Women Composers of the Baroque Era

Hey jk, what a lovely idea for a thread and I look forward to more musical education. Thank you!

It seems Adriana Basile was best known, and indeed celebrated, for her sung improvisations on poetry, so inevitably nothing of hers has survived. We know from at least two sources that Adriana accompanied herself on a double harp (arpa doppia). And there is a wonderful description of the musical tributes in her honour in this essay by Kathryn Bosi: www.academia.edu/38353607/Adriana_s_harp_paintings_poetic_imagery_and_musical_tributes_for_the_Sirena_di_Posilippo.

Francesca Caccini by contrast has a 75-minute stage work to her name. La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina is arguably the first opera by a woman composer and the only one of at least sixteen staged works of hers to survive (it's on YouTube in numerous renditions).

"Lasciatemi qui solo" comes from her first published volume of works, Il primo libro delle musiche (1618). For further information you are referred to this illuminating source: classicalexburns.com/2020/09/29/francesca-caccini-lasciatemi-qui-solo-soften-my-weeping/.



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesca_Caccini

Settimia Caccini and her sister Francesa (see above) suffer today from having had a famous father, the composer Giulio Caccini, otherwise they would surely be far better known in their own right. Celebrated during her lifetime as a musician like her sister, Settimia has left us less of her own music, eight compositions to be exact. Here are four of them, "Si miei tormenti" sung by Silvia Piccollo and "Due luci ridenti", "Core di questo core" and "Cantan gl’ augelli" by Lavinia Bertotti: 



Ensemble Laus Concentus are:
Lavinia Bertotti and Silvia Piccollo, soprani
Massimo Lonardi, lute and archlute
Maurizio Piantelli, lute and theorbo
Maurizio Less, viola da gamba

This passage adds some revealing facts not included on the wiki page:

"Settimia Caccini (nicknamed La Flora or Florinda) was, 'an illustrious singer with superhuman grace and an angelic voice,' wrote Marcello Buttigli, a popular music critic during Caccini's time. She sang in her family’s consort in Florence with her mother, singer Lucia di Filippo Gagnolandi, father, composer Giulio Caccini, and older sister, composer and singer Francesca Caccini. At the Medici court where her father was employed, she probably made her singing debut in one of his 2 operas, Il rapimento di Cefalo (1600) or Euridice (1602). In 1611, she collaborated with her sister Francesca, and well known male composers, Antonio Archilei and Jacopo Peri, to compose Mascherata di ninfe di Senna.

"While engaged to Alessandro Ghivizzani, a tumultuous conflict took place because Caccini's family delayed paying their daughter's dowry. The Ghivizzani family eventually abducted Caccini in Lucca until the dowry was paid. After marrying, Caccini and her husband were employed first by the Medicis and later by the Gonzaga family of Mantua, where they both had the opportunity to work with Monteverdi. Caccini and her husband performed in Lucca and Parma for years. Caccini likely composed at least four works under her married name, eventually returning to the Medici court as a singer in 1636 after her husband's death. Despite not being as prolific a composer as her sister, Caccini's talents as a singer were greatly admired."

[Source: www.amodernreveal.com/settimia-caccini#s-caccini]

Thank you, LS. And yes, an interesting thought indeed!

Onward and upward, as they say... This is a slightly revised and expanded version of the biography at www.amodernreveal.com/claudia-francesca-rusca:

Claudia Francesca Rusca (1593--6 October 1676) was a soprano, composer, organist and music teacher. She began her musical education at home before taking vows at the Umiliate monastery of S. Caterina a Brera in Milan, the city where she spent her entire life. Similar to Chiara Cozzolani’s family, in which several members entered the same convent together, it is believed that Rusca’s aunts, cousins and sisters also took vows at S. Caterina with her. Rusca composed sacred concertos, Vespers, and motets, and her two canzoni francesi are the first known preserved instrumental works by a woman.

During the 17th century, music performance and composition in convents in Milan was heavily moderated by Archbishop Federico Borromeo to ensure that all music performed there emphasized penitence and humility. He wanted to shape convent music while also ensuring that the nuns’ music education helped them achieve musical competence. Suor Angela Confaloniera, a nun with spiritual gifts who became one of Rusca’s music pupils at S. Caterina, wrote letters regularly to Archbishop Borromeo. In a letter intended to ask permission for Rusca to dedicate one of her works to him, Confaloniera wrote, “The nun [Rusca] knows how to compose, and she has composed a number of motets, and her brothers are having them printed, and they want to dedicate them to Your Most Illustrious Lordship as a sign of gratitude owed to you for the benevolence you show our monastery. These pieces have been much praised…..This woman is very spiritual and I think they have been composed with much devotion. ” It is likely that Confaloniera wrote to the Archbishop in Rusca’s place because she was better acquainted with him.

The collection dedicated to Borromeo, titled Sacri concerti a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, e 8 voci e Canzoni francesi a 4 was published in Milan by music printer Giorgio Rolla in 1630 before a plague hit the city. This music has survived hundreds of years and several tragedies and is still available today.

Of the collection's 29 pieces (see the list on this page), no. 17 is "La Borromea", presumably one of the two unique instrumental canzoni francesi mentioned above. Here the soloist, playing what would appear to be a soprano Renaissance recorder, is Mario Lacchini:



No. 5, "Exultate Celi, plaudite gentes", is another live rendition, sung here by soprano Tomoko Nakahara:

Gotta love an abbess who stands up to an archbishop. Way to go!

So far we've been lucky, as all but two of our subjects up until now have been represented by one or more musical examples on YouTube. However, nothing by Leonora Baroni has survived, most likely because she was most admired as a singer. Duchess Elisabeth Sophie of Mecklenburg is more fortunate, having had some of her religious vocal works published in 1651 and 1667, but is equally unrepresented on YT or anywhere else. (She is the only one so far whose exact dates of birth and death are known.)

Third time lucky then. To quote one of our regular sources, A Modern Reveal, "Francesa Campana, likely from Rome, was a 'brilliant singer, keyboard player and composer,' according to poet, Fulvio Testi. In 1629, she published a book of twelve Arie a una, due e tre voci (Arias for one, two and three voices) that was presented to Signor Don Luigi Gonzaga with this dedication; 'I dedicate it to Your Excellence because, should I be accused of being too daring for publishing it, at least I must be commended as judicious for the dedication, since, with the patronage of such a Prince, I acquire singular merit for my compositions.' Also in 1629, two of her works, Pargoletta vezzosetta, for solo voice, and Donna, se’l mio servir, a continuo madrigal for two voices, were published by Robletti, a major printer in Rome, indicating the popularity of her compositions. Campana continued singing after this point but there is no record that she published further. She later married Giovan Carlo Rossi, an organist and the brother of composer, Luigi Rossi, in Rome, around 1633. She died in 1665. [Source]

One of those twelve arias, "Voi luci altere", is sung here by Vittoria Giacobazzi (soprano) and Lila Hajosi (mezzosoprano):

We are told that Isabella Leonarda wrote the bulk of her circa 200 compositions after her fiftieth year (she lived to the then grand old age of 84). Just as Barbara Strozzi dedicated her one religious work to both St. Anne and the Arch-Duchess of Innsbruck, so Ms Leonarda, who spent nearly 70 years at the Sant'Orsola convent in Novara (IT), applied the double-dedication principle -- in her case the Virgin Mary and one of a number of living persons of stature -- to almost all her compositions. It's possible she received and then gave instruction in music at the convent.

As for the works themselves, her sonatas were the first in the genre to be written by a woman composer. The Sonata VII a tre in this arrangement sounds as if more than three instruments are involved. Maybe the continuo is regarded as a single part, like the two baroque violins it accompanies:



At the other end of the spectrum is this opulent Magnificat:



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Leonarda

Do we have a problem, LS? If it's the subject matter that's bothering you, please note that Mss Strozzi and Duarte are remembered and respected today whereas their detractors are long forgotten!  

Thank you for your interest in this thread, LS. Although I'm happy to go my own way in this section of the forum, it's always nice to have some company!

The next four women composers occupy a single post because they have just two musical examples between them, both of them live performances. Esther Elisabeth Velkiers has no surviving compositions, and it's hard to tell whether the poems and songs of Countess Amalia Katharina of Waldeck have been handed down to us in more than just name.

One of the live performances is of music by Maria Francesca Nascinbeni (sometimes spelled by her as Nascimbeni), who died tragically young (she lived from 1658 to 1680). The following quote has been slightly amended: "In Ancona, the Italian composer Maria Nascinbeni was a student of Scipione Lazzarini, an Augustinian monk and music teacher. He ensured publication of her first motet in his book of compositions, Motetti a due e tre voce, in 1674. In that same year, when she was just 16 years of age, she published a volume of Canzoni e Madrigali morali e spirituali for one to three voices and organ. These are devotional madrigals in Italian dedicated to Donna Olimpia Aldobrandini, Principessa di Rossano, a Roman noblewoman. Despite her religious compositions, there is no record that Nascinbeni was a nun, and all we know about her life and music is derived from the introductions from her published compositions." [Source]

Her "Una fiamma rovente" is performed here by Brittany Palmer and Brett Umlauf (soprani), Anneke Schaul-Yoder (baroque cello) and Kelly Savage (harpsichord). To quote GothamEarlyMusic's YouTube blurb, "The singers' words are 'Una fiamma rovente, un fuoco fatale, un mongibello, ardente, m'infuoca il seno e mi consuma il core.' (A scorching flame, a fatal fire, a fiery volcano inflames my breast and consumes my heart.)" These are not thoughts one would expect from a nun.



As for Lady Mary Dering, she had a famous uncle, William Harvey, who had disproved once and for all that blood was formed in the liver. Her own fame rests partly on the fact that she was the first English woman composer to be published in that country.

This is "A false design to be cruel", performed by André Vidal (tenor), Cecília Aprigliano (viola da gamba) and Pedro Cardoso (harpsichord).





en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Mary_Dering

'Una fiamma rovente, un fuoco fatale, un mongibello, ardente, m'infuoca il seno e mi consuma il core.' (A scorching flame, a fatal fire, a fiery volcano inflames my breast and consumes my heart.)" These are not thoughts one would expect from a nun.

Well, she could have been writing about the love of God, I suppose...

How wonderful that we have at least some survivals amidst all the losses. Thanks once more, jk!

You may be right, although "a fatal fire" sounds a little, well, fatal. Then again, I'm not religious, so I'm a poor judge in that respect.  

Thank you once more, LS.  I feel I'm getting nicely into my stride, although I have to be careful not to waffle on too much.