Lecture “Known and Forgotten Italian Women Composers of the 17th Century: Court Artists and Creative Spouses of Christ”

When studying the history of Western music, in the 17th century section there are at best three female surnames: the Italians Francesca Caccini and Barbara Strozzi and the French Élisabeth Claude Jacquet de La Guerre. However, in recent decades, comprehensive studies of music have proliferated, with books, articles, sheet music editions and music recordings featuring several other female composers who mostly worked in the monasteries of northern Italy. Composer nuns such as Chiara Margarita Cozzolani, Isabella Leonarda or Rosa Giacinta Badalla are astonishing both with their work volume and their undoubted talent, which awaits wider recognition.

 

During the lecture, Doctor of Art Studies and professional early music singer Renata Dubinskaitė will speak about fourteen 17th-century Italian women composers, whose compositions will be played at the “Mystic Betrothal” concert at the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania on the 5th of March at 5 p.m. As much as ten of these fourteen creators were nuns. What percentage of women chose monasteries in Italy at the time? Where did they learn music? When and how were they allowed to create music? What prohibitions did the creator nuns have to face? What is special about the biographies of female composers? What were the other important female composers who were not included in the “Mystic Betrothal” programme? These and many other questions will be answered in the lecture, and a new and important page in the history of 17th-century music will be presented to the audience.

 

We kindly invite you to the concert “Mystic Betrothal” on the 5th of March.