1. Women, Music, Culture Chapter 5
Baroque Keyboard and Vocal Genres:
Gender Roles in Musical Families
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2. Musical Employment for Women
Artisan-class musical families were often employed in court settings
Women in these families had significant musical education and skills and served various court functions
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3. Some common roles for women:
Keyboard Performers
Vocalists
Composers
Teachers
Outside of the court setting, artisan-class women
were also involved in family-run musical businesses
such as instrument building
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4. Genres, Gender, and Boundaries
Women were still prohibited from most court-based sacred music performances
Women often performed secular keyboard and vocal works. Many of these performers composed as well, and sometimes their work was published.
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5. Baroque Aesthetic Emotion Irregularity and energy
Shift from modal to tonal systems
Consonance and dissonance
Virtuosic performances
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6. Doctrine of the Affections
Goal of the Baroque music
Music was believed to elicit specific emotional responses such as sadness, anger, or joy
Came from ancient Greek Doctrine of Ethos—focusing on ONE affect
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7. Monody
“By the late Renaissance, vocal music featured as many as five or six voices that performed polyphonically without instrumental accompaniment. The monadic style that emerged at the turn of the seventeenth century was a completely new style, in which a solo vocalist was accompanied by an instrument such as the harpsichord or
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8. lute. Not only did this thinner texture help listeners hear the text, it allowed the solo singer a great deal of freedom to improvise. Virtuoso singers improvised melodically and rhythmically complex passages to bring intense textual messages to life, in keeping with the Baroque aesthetic that favored the expression of emotion.”
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9. Medici Family - Florence
Commissioned artwork for the church
Sponsored artists such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci
Supported humanist thought
Had connections to some of the highest regarded scientists in history
Important women: Christine de Lorraine and Maria Magdalena d’Austria
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10. Italian Wealth: Caccini and the Women’s Court
Francesca Caccini ( ) was employed by the wealthy Medici family in Florence, Italy.
As an artisan-class employee, she was not likely to have had her portrait painted, although this image is often connected to her.
Although she worked for the entire family, Caccini was especially connected to the women’s court. Her sponsor was Christine de Lorraine, (left) who managed all aspects of that court. She likely paved the way for Caccini to publish works in her own name.
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11. Francesca Caccini (1587—ca. 1630)
Not a wealthy aristocrat
From the artisan class
Both parents court musicians
Mother died when Francesca was 4 yrs old
Father—Guilio Caccini—worked for the Medici (one of many court composers)
Father one of the highest regarded singers and teachers of singing of his time
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12. Caccini’s published works include an extensive collection of vocal works probably used as teaching pieces, as well as the staged work La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina, performed at the women’s court in 1625
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13. La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina
(The Liberation of Ruggiero from the Island of Alcina)
Staged work – Not an opera
Written for performance during Carnival (1625)
Commissioned for the engagement of Maria’s 12-yr-old daughter to a Polish relative
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14. La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina
Subject: liberation of a lovesick knight (Ruggiero) put under a spell by a sorceress (Alcina)
Elaborate production
Recitative (speech-like singing)
Aria (lyrical singing)
Ritornello (short musical passage that returns throughout the work—like a refrain
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15. La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina
Elaborate staging
Opening of an aquatic scene
Setting of an actual fire
Actress plays interesting role as a cross-dressing sorceress
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16. “Maria, dolce Maria” (1618) Mary, sweet Mary A name so gentle
That whoever pronounces it learns to speak from
the heart,
Sacred name and holy
That inflames my heart with heavenly love.
Mary, never would I know how to sing
Nor my tongue
Draw out from my breast ever
A more felicitous word than to say Mary.
Name that lessens and consoles
Every grief.
Tranquil voice that quiets every breathless agitation,
That makes every heart serene
And every spirit light
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17. Francesca Caccini Recognized for her singing before composing
One of the first known women musicians known to tour
Henry IV said “She is the best singer ever heard in France”
Medici family gave her a formal contract in 1607
30-year connection between Francesca and Christine de Lorraine (her patroness)
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18. Composed at least 17 theatrical works and numerous chamber music works
Francesca composed, copied music, and did a significant amount of teaching: composition, instrumental performance, and voice
Widowed twice
Composed at least 17 theatrical works and numerous chamber music works
Composer of the first Italian opera to be given outside Italy
Only a small number of her compositions survive today: 36 songs and duets in the Primo libro delle musiche (1618)
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19. Highest regarded musician and highest paid composer at the Court of Tuscany under three Grand Dukes:
Ferdinando I
Cosimo I
Ferdinando II
She was highly regarded for her composing, singing, and poetry in both Latin and Tuscan
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20. The Baroque Aesthetic and Notions of Women
The Baroque aesthetic is one of emotional energy, with an affective goal of eliciting an emotional response in the listener
This aesthetic fit well with societal notions of women
By the dawn of the Baroque, vocal and keyboard performance had already settled comfortably into the “female sphere”
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21. Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677) Born in Venice, Italy Born out of wedlock
Daughter of a Venetian man of letters, Guilio Strozzi, and mother, Isabella Garzoni, one of Strozzi’s household servants
Lived in somewhat seculsion
Father encouraged her musical development
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22. Barbara Strozzi Adopted into the academy Received top education
Very talented—compared to the “Haromies of the Spheres”
Achieved high social status and fame within a restricted environment
Exposed to men of the academy who controlled the political life of Venice and the opera world
Compositional work served as her exposure to the outside world
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23. Barbara Strozzi Highly recognized during her lifetime
Composed over 100 solo works
Wrote more secular cantatas than any other composer of her time
8 volumes of song printed in her name
One of the most published composers of her era
Important connection between early and middle Baroque
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24. Composition Characteristics
Uses recitative and aria within a single solo work
Knew how to “emotionally persuade the listener”
Feminine features—an important part of her music: “spontaneous, graceful, ornamented, and topically centered on love”
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25. Barbara Strozzi: (1619-ca.1677)
Barbara Strozzi’s secular vocal works fit well into the socioculturally-defined “feminine” sphere. Her works featured ornamented melodies, and were topically centered on love.
Strozzi wrote more secular cantatas than any other composer of her era.
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26. Strozzi and the Academy
Strozzi lived and worked in Venice among an academy of male intellectuals, the Academy of the Incogniti. She was restricted from performing among the greater public, but was well known because she was widely published.
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27. “Amor dormiglione” Secular solo cantata
Highlights poetic texts through
Melismatic melodies
Melodic sequences
Changes in rhythm
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28. Even the exact date of her death is unknown
Despite Strozzi’s renown during her lifetime, the death of her father spelled the end of her connection to the public.
Even the exact date of her death is unknown
Strozzi’s prolific work was rediscovered in the 20th century, at which time her name once again became known to a wider public
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29. Guerre in the Court of Louis XIV
Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre ( ) was employed by the court of Louis XIV in France
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30. From an artisan-class family of harpsichord builders, performers and teachers, Guerre’s astounding performance skills earned her a long connection to the “arts king.” Among the benefits were publication rights. (At left, a Baroque-era harpsichord)
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31. Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre
Unusual ability to perform
Harpsichord virtuoso
Supported by Louis XIV
Married to organist Marin de la Guerre
Pièces de Clavecin (Works for Harpsichord) at age 20
Composed en almost every form then popular
Highly recognized for her work
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32. Céphale et Procris (1694) – 5-act opera Biblical cantatas
Te Deum (hymn of praise)
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33. Guerre was the only composer to publish harpsichord suites in both the 17th and 18th centuries
She was included in early musical catalogues and dictionaries, including those of Burney and Hawkins in England and Johann Walther in Germany
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34. Like Barbara Strozzi, however, Guerre was written out of historical accounts in the 19th and early 20th centuries in favor of male composers such as Francois Couperin.
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35. The pages of recorded history that erased the narratives of composers such as Caccini, Strozzi and Guerre are slowly being replaced by new narratives
Women who were published had significantly more evidence to support the reconstruction of new narratives detailing their musical accomplishments
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36. Women who could not access publication remain relatively unknown.
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