unites her voice with the instrument, and gives the strings life and speech with her direction, she wins our hearts with her sweet enchantment; we are earned to Heaven although our bodies remain on earth. Every Friday evening we make music in the Hall of Mirrors. Signora Adriana comes to sing in ensemble music and invests it with such power and striking beauty as to delight the senses and to turn the room almost into a new theatre On another such splendid occasion I shall make the household musicians play the chitarroni to the accompaniment of the wooden organ—a delightful sound.
Signora Adriana and Don Giovanni Battista will sing the very beautiful madrigal Ah, che morir mi sento to these instruments, the other madrigal to the organ alone. Baroni played the theorbo, her mother the lyre, and her sister the harp: The manner in which she was hired by the Mantuan court speaks both to her reputation as a singer and to her status in society.
The Duke of Mantua, Vincenzo Gonzaga, who may have heard her as early as in Naples, was determined to have her as a star in his court's array. Basile's terms were not easy: After some three months of occasionally testy correspondence, her terms were met. In May with husband Muzio Baroni a Calabrian nobleman and son Camillo, she departed her native Naples for the swamps of Mantua and the court where Monteverdi was still rather unhappily in service and where his first two operas, L 'Orfeo and L 'Arianna, had made him and in retrospect, the Mantuan court famous.
Her journey from Naples to Mantua was interrupted in Rome where she entranced Duke Vincenzo's son, Cardinal Ferdinando Gonzaga, and in Florence where she equally impressed the Medici court. In June she sang for the first time at the Mantuan court, beginning a relationship that 16 Five Centuries of Women Singers was appreciated by employee and employer alike. Monteverdi declared her to be without doubt the greatest singer he knew, the Gonzagas were gratified by her prowess and her fame, and she in turn was satisfied enough with her position at the Mantuan court to name her first daughter born in December Leonora after the duchess, Eleonora, who had just died.
Though commentators are unanimous in their praise of Basile, they are singularly unspecific in describing her work. She is named "Bella Adriana" referring to both her beauty and her voice; Maugars calls her "a real miracle in her day" who performed an even greater miracle by giving the world her daughter Leonora Baroni the "most perfect person for singing well.
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This music— especially the madrigals of Monteverdi—provides the most telling documentation of her vocal technique, her sound, and the expressive qualities of her singing. That she frequently accompanied the Gonzagas to other courts—to Florence and Rome in , to Venice in —speaks for recognition of her stature as well as for the high respect in which she was held at the Gonzaga court. Born in Posillipo near Naples, Basile was recognized early as a remarkable singer.
She married a minor nobleman, Muzio Baroni, with whom she had several children: Camillo, Leonora, Caterina, and apparently another son. Vincenzo Gonzaga may have heard her in Naples in ; in he began the lengthy process of luring her to the Mantuan court, and in she moved with her family to Mantua.
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Basile remained in the service of the Mantuan court until when she was given permission to go to Naples; she never returned to Mantua. It seems that she was considering offers from Prince Wladislaw Sigismund of Poland and from the Viceroy of Naples, the Duke of Alba; by the time she decided against accepting their offers the Gonzagas refused to take her back.
In she established herself in Rome where she created a salon featuring musical entertainments by herself and her daughters Leonora and Caterina. When her voice faded in later years, she turned to the guitar, on which her playing received acclaim equal to that given her singing. She died in Rome around Aside from her obvious success as musician, Basile's achievements should be considered from a social and a cultural point of view. The negotiations with the Gonzagas demonstrate her concern that she be accorded due respect as a musician and also as a gentlewoman of virtue; their accession to her requirements is good measure of her success in maintaining her status.
As the daughter and student of Basile, Leonora Baroni provides testimony with respect to her mother's views on Ladies of Italy 17 the training of a musician. This training would seem to emphasize both instrumental performance and theoretical education, for Baroni like her mother was a skilled instrumentalist—on the theorbo and lute in particular; she probably also composed music, and she spoke several languages and wrote verse.
She performed with her mother from an early age at home and abroad and thus gained not only a wide knowledge of repertoire but also ease of manners and of performance. After the family settled in Rome in , she was a vital member of her mother's salon entertainments and was soon acclaimed as the finest Italian chamber singer of the time. Applausi poetici alle glorie della Signora Leonora Baroni Rome, , a collection of poems by such poets as Fulvio Testi and Francesco Bracciolini, attests to the general admiration for her. Milton heard her and expressed his homage in three Latin epigrams, AdLeonoram Romae canentem.
Adriana Basile is generally believed to have come from a poor or modest family. She forged a career by intelligent and canny use of her extraordinary voice coupled obviously with strong self-discipline and good fortune in finding helpful patrons early in her career. Leonora Baroni had from birth the advantage of living in a culturally rich environment, but judging by her musical and literary achievements it would seem that she too had the strong self-discipline which enabled her to make optimum use of her remarkable voice and intelligence.
Her sense of her own worth surely equalled that of her mother, as demonstrated by both singers in their negotiations with patrons and also by the care taken by both to maintain reputations of impeccable virtue. Interestingly, both Basile and Baroni were known by their own names as was Laura Peverara—this may reflect the fact that all three created their careers before and independently of taking husbands. Moreover their husbands were not, as far as is known, musicians. Andreini and Archilei married men in their professions and class, and their marriages included an element of apprentice-type training—Andreini, in the troupe of her mother-in-law Isabella Andreini, and Archilei as a probable student of Antonio Archilei.
Peverara came from an upper middle class family while Basile's murky origins surely indicate a lower class, poor background Baroni of course enjoyed the setting created by her mother's success , but both married into minor nobility, and in both cases the husbands and Basile's son as well were treated very generously by their wives' patrons—receiving titles of nobility and gifts of land, etc. It is interesting to note that the professional respect accorded Peverara as a matter of course was granted to Basile and Baroni only after negotiation.
Did they have to demand such respect? Peverara's official title was "lady in waiting" at the court, while Basile was contracted specifically to serve as a musician. Married Muzio Baroni c. Works about Archilei The two essays by Tim Carter are the most helpful for information about Archilei. Archilei and her husband have entries in Warren Kirkendale's work on the court musicians of Florence. Other useful studies are Newcomb's "Courtesans, Muses, or Musicians?
The bibliographies include a few works in English. Vittoria Archilei and the Florentine 'New Music. Oxford University Press, This excellent essay by Carter assesses Archilei's singing and her significance for the music of her time, while reviewing also the difficulties she underwent as a "musical chattel" of both her employers and her husband. In "Courtesans" he discusses the career of Virginia's mother-in-law Isabella Andreini in some detail.
The entry in New Grove for Virginia, which is under Ramponi, may be quoted in its entirety: Andreini provides information about Virginia Andreini only insofar as her career was connected with her husband. It includes information about his parents Isabella and Francesco, and about works by Giovanni Battista which would have involved his wife.
The bibliography consists almost entirely of Italian materials; there are only two French sources and one English Nino Pirrotta, "Commedia dell'Arte and Opera," Musical Quarterly 41 Ladies of Italy 21 Works about Basile Since Basile worked in Mantua with Monteverdi, the composer's letters and biographies of him are useful. General Reference Works Information about all of these early professional singers must be collected from a variety of sources.
The most useful are listed below. Music in the Seventeenth Century. Translated by David Bryant. Cambridge University Press, Originally published in Italian as II seicento, Turin: Edizioni di Torino, Excellent general history of seventeenth-century music, especially Italian, but including France and England, and providing several important primary documents, e. Bowers, Jane, and Judith Tick, eds. University of Illinois Press, A Model from Seicento Florence. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, The Italian Madrigal 3 vols.
Sessions, and Oliver Strunk. Princeton University Press, Translated by Tim Carter. Originally published in Italian as Monteverdi, Turin: Much good information and quoting of primary sources concerning performances of L 'Arianna, etc. Fabbri also refers to a manuscript in Milan, Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, Fondo Morbio, that contains verses in praise of Virginia Andreini titled "Pe'l suo meraviglioso modo di cantare e di suonare. Music and Patronage in Sixteenth-Century Mantua. First-rate study of the Mantuan court and its music in the sixteenth century. It deals extensively with spectacle and large undertakings e.
Volume 2 provides musical examples. Discorso sopra la musica, Translated by Carol MacClintock. Musicological Studies and Documents. American Institute of Musicology, Readings in the History of Music in Performance. Indiana University Press, The exceipts are very short but included in a readily accessible reference work. The Letters ofClaudio Monteverdi. Revised ed ition, translated and introduced by Denis Stevens. Thoughtful essay on female musicians of the late sixteenth century. More recent than The Madrigal at Ferrara and therefore provides more information.
Excellent in every respect, this essay is particularly helpful with details about the connections—familial, political, artistic—among the courts of Ferrara, Florence, Mantua, Rome. The Madrigal at Ferrara, Excellent, thorough study of the Ferrara court, its music, its musical personnel, and the historical context. Probably the single greatest source of information about Peverara. The Madrigal at Ferrara provides much more coverage both geographically and musically than the title implies; see especially Chapter V: Opera in Seventeenth Century Venice: The Creation of a Genre.
Excellent, thorough, fascinating study of Venice and opera. The four singers discussed in this chapter seldom sang in Venice, so references to them are sparse but are useful. Singers of Italian Opera and their Patrons, And, also unlike most of her contemporaries, evidence of her composing activities has survived not just in descriptions but in manuscript.
Although most scholars believe today that such musicians as Laura Peverara and Adriana Basile composed some of the music they performed, rarely can music be definitively attributed to these or other women of their time. Caccini, on the other hand, is given credit for a good deal of the music performed at the Medici court in Florence; moreover she published in II primo libro delle musiche a una e due voci and was commissioned by the court to compose a large-scale work for the visit in of the future King Wladislaw IV of Poland.
This work, La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina, an opera which she called a balletto , was published in ; in a performance in Warsaw made it the first Italian opera to be performed outside of Italy. These two publications establish Caccini as a member of the monody school alongside such Florentine composers as her father Giulio composer of the first opera to be published, Euridice, , Jacopo Peri, Vincenzo Galilei, Giovanni Battista Gagliano, et al.
Monteverdi wrote for example in The poet Gabriello Chiabrera heard her in Genoa and reported that "Here she was heard as a marvel, without any dissension; and in just a few days her fame has spread far. The poet Giambattista Marino reported that Basile had a better voice and was more agile in passagework, but Caccini was the more profound musician7 which agrees quite nicely with Monteverdi's earlier assessment of Basile, see Chapter 1, page These encomia are certainly gratifying, but not very helpful with respect to the quality of her voice and her technical abilities.
In fact, the best source of information about Caccini the singer is her own music. We do not know if she sang in performances of La liberazione, although as the most famed and probably most skilled singer at the Medici court she might well have sung Alcina—a role that is virtuosic and demands an extremely sure sense of intonation.
In addition to displaying her compositional style, the music reveals much about her voice and manner of singing: Ambros to the "ill-tempered censure" of Hugo Goldschmidt, while discussions of her personality traits vary from seeing them as the source of "rather malicious gossip" Alessandro Ademollo to "signs of genius" Oscar Chilesotti. A recording of the entire opera has recently been released by Nannerl Records. Raney, who transcribed the music in her dissertation considers a moving bassline, and "arching melodic lines with double peaks"15 to be important traits of her compositional style.
Contrary to the usual practice of the time she wrote out much of her ornamentation; this may well be attributable to her intent to publish the collection and her consequent desire to make it accessible to amateur as well as professional singers. Caccini's talent for varying melody is demonstrated vividly in "Dov' io credea le mie speranze vere. Like Leonora Baroni, Francesca Caccini enjoyed the benefits of growing up in a musical environment.
Her father, Giulio Caccini c. His participation in the meetings of the Florentine Camerata has been described by Bardi in the well-known letter to Giovanni Battista Doni;18 he propagated a new style of song, the stile recitativo, for which he became famous throughout Italy. As a member of the Florentine Camerata from the mid s to the s, he was in contact with avant-garde intellectual and artistic ideas, and with such leaders of the group as the Count Giovanni de' Bardi, Vincenzo Gallileo, and a number of other composers, scholars, philosophers, and patrons of the arts.
He is first documented as singing at the Medici court in ; he was employed at the Ferrara residence of Ippolito Aldobrandini later Pope Clement VIII , spent a brief time in Rome in as secretary to Count Bardi but soon returned to Florence and the Medici court where by he had been appointed musical director, succeeding Emilio de' Cavalieri c. His children, Francesca, Settimia, andPompeo, benefitted not only from his teaching but from the rich cultural environment in which they grew up.
Francesca wrote poetry and was praised for her ability to write in both Latin and Tuscan. At 13 she sang probably in Peri's Euridice during the festivities for the marriage of Maria de' Medici and Henri IV, King of France; four years later she went with her family to the French court where she was acclaimed by Henri IV as a better singer than anyone in France. When she reached the age of twenty in September she was officially employed by the Medici court.
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She remained there until at least , performing as singer and instrumentalist lute, guitar, harpsichord and composing music for various court occasions. In addition she sang the Office for Holy Week services and she gave instruction in music to the princesses, ladies-in-waiting, and other female court personnel, as well as various other pupils; performances by her "little girls" are mentioned in reports of activities at the Medici court. Emil Vogel suggested in that Francesca and Settimia Caccini as well as Victoria Archilei were members of the Florentine Accademia degl' Elevati founded by Gagliano, a suggestion with which Edmond Strainchamps concurred in Caccini married Signorini in , the year she was officially employed by the Medici court.
Their single daughter Margherita became a singer also and entered a convent. Shortly after Signorini's death in , Caccini married a wealthy Lucchese aristocrat, Tomaso Raffaelli, and left Florence. She may at that time have joined the musical establishment of a Lucchese banker, Vincenzo Buonvisi; she possibly composed intermedi for Raffaelli's Accademia degli Oscuri. The marriage was short-lived: Raffaelli died in , leaving Caccini wealthy and with a son, Tomaso, born in After three years of quarentine in Lucca, Caccini returned to Florence and service at the Medici court where she remained until In February Francesca Caccin i 27 her son became the ward of his uncle Girolamo Raffaelli, due to the remarriage or possibly the death of his mother.
Her talents were great and discovered early; that her father recognized her abilities is attested by his educating her not just as a singer as was the case with her sister Settimia but as a musician, i. Recent researches have shown that it was not so unusual for singers such as Peverara or Basile to have created a certain amount of the music they performed and that many more sixteenth- and seventeenth-century women than previously thought did indeed compose music, but the frequency with which Francesca supplied compositions for court occasions is still remarkable, as are the facts that she was given credit for having composed the music, that she worked with well-known poets, particularly Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger with whom she created numerous dramatic pieces oxfeste and whose poetry she often set, and that her Primo libro as well as her opera were published.
Most remarkable is of course that she was actually commissioned to create a major work, the opera La liberazione di Ruggiero, for such an important occasion as a royal visit. References to a number of other compositions now lost are tantalizing, especially the commission by the Polish Prince Wladislaw of two operas, Rinaldo inamorato at one time in the possession of Giuseppe Baini and a work about St. She is thought also to have composed several intermedi during her residence in Lucca. Although her career and its successes seem to have been fairly equally balanced between performance and composition, we may still wonder how she would have fared if she had been a less remarkable singer.
Was her position at court the result of her vocal prowess? If she had been only a composer would she have received similar benefits? Or might she have been recognized and praised as a composer but not accorded a position at court? As was indeed the case with a remarkable musician of the next generation, Barbara Strozzi, born in in Venice. Carolyn Raney's dissertation was a trail blazer in that it provided a thorough study of a remarkable woman musician and established credibility for future such studies.
A number of articles in English have appeared since then; perhaps even more significant, the roles of women in music-making whether performing or composing are recognized and discussed in general works about music. Works about Caccini Harbach, Barbara. An informative review of the first recording of the first opera by a woman composer.
This biography amply repays the effort to work through the Italian. Survey of operas by women composers, beginning with Caccini and concluding with twentieth- century women such as Thea Musgrave and Judith Weir. This dissertation provides a thorough and impressive study of Caccini's life and career, and establishes firmly the value of investigations of the work of women musicians in this period.
Raney's entry provides a list of the published and unpublished music which includes compositions that appear in various anthologies. General Reference Works Bianconi, Lorenzo. The Western Art Tradition, Useful for lists of musicians at the courts of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany from to Women s Musical Traditions. Northeastern University Press, Francesca Caccini after Gender and Sexuality in Musical Scholarship.
Zur Geschichte des florentiner Musiklebens von Chap ter 3 Barbara Strozzi August - 11 November "Virtuosissima cantatrice"—so she was named in the dedications to her of two volumes of songs by Nicolo Fontei, Bizzarie poetiche and ; "inventress of that elegant species of vocal composition, the Cantata"—wrote Sir John Hawkins in his General History of the Science and Practice of Music Unusually for her time, she was known more for her compositions than for her singing, probably because her singing was confined to the private arena of the salon or the accademia.
Her eight volumes of compositions, on the other hand, were published; all but one have survived. Fontei's dedication describes her as singing in a "bold and graceful manner" but gives her otherwise what Ellen Rosand author of the first real study of her life and music calls "typically rhetorical appreciation. In spite of the fact that she was frequently in the company of opera librettists and composers and studied 32 Five Centuries of Women Singers composition with the prominent Venetian opera composer Francesco Cavalli, she apparently never appeared in an opera.
If she herself had not been determined to see her works published, her compositions would surely have simply disappeared. It is nonetheless remarkable that of the eight volumes published in her lifetime all but volume 4 have survived; this is perhaps an indication of their value to her contemporaries. Examination of "Appena il sol" from Op. The voice moves primarily in the range from f' to f'. Although rapid passagework is present, the composer—the singer— seems truly to prefer long, legato sustained lines.
Strozzi's writing in general is declamatory and forms a sharp contrast with the virtuosity of Francesca Caccini's music.
She does not give us the rapid scale passages or trills that were so prominent in Caccini's writing, but deftly exploits the expressive power of harmonic surprise and tension. It is clear that for Strozzi, word painting is an important element in the compositional procedure.
It seems safe to conclude that these characteristics of Strozzi's compositional style were significant features of her vocal style as well, and that of particular importance for her both as composer and as singer was affective declamation emphasizing the text and its content. Known in as Barbara Valle, by she was using the name of Strozzi. Her childhood was probably spent in the home of Giulio Strozzi, who in his last will made in names her his "figliuola elettiva" which as Rosand points out could mean "adopted" or could indicate that she was illegitimate.
Five Centuries of Women Singers
Her father, a poet and very much a part of the Venetian intellectual world, created opera librettos for some of the greatest composers of the time including Claudio Monteverdi, Francesco Manelli, Tarquinio Merula, Francesco Cavalli. His critical appraisal of the opera singer Anna Renzi Le glorie della Signora Anna Renzi romana, Venice, demonstrates his theatrical and musical acumen.
The membership of the Incogniti included poets, historians, philosophers, clerics, most of the opera librettists in Venice; the organization published romances, poetry, letters, essays, and opera librettos. Rosand Barbara Strozzi 33 suggests that the Unisoni may have been a "musical sub-group" of the Incogniti who seem not to have practiced music during their meetings.
Moreover, she was provided with the training that would enable her to take part in this world not only as a performing musician but as a composer. By at the latest Barbara was singing for Giulio's friends and colleagues at private gatherings in the Strozzi home.
When Strozzi founded the Accademia degli Unisoni, in , she became their "mistress of ceremonies" presiding over and performing at the meetings. Her first volume of compositions, the only one to include much music for vocal ensembles, was printed in ; further volumes were printed in ,,, ,, and Bartolomeo Marcesso's collection of motets Sacra corona, motetti a due, e tre voci di diversi eccelentissimi autori moderni includes her motet "Quis dabit mihi," and Francesco Tonalli's collection of Arie a voce sola di diversi auttori includes two arias "Rissolvetevi pensieri" and "Chi brama in amore.
They surely manifest as well Strozzi's determination to win for herself a measure of recognition as a composer. In the dedication of Op. Three of Strozzi's children entered religious institutions: The first-born child, Giulio Pietro, remained in the secular world but seems to have been slow or unable to establish himself in any money-earning situation. In addition to her newly discovered function as mother, Strozzi was also a capable businesswoman.
Glixon's archival searches turned up a request that her father be authorized to collect interest on government investments in when she was twenty-one. Again in and she requested that he handle the interest and capital for her investments; after his death in , she authorized Antonio Peruzzi to collect the interest for her that year and again in and Peruzzi was replaced by Emilio Piatti in In , , , and she made significant loans of 2,, increased to , , and ducats at business-like rates of interest; the first loan was to Vidman, the father of her children, while the others were to acquaintances.
It is not clear where she acquired the initial capital, but it is abundantly clear that she dealt efficiently and profitably with the business of investments, whether in governmental or private enterprises. Vidman died in ; the loan made by Strozzi was repaid at that time with interest of a bit over 1, ducats. At that time both her father and mother were still living. In a petition to the Doge in December , she requested exemption from the very high war tax on the grounds that she was a single woman with four children and an aged mother no mention of her father though he was apparently living in the same house with her where he died the following year with only the interest from her government investments and holdings which amounted to 2, ducats.
Her children were born in ,, the year in which she published her first book of compositions , and before when she applied to the Doge. It was not until after the death of Vidman and probably after the birth of her fourth child that she began again to publish her music, and then the collections appeared in rapid succession: The final volume, Opus 8, appeared in By that time she was alone except for her oldest son, Giulio Pietro; mother, father, lover were dead, daughter Isabella had died in the convent before taking her vows, Laura and the younger son Massimo were both fully committed to monastic life.
Little information has so far come to light concerning Strozzi's activities after that final publication in On 18 July Martino Vidman drew up his last will and testament, which included annuities of 25 ducats per year for Strozzi's daughter Laura, now Sister Lodovica, and 30 ducats per year for her son, Giulio Pietro or the sum of 1, ducats if he found a suitable situation to purchase. Massimo Strozzi is not mentioned. In May Barbara Strozzi traveled to Padua about 50 kilometers from Venice , where on the 11th of November, she died.
Barbara Strozzi 35 Until Glixon's archival searches turned up the evidence of loans and business investments, Strozzi had appeared as a poor struggling composer, unable to earn a living as a professional singer which would surely have meant on the opera stage or as a composer. This new evidence complements the portrait of a highly gifted musician—a fine singer but who sang only in private settings, an excellent composer who published her own works but whose works were also included with those of well-known composers of the day in two prestigious publications—who was associated throughout her life with the intellectual elite of Venice and with various members of the nobility.
She was also gifted with a genuine business acumen, which stood her in good stead if she was as seems the case the sole support of four children and her parents. Her education was undoubtedly thorough and made her into a woman skilled in the arts of music, poetry, and of conversation.
Aside from the long-term relationship with Vidman, she seems to have led a stable, decorous life, caring for parents, children, and pursuing her musical career. Venice was at that time the liveliest center of operatic activity in Europe, and Cavalli, Barbara Strozzi's teacher, was the leading opera composer of the time.
Her father had been associated as poet and librettist with the foremost opera composers of the day, in particular with both Monteverdi and Cavalli; he had also been associated with opera theatres and productions, and his writing about Anna Renzi demonstrates his intimate knowledge of the technical and dramatic requirements for an opera singer. Why did Barbara Strozzi not take advantage of these connections and work in the world of opera? It would seem almost without question that she had neither the vocal nor the dramatic power to perform music drama, perhaps especially in the competitive commercial atmosphere that prevailed in Venice increasingly after the opening of the first public opera theatre in Why not, then, exploit her connections with the world of the stage to compose her own operas?
Francesca Caccini had after all seen her opera, La liberazione di Ruggiero dalVisola d Alcina, performed in Florence in and in Warsaw in But these performances were in the protected world of the court. In light of the commercial ambiance in Venice, would any sane opera producer take a chance and commission an opera from an unknown, female composer who had to date composed works for soprano and continuo or small ensembles? Commissions were awarded to composers with established reputations. One further element comes into play when we consider the career of Barbara Strozzi: Slurs against Strozzi's virtue are prominent, for example: Venice was famous for the lively charms of its many courtesans.
Their attractions were not limited to sexual pleasures but often included the ability to speak foreign languages, to perform music, or to engage in lively conversation17—skills included among those listed by Castiglione as vital for the well-educated young gentleman or woman and that were prominent among the gifts of Barbara Strozzi.
Carolyn Raney reports that Strozzi "was clearly the leading singer [at the Academia degli Unisoni]—and apparently a seductive attraction in other respects. Her deportment at the academy brought her some notoriety,"18 and Rosand admits that she "may, indeed, have been a courtesan, highly skilled in the art of love as well as music. They point out also that various attributes—the pair of musical instruments, music for a duet thus indicating the subject was waiting for a partner , and certainly not least the voluptuous bared breast—in the painting indicate that Strozzi was indeed a courtesan.
Five Centuries of Women Singers (Music Reference Collection)
Why did Barbara Strozzi not sing opera? Why did Strozzi fail to find a position where she could exercise her gifts, as Francesca Caccini had in fact done a generation earlier? Some explanation may lie in the different societal attitudes of northern Italy which was dominated by a court ambiance as opposed to the much more commercial world of Venice. A significant factor also, however, must be their respective performing abilities. While Barbara Strozzi's singing was probably adequate as evidenced by praise couched in conventional but by no means enthusiastic terms , Caccini was by all accounts a stunning performer—"the best in France" as Henri IV had remarked.
Her compositional gifts were a welcome byproduct, but she was taken on at the Medici court as a virtuoso singer, a jewel in the crown of the Medici's musical establishment. Caccini's opera, moreover, was not composed for a commercial opera house that had to please its public or lose money but for a court occasion, and was in the event so well-received that the Polish prince had it performed in Warsaw three years later. Whereas Strozzi published at least seven, perhaps eight, collections of her music, Caccini seems to have published only two—11 primo libro delle musiche a una e due voci Florence, and her opera La liberazione di Ruggiero da I 'isola d 'Alcina Florence, We should note also that these two women who had enjoyed many similar advantages were regarded quite differently: Significantly, however, these slurs appeared in and , i.
Barbara Strozzi 37 Was she indeed a courtesan? Perhaps she had been educated with this goal in mind: At the end of the sixteenth-century, an enterprising citizen collected names and addresses into a book, documenting the presence of 11, courtesans in a city with a population that fluctuated between , and , Did Vidman supply the capital to initiate her financial dealings?
Did the Vidman family assist her and her children after his death? We know that Vidman's widow paid the convent dowries for Isabella and Laura Strozzi—was there continued similar support, or was this an instruction left in a secret codicil by Vidman himself? Questions about Strozzi continue to multiply. We can be grateful to the two scholars, Ellen Rosand and Beth Glixon, who have brought to light so much information about her life and career.
Although Glixon's work has markedly altered the portrait given earlier by Rosand, the image continues to be that of an enterprising, resourceful woman who exploited as well as possible the world available to her. We can be grateful also for Strozzi's fortitude and determination in seeing so much of her music into print, eight volumes of arias, madrigals, and cantatas. In fact she published more cantatas than any other seventeenth-century composer, male or female, and, as we have seen, her works appeared alongside those of the bestknown composers of her day.
Strozzi Authorized father to collect interest from her government investments; again inNov , again in Before , portrait of Barbara? Strozzi, dedicatee of his libretto La finta pazza, probably B. Strozzi's lover, father of at least three of her children Daughter Isabella born IIprimo de 'madrigali Vidman died; Strozzi's loan repaid with interest amounting to slightly more than 1, ducats 9.
Cantate, ariette e duetti Venice Letter to Doge, requesting exemption from war tax; refers to four children and aged mother; refers to interest from government mint, government holdings of c. Sacri musicali affetti Venice Compositions included in Marcesso's collection of motets and Tonalli's anthology of arias Lent ducats at 5. Vidman their probable father Op. Ariette a voce sola Venice Daughter Isabella died in convent Op. Authorized Emilio Piatti to collect her interest from investments Op.
The entry in New Grove by Carolyn Raney is quite short and casts what may be unfair aspersions on Strozzi's deportment, an issue that is dealt with in a more even-handed fashion by Rosand, whose essay, "The Voice of Barbara Strozzi" in Women Making Music focuses on the qualities of Strozzi's voice. Two articles in and by Beth Glixon provide important new evidence about Strozzi's life.
Information about Strozzi's publications is provided by Rosand's essay; the entry in Grove Music Online lists anthologies in which her work can be found. A useful contemporary source for information about the social and cultural life of Venice in the seventeenth century is John Evelyn's diary. Works about Strozzi Glixon, Beth.
The two articles by Beth Glixon are based on archival research in Venice and give a radically revised picture of Strozzi's life. Edited by Jane Bowers and Judith Tick. Rosand was the first to present a study of Strozzi's life, her career, and her compositional style. Although Glixon's work has necessarily changed our view of Strozzi, it does not disagree with Rosand's analysis of the singer and composer. Rosand, Ellen, and David Rosand. On the Identity of a Portrait by Bernardo Strozzi. This very interesting essay builds on Rosand's earlier work with Strozzi and convincingly identifies the portrait by Bernardo Strozzi as a portrait of Barbara Strozzi.
The Diary ofJohn Evelyn. Edited from the original mss. New York and London: Walter Dunne, Publisher, Evelyn's account of his travels through Europe is very informative about the political, social, and cultural scene. See especially I, and Reprint of edition, New York: Hawkins's History and that of Charles Burney also published in are the earliest histories of music in English. Both works include many references to contemporary composers and performers.
Opera in Seventeenth Venice: Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: Well do I know that, Had the grief been true, And the dolorous tale, Hearing your mournful voice, Your sweet words, your endearing expressions, Just as they filled our breasts With pity, ah, well do I know that Nero would have been rendered humble and compassionate. Le glorie della Signora Anna Renzi romana1 This description of Anna Renzi's portrayal of Ottavia, the rejected wife, in Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea, vividly evokes the power of her performance.
Often called the first prima donna or diva of opera, Renzi or Rentia or Renzini played a significant role in creating the image of the theatrical performer musician. Venetian audiences were immediately taken by the intensity with which she could express the emotions of her character and communicate them in her singing. Strozzi described precisely and vividly just what was needed in dramatic representation and how Renzi fulfilled these requirements: The action that gives soul, spirit, and existence to things must be governed by the movements of the body, by gestures, by the face and by the voice, now raising it, now lowering it, becoming enraged and immediately becoming calm again; at times speaking hurriedly, at others slowly, moving the body now in one, now in another direction, drawing in the arms, and extending them, laughing and crying, now with little, now with much agitation of the hands.
Our Signora Anna is endowed with such lifelike expression that her responses and speeches seem not memorized but bom at the very moment. In sum, she transforms herself completely into the person she represents, and seems now a Thalia full of comic gaiety, now a Melpomene rich in tragic majesty. Such encomia often celebrated the abilities and virtues of their subjects—similar volumes appeared, for example, in praise of Isabelle Trevisan Bologna, or Leonora Baroni Rome, —but the descriptions are usually extremely general and vague "divinamente," celestamente," "soavissimamente".
Renzi is refreshingly specific; this very virtue serves further to increase its credibility. Taken in conjunction, moreover, with the poetic account of Renzi's lament quoted at the head of this chapter, it rings true. Strozzi, an experienced librettist and the adopted father of composer-singer Barbara Strozzi see Chapter III , would have had first-hand knowledge of vocal technique, and thus his analysis of her vocal ability bears special weight: She has a fluent tongue, smooth pronunciation, not affected, not rapid, a full sonorous voice, not harsh, not hoarse, nor one that offends you with excessive subtlety; which arises from the temperament of the chest and throat, for which good voice much warmth is needed to expand the passages, and enough humidity to soften it and make it tender.
She has felicitous passages, a lively trill, both double and rinforzato, and it has befallen her to have to bear the full weight of an opera no fewer than twenty-six times, repeating it virtually every evening, without losing even a single caret of her theatrical and most perfect voice.