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4. refrains bring back lines of text/music
a. “My soul glorifies the Lord”
b. “He has done great things for me”
c. highly expressive, rich in word- painting
5. closes with doxology
II. Barbara Strozzi and the Baroque Aria
A. Barbara Strozzi (1619– c. 1677)
1. secular singer/composer
2. prob ably illegitimate daughter of Venetian
poet/playwright Giulio Strozzi
3. unusual educational and per for mance opportuni-
ties: Venetian acad emy
4. secular arias: suffering of unfulfilled love
5. 8 volumes of vocal music published in her
lifetime
B. LG 11: Strozzi: Amor dormiglione (Sleepyhead,
Cupid!) (published 1651)
1. monody: solo soprano with harpsichord or bass
lute
2. da capo aria (A- B- A)
3. invocation to the God of Love
4. word- painting:
a. Cupid’s arrows: upward melody
b. Cupid’s laziness: static melody
OVERVIEW
This chapter focuses on the limited options available to
women musicians during the Baroque era. Chiara Margarita
Cozzolani’s experience as a Benedictine nun and Barbara
Strozzi’s success in secular composition provide contrasting
insights into the challenges faced by creative women in
seventeenth- century Italy.
OUTLINE
I. A Nuns’ Life in Baroque Italy
A. Few possibilities for creative women
1. operatic professionals: character and morality
often in question
2. “secret” musical world in convents
3. St.Radegonda: Benedictine convent, Milan
a. nuns perform for dignitaries, visitors
B. Chiara Margarita Cozzolani (1602– c. 1676)
1. Benedictine nun, composer
2. youn gest daughter of wealthy Milanese merchant
3. religious vows, age 18
4. active role in music: choir director, composer
5. works published and circulated beyond the
convent
6. three collections of published music
a. one collection of Vespers
b. motets, dialogues
7. abbess and prioress at St.Radegonda
C. Cozzolani’s Magniflcat
1. Magnificat: canticle of Mary
a. text: Virgin song of praise, Gospel of Luke
2. two Magniflcats by Cozzolani
a. large- scale, polychoral settings, organ continuo
b. dramatic, mystical: intensifies nuns’
experience
c. contrasts in per for mance groups, textures,
timbres
3. per for mance: sung by nuns
D. LG 10: Cozzolani: Magniflcat (published 1650)
1. 2 choirs, 4 voices each; organ continuo
2. duple and triple meters, varied tempos
3. virtuosic duets interrupt larger choral forces
CHAPTERfi21 Voicing Gender: Women Composers
in Baroque Italy
Voicing Gender: Women Composers in Baroque Italy | 77
TEACHING CHALLENGES
If your class is moving through the textbook from beginning
to end, it may be difficult for students to understand the ways
this music incorporates standard ele ments of Baroque musi-
cal style.
SUPPLEMENTAL REPERTORY
SUPPLEMENTAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Monson, Craig. Disembodied Voices: Music and Culture in an
Early Modern Italian Convent. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1995. A fascinating case study
Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150–1950, ed. Jane Bowers
and Judith Tick. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press,
1986. Pp.168–90. An accessible overview of Barbara Strozzi’s
YOUR TURN TO EXPLORE
Can you find examples of women musicians (perform-
ers, ensemble leaders/conductors, composers/arrangers/
people who have chosen this kind of “non- gender-
conforming” musical path, and their perspective on their
experiences?
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. To recognize, through the example of Chiara Margarita
Cozzolani, music- making as a source of public and pri-
women of religious orders during Cozzolani’s time
3. To recognize the extraordinary career of Barbara Stro-
zzi as a relative anomaly during the Baroque era
(alternation of chorus and duet textures, shifts from
duple to triple, and varied tempos), then play the open-
ing section (to 1:43). Have students read through the
2. Review with your students Palestrina’s Pope Marcellus
Mass, noting in par tic u lar the musical style. Play the
opening of Cozzolani’s Magniflcat (again to 1:43) and
3. Ask for volunteers from your class to read aloud the text
of Strozzi’s Amor dormiglione, then discuss the text-
book’s description of this as a “gender- neutral text”
ASSIGNMENT SUGGESTIONS
did they conform to the expectations of their time, and
in what ways did they express their individuality outside
of these expectations?
78 | Chapterfi21
internationally renowned ensembles traditionally conducted
by men. At a glance, there is little about her approach to con-
ducting and music- making that seems gender- specific: her
programming choices are often hailed as innovative, and she
wanted to be a conductor, only to be told by her pre- college
violin teacher that “girls don’t do that.” With the support of
her parents (and particularly her mother), Alsop went on to
MODEL RESPONSE
Marin Alsop’s career has been full of firsts. She was the first
woman to be awarded the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize
perhaps best known for her success as the music director and
conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; though the
orchestra’s members initially protested her appointment in
