Transcript Women, Music, Culture Chapter 5

Baroque Keyboard and Vocal Genres:
Gender Roles in Musical Families
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
 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
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
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
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
 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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 Emotion
 Irregularity
and energy
 Shift from modal to tonal systems
 Consonance and dissonance
 Virtuosic performances
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 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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“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
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
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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 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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Francesca Caccini (1587-1641) 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.
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
 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
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
 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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 (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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 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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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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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
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
 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)
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
 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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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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 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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 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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 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
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
 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
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
 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”
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
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.
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
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.
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
Secular
solo cantata
Highlights poetic texts through
• Melismatic melodies
• Melodic sequences
• Changes in rhythm
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 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
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de
la Guerre (1665-1729) was
employed by the court of
Louis XIV in France
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
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)
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
 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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 Céphale
et Procris (1694) – 5-act opera
 Biblical cantatas
 Te Deum (hymn of praise)
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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
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
 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
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
Women who could not access publication remain
relatively unknown.
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.