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VANCOUVER BACH FESTIVAL 2019 the artists thursday august 8 at 7:30 pm | christ church cathedral Suzie LeBlanc a new sappho: & a portrait of barbara strozzi Dorothee Mields sopranos Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677): Lucas Harris Sonetto prœmio dell’opera (Mercé di voi) theorbo Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger (c.1580-1651): Mark Edwards Toccata terza harpsichord & organ (Libro terzo d’intavolatura di chitarrone, Rome 1626) Barbara Strozzi: Lagrime mie, Lamento Barbara Strozzi: Per un bacio Gregorio Strozzi (1615-1687): Sonata per basso solo (Elementorum musicæ praxis, Naples 1683) Barbara Strozzi: L’astratto (Voglio, sì, vò cantar) INTERVAL Barbara Strozzi: L’Eraclito amoroso (Udite amanti) Barbara Strozzi: Mater Anna (A S. Anna) Generously supported by Barbara Strozzi: Jo & Bob Tharalson Dal pianto de gli amanti scherniti s’imparo a far la carta (Mordeva un bianco lino) Bernardo Storace (c.1637-c.1707): Pre-concert chat with Balletto host Matthew White at 6:45: (Selva dei varie compositioni, Venice 1664) Suzie LeBlanc & Lucas Harris Barbara Strozzi: La Vittoria (Il gran Giove non si gloria) Thanks to Ray Nurse Thanks to Candace Magner THE UNAUTHORISED USE OF for the use of his theorbo for providing performing editions ANY VIDEO OR AUDIO RECORDING based on 17th-century Venetian models (Cor Donato Editions, DEVICE IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED (Ray Nurse, 1999, Vancouver, B.C.) www.cordonatoeditions.com) earlymusic.bc.ca Barbara Strozzi Vancouver Bach Festival 2019 1 PARTNERS board of directors Early Music Vancouver gratefully acknowledges the assistance and support of: Chris Guzy president government support Fran Watters vice president Ron Kruschen We acknowledge the support of treasurer the Province of British Columbia Tony Knox past president Ilia Korkh secretary foundations Kathleen Bourchier THE BRENNAN SPANO Spencer Corrigal cpa,ca FAMILY FOUNDATION Sherrill Grace THE DRANCE FAMILY Melody Mason EARLY MUSIC VANCOUVER FUND Tim Rendell cpa,ca Johanna Shapira 2019-20 production partners Ingrid Söchting EMV’s performances at the Chan Centre are presented in partnership with the Chan Centre for the Per- Vincent Tan forming Arts, with the support of the Chan Endowment Fund at the University of British Columbia. ÷ pacific José Verstappen cm baroque orchestra artistic director emeritus alexander weimann ÷ MUSIC director staff Matthew White executive & artistic director Nathan Lorch business manager Michelle Herrewynen development manager Jonathan Evans production manager production partners in victoria bc Laina Tanahara marketing & volunteer coordinator Mei Chi Chin corporate support summer production assistant Jan Gates Rosedale on Robson Suite Hotel event photographer VANCOUVER, BC Tony Knox Barrister & Solicitor, Arbitrator Tel: 604 263 5766 Cell: 604 374 7916 Fax: 604 261 1868 Email: [email protected] Murray Paterson 1291 West 40th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. V6M 1V3 Canada We also gratefully acknowledgewww.knoxlex.com the generosity of our many donors and volunteers. Marketing Group Knox & Co. denotes D.A.Knox Law Corporation marketing & media relations thank you! Trevor Mangion and The Chan Centre Box Office Staff You can be in good company too! emv ticket office: 604.822.2697 The corporate sponsors of Early Music Vancouver give back to their community through the support of our performances and education & outreach programmes. Their efforts make a meaningful difference for concertgoers and musicians alike. 1254 West 7th Avenue, Our wide range of activities offers unique sponsorship opportunities for both large and Vancouver BC, V6H 1B6 small companies to support us while also reaching their corporate goals. A range of sponsorship advantages is available, including logo recognition, complimentary tickets for tel: 604.732.1610 your clients, employee discounts, and many other benefits tailored to your specific needs. fax: 604.732.1602 Call Nathan Lorch to discuss how our audience profile [email protected] may fit with your company’s objectives: 604 732 1610. earlymusic.bc.ca Early Music Vancouver acknowledges that we are gathered on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples – Sḵwx̱ wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm (Musqueam) Nations. 2 Vancouver Bach Festival 2019 Barbara Strozzi [email protected] PROGRAMME NOTES by dr. candace magner Barbara Strozzi had the good Frustratingly little is known fortune to be raised in a world about Barbara’s childhood and of creativity, intellectual fer- musical training. We know that ment, and artistic freedom. she studied with Francesco Born in 1619 in Venice, Barbara Cavalli, director of music at St. was baptized on August 6 at Mark’s Basilica and a prolific the Santa Sofia parish. At that composer of early opera. There time, Venice was at its cultural are no other known documents peak, a city of wealth, peace, pointing to her studies, and little academic curiosity, and musical reference to possible early and innovation. In addition to the luck unpublished songs from the of time and place, Barbara grew period before 1644. up in a household frequented by Barbara made a mark as the greatest literary and musical composer and singer, eventually minds of the age. Painting by Bernado Strozzi (c.1630-1640), believed to be of Barbara Strozzi. publishing between 1644 and The adopted daughter of poet Giulio Strozzi was most likely 1664 eight collections of songs — more music in print during his natural daughter, recognized or ‘legitimized’ in his will of her lifetime than even the most famous composers of her 1628 as his figliuola elettiva. Her mother Isabella lived in the day — without the support of the Church or the permanent same household as Giulio and was his principle heir until patronage of a noble house. She is sometimes credited with Barbara should come of age. Though born in Venice, Giulio, the genesis of an entire musical genre, the cantata. In the himself the illegitimate and later recognized son of Ruberto 17th, 18th, and even 19th centuries her works were included in Strozzi, was nonetheless a distant member of one of the most important print and manuscript collections of song which powerful families of Florence, second only to the Medici in found their way to the rest of Europe and England. Yet she wealth and influence. died in obscurity in Padua in 1677 with little wealth or property. That the Strozzi name was recognized far and wide may have We can only wish that there were journals, diaries, or more assisted Giulio in his ability to mix with many levels of Italian letters regarding her work. Given the few bits of information society. He was the founder of several accademie or groups we now have about Barbara’s private life, we have a picture of creative intellectuals, and was an influential member of of an extraordinary woman of talent, beauty, intellect, and the Accademia degli Incogniti formed by the libertine writer business savvy, who published 125 pieces of vocal music in Giovanni Francesco Loredano in Venice. This group was her lifetime. almost single-handedly responsible for the genesis and — — spread of what was to become known as Opera — music and theatre highly intertwined into a new art form which Her first opus, Il Primo Libro de Madrigali, includes 25 inventive flourished in Venice throughout the 17th century and then works for 2-5 voices, all written on Giulio’s poetry. Barbara expanded throughout the continent. The Incogniti counted dedicated it to Vittoria della Rovere of Tuscany, a patron of the among its participants famous authors, poets, philosophers, arts and women artists. The first of these,Mercé di voi, is not and musicians, possibly including the great Monteverdi. It only the introduction to the volume but is also an invocation was into this milieu that young Barbara was introduced as a to the stars – and Vittoria – for protection under the sign of the singer and composer. Poets and musicians dedicated works golden oak (rovere), that Barbara be crowned with laurels and to her, praising her as “a most virtuosic singer”. Giulio created called a new Sappho. Giulio’s poetic language seems to have another group, the Unisoni, specifically to showcase Barbara’s inspired Barbara to equal and perhaps surpass the intricacy of talents. Though women generally were not included in the Monteverdi’s late madrigals. Her settings can be playful; they accademie, here Barbara reigned as hostess and arbiter of can be serious; and they can be full of passionate longing, as debates such as “what moves the passions more: tears or in the delicious Dal pianto de gli amanti scherniti s’imparo a far song?” Barbara convinces us that it is, indeed, song, for “...I la carta – Paper Making Learned From the Tears of Disdained know well that I would not have received the honour of your Lovers where we learn that frustrated lovers, sobbing into presence had you invited been invited to see me cry rather their handkerchiefs and gnashing their teeth, were the first than hear me sing.” creators of paper pulp. earlymusic.bc.ca Barbara Strozzi Vancouver Bach Festival 2019 3 Most of Barbara’s works are primarily secular pieces for solo grief and suffering. Strozzi captures the inexorable sorrow soprano. Opus 5, Sacri Musicali Affetti, is her only volume of of lost love. sacred motets. It opens with Mater Anna, an encomium to Strozzi’s final work, published in 1664, is her most complex Sant’ Anna, the mother of Mary, patron saint the dedicatee and sophisticated collection of cantatas. L’Astratto is almost Anna de’ Medici of Austria who had been waiting for a child. a sampler of possible emotions and musical styles, and at Perhaps the motet itself was not only a dedication (the name the same time a poke at the very styles in vogue from the 16th ANNA is capitalized in each recurrence of the text) but a plea century and in which she excelled her earlier music: the singer for the successful continuation of the lineage of the Medici is distracted and just can’t find any songs to fit her mood.

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