Virtuosissima Sirena

Barbara Strozzi, a Venetian singer and composer who lived between 1619 and 1677, is a rare jewel in the musical landscape of Italian Seicento. As the adopted daughter (and possibly biological daughter) of Giulio Strozzi, a man of letters from the famous Florentine family, she rejected the alternative prospect of marriage or a life in a convent to devote herself entirely to her one true passion: music. Moreover, she was determined to assert herself not only as a performing artist, but also as a composer, thereby transcending the strict rules of her time. Over the course of twenty years, she published more than 120 cantatas and other works for solo voice, a number unmatched by any of her contemporaries. In her major works, she combines the absolute originality of her formal structures with an extraordinarily intense and exuberant poetics of "affects". In this respect, her vocal music can only be compared to that of the greatest Italian composer of the century, Claudio Monteverdi.