Her first published book, of madrigals for two to five voices, set to texts by her adoptive father (1644)
Il primo libro de madrigali, Op. 1 — dedicated to Vittoria della Rovere, Grand Duchess of Tuscany
Music
Barbara Strozzi
1619–1677 · Italian
Venetian Baroque — the secular cantata and solo chamber song
Barbara Strozzi was a Venetian singer and composer who published more secular vocal music in print than any other composer of the 17th century, man or woman. Eight volumes appeared under her own name between 1644 and 1664, almost all of it for solo soprano and continuo. She worked without a court or church post, financing her music through dedications to European nobility, which makes her career as unusual as her output.
How to spot them
- ▸Solo soprano and continuo, almost nothing else — no operas, no large sacred works, just intensely expressive chamber song
- ▸Laments over a descending ground bass, and pieces that swing between recitative and aria within a single number
- ▸Questions pair her with Venice, her adoptive father the poet and librettist Giulio Strozzi, and the Accademia degli Unisoni he founded for her to sing in
- ▸Her only likeness is usually said to be a Bernardo Strozzi painting of a viola da gamba player with a bare shoulder — a different Strozzi, and a disputed identification
Key works — listen
Her 1651 second book, whose title lists three genres in turn: cantatas, little arias and duets (1651)
Cantate, ariette e duetti, Op. 2 — dedicated, like most of her books, to a royal or noble patron who might pay for it
A lament in which an abandoned woman calls on her tears to fall, over a slowly sinking bass (1659)
Lagrime mie — her most performed piece, from Diporti di Euterpe, Op. 7
Her 1659 volume, named for the pleasures or pastimes of the muse of music and lyric poetry (1659)
Diporti di Euterpe, ovvero Cantate e ariette a voce sola, Op. 7
A book of sacred devotions for solo voice, her only surviving religious publication (1655)
Sacri musicali affetti, Op. 5
Her final publication, a book of arias for solo voice issued in Venice thirteen years before her death (1664)
Arie a voce sola, Op. 8
Quick-fire facts
- •She was baptised in Venice on 6 August 1619, the illegitimate daughter of Isabella Garzoni, a servant of the poet Giulio Strozzi, who later made her his heir
- •Giulio Strozzi founded the Accademia degli Unisoni in about 1637 as a venue for her to sing and to preside over debates
- •She published eight opus numbers of which seven survive; Op. 4 is lost
- •More printed secular vocal music by her survives than by any other composer of the period — around 125 pieces
- •She is thought to have studied with Francesco Cavalli, the leading Venetian opera composer of the day
- •She never married, had four children, and is believed to have supported herself partly by investing and money-lending
- •She died in Padua on 11 November 1677
- •She wrote no opera, despite living in the city where public opera houses were invented
- •A 2019 BBC Proms and a Google Doodle both marked the 400th anniversary of her birth, part of a broad modern revival
Drill it — 7 cards
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Sources
- Grove Music Online (Oxford University Press) — Barbara Strozzi
- Ellen Rosand — Barbara Strozzi: The Life and Works
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Barbara Strozzi