Barbara Strozzi
Encyclopedia
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
singer and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
.
Life
Born in VeniceVenice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, Barbara was adopted and baptized into the Strozzi family. She was most likely illegitimate, daughter of Giulio Strozzi and Isabella Garzon, his long-time servant and heir. Giulio encouraged his daughter's talent, even creating an academy in which Barbara’s performances could be validated and displayed publicly. He seemed to be interested in exhibiting her considerable vocal talents to a wider audience. However, her singing was not her only talent. She was also compositionally gifted, and her father arranged for her to study with composer Francesco Cavalli
Francesco Cavalli
Francesco Cavalli was an Italian composer of the early Baroque period. His real name was Pietro Francesco Caletti-Bruni, but he is better known by that of Cavalli, the name of his patron Federico Cavalli, a Venetian nobleman.-Life:Cavalli was born at Crema, Lombardy...
.
It is conceivable that Strozzi may have been a courtesan
Courtesan
A courtesan was originally a female courtier, which means a person who attends the court of a monarch or other powerful person.In feudal society, the court was the centre of government as well as the residence of the monarch, and social and political life were often completely mixed together...
, however, she also may have merely been the target of jealous slander by her male contemporaries. She appears to have led a quiet, if not slightly unusual life; there is evidence that at least three of her four children were fathered by the same man, Giovanni Paolo Vidman. He may have been her husband or a paramour. After Vidman's death it is likely that Strozzi supported herself by means of her savvy investments and by her compositions. He did not, apparently, leave anything to her or her children in his will.
Strozzi died in Padua in 1677 aged 58. Strozzi is believed to have been buried at Eremitani. When she died without leaving a will, her son Giulio Pietro claimed her inheritance.
Music
Strozzi is unique among both male and female composers for publishing her works in single-composer volumes, rather than in collections. She was said to be "the most prolific composer-man or woman- of printed secular vocal music in Venice in the Middle of the century." Her output is also unique in that it only contains secular vocal music, with the exception of one volume of sacred songs. She was renowned for her poetic ability as well as her compositional talent. Her lyrics were often poetic and well-articulated.Nearly three-quarters of her printed works were written for soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
, but she also published works for other voices. Her compositions are firmly rooted in the seconda pratica
Seconda pratica
Seconda prattica, literally "second practice", is the counterpart to prima pratica and is more commonly referred to as Stile moderno. The term "Seconda prattica" was coined by Claudio Monteverdi to distance his music from that of e.g...
tradition. Strozzi’s music evokes the spirit of Cavalli
Francesco Cavalli
Francesco Cavalli was an Italian composer of the early Baroque period. His real name was Pietro Francesco Caletti-Bruni, but he is better known by that of Cavalli, the name of his patron Federico Cavalli, a Venetian nobleman.-Life:Cavalli was born at Crema, Lombardy...
, heir of Monteverdi. However, her style is more lyrical, and more dependent on sheer vocal sound. Many of the texts for her early pieces were written by her father Giulio. Later texts were written by her father's friends, and many compositions she wrote her own texts for.
Sources
- Ellen Rosand with Beth L. Glixon. "Barbara Strozzi", Grove Music OnlineGrove Dictionary of Music and MusiciansThe New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, it is the largest single reference work on Western music. The dictionary has gone through several editions since the 19th century...
, ed. L. Macy (grovemusic.com (subscription access). - Glixon, Beth L. “More on the life and death of Barbara Strozzi,” The Musical QuarterlyThe Musical QuarterlyThe Musical Quarterly is the oldest academic journal on music in America. Originally established in 1915 by Oscar Sonneck, the journal was edited by Sonneck until his death in 1928...
, 83, no.1 (spring 1999): 134-141. - Glixon, Beth L. “New light on the life and career of Barbara Strozzi,” The Musical Quarterly, 81, no.2 (summer 1997): 311-335.
- Heller, Wendy. "Usurping the Place of the Muses: Barbara Strozzi and the Female Composer in Seventeenth-Century Italy," The World of Baroque Music: New Perspectives, ed. George B. Stauffer, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006; 145-168.
- Kendrick, Robert. “Intent and Intertextuality in Barbara Strozzi’s Sacred Music,” Recercare: Rivista per lo Studio e la Practica della Musica Antica, 14 (2002): 65-98.
- Rosand, Ellen. “Barbara Strozzi, Virtuosissima Cantatrice: the Composer’s Voice,” Journal of the American Musicological Society, 31, no. 2 (summer 1978): 241-81.
- Rosand, Ellen. “The Voice of Barbara Strozzi,” Women Making Music, eds. Jane Bowers and Judith Tick, Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1986; 168-90
- Schulenberg, David. “Barbara Strozzi” Music of the Baroque, Oxford, New York: Oxford *University Press 2001 110-15
- Mardinly, Susan. “Barbara Strozzi: From Madrigal to Cantata,”Journal of Singing 58 (5) p 365
- Mardinly, Susan; “A View of Barbara Strozzi” , IAWM Journal, Volume 15, No.2, 2009.
- Mardinly, Susan. "Barbara Strozzi and The Pleasures of Euterpe”, Ph.D. Diss., University of Connecticut, 2004.