Barbara Strozzi in Context

Renowned as both a singer and composer, Barbara Strozzi was the one of the most accomplished and prolific composers of vocal chamber music in the seventeenth century. This volume explores Strozzi's life and music, other prominent women of the day, focusing as well on women's sexuality and the financial opportunities available to them.

Renowned as both a singer and composer, Barbara Strozzi was among the most accomplished and prolific composers of vocal chamber music in the seventeenth century. Her works, which have become increasingly popular in concert and recordings in recent decades, are remarkable for their musical sophistication and extraordinary range of expression-humor, irony, eroticism, pathos, and religious devotion. The adopted daughter of the poet Giulio Strozzi and mother of four children, Barbara Strozzi (who might have been a courtesan) was also for a time a participant in Venice's vibrant libertine intellectual and artistic world. This first English-language volume to focus on the composer brings together invited essays by an international group of scholars from diverse disciplines to explore Strozzi's life, her music, and the complex world she inhabited. Chapters focus not only on Strozzi, but also on other prominent women of the time, and on other issues including financial questions and matters of sexuality.