Barbara Strozzi

Barbara Strozzi was born in Venice in 1619. Her mother was a servant in the house of the poet Giulio Strozzi. Giulio called Barbara his adopted daughter, but he was very probably her real father. He saw her talent early and arranged lessons in composition with Francesco Cavalli, the most successful opera composer in Venice. Lessons like this were very unusual for a girl.

As a teenager she sang for important guests in her father’s house. When she was 16, a composer published two books of songs written for her voice, and he called her “the most skilful singer.” In 1637 her father started a club of writers in his house, partly to give Barbara a place to perform. She sang there, and she chose the questions that the members discussed. One day the members argued about this question: if you want someone to love you, which works better, crying or singing? Two members gave speeches, and singing won. It is said that Barbara then made a joke. “Of course singing won,” she said. “So many of you come here to hear me sing. Nobody would come just to watch me cry!”

In Venice a woman could not have a job as a musician in a church or at a court, and she never sang in the opera house. So she published her music instead. Between 1644 and 1664 she published eight books of songs. In the first one, at 25, she wrote that she was sending it out “too boldly” for a woman. She dedicated each book to a powerful person, such as an emperor or a duchess, hoping for a reward. Amore è bandito (Love Is Banished) comes from her sixth book (1657).

Her father died in 1652, when she was 32, and he left almost nothing. She was careful with money, and she lived on her savings and her music. She never married, but she brought up four children. She died in Padua, near Venice, in 1677, at 58.

No one in Venice, man or woman, published more songs in her time. She wrote most of them for her own voice.