Kansas City Baroque Consortium WOmenWOmen ofof NNoteote Saint Cecilia by NICOLAS POUSSIN (ca.1635) The Woman’s Voice as Composer, Patron, and Performer concert I: The Donne, the Dueling, and the Divine Friday, June 21 • 7:30 p.m. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church WELCome Dear Friends, Welcome to our third summer season of music from Kansas City Baroque, our city’s premiere Early Music ensemble. We’re pleased to be back and we’re even happier that you’re here to share in this wonderful music. Shortly after we wrapped up last summer’s offerings, we commenced planning this season. Lots of ideas, lots of discussion but we kept coming back to a theme suggested by Dr. Alison DeSimone, a UMKC musicologist and a member of our board. Dr. DeSimone noted that 2019 marks a century since women in this country forced their way into the voting booth and that, serendipitously, we also celebrate the 400th anniversary of Barbara Strozzi, a groundbreaking composer/performer of the early 17th century. And so, KC Baroque sounds The Woman’s Voice, bringing to light composers and performers slighted in their day and ignored since. She had and has something to say and to sing—we ask that you sit up and take note. Our first concert ranges over the entire 150 years of the Baroque era, highlighting not only Strozzi’s music but also works written for the female voice. It includes solos, trios and duos that showcase the compositional and performance skills of Strozzi and the virtuosity of the women who performed the works of Monteverdi and Handel. This is a concert of fire and ice, sweet breezes and deadly gazes, heavenly love and earthly desire. It runs the gamut of emotions, taking in the breadth of the human experience. And it is the voice of women that sings and speaks so widely and deeply. Over the course of our summer season, you’ll have the chance to hear some of Kansas City’s finest voices. Our “Bella Donna” this evening are Suzanne Anderson, Kayleigh Aytes and Lindsey Lang. Supporting them, you’ll hear the core ensemble of KC Baroque, augmented with a couple of our regular ringers, William Bauer and Jeff Noonan. Tonight’s program opens a window to a wider musical experience, an experience that includes everyone. Over the course of the summer, Kansas City Baroque will hold that window open for you, inviting you to hear the powerful and moving voices of these Women of Note. Welcome to our new season. We’re glad you’re here with us. Trilla Program Notes, by Jeff Noonan Tonight’s program opens KCBaroque’s summer series dedicated to the voices of women. Given our current state of affairs—just this week a well-regarded conductor was removed from his many posts for wielding his power for sexual favors—we face a cultural frontier in which the sexual politics of millennia will be continuously called into question. KCBaroque’s series is not an overt political statement, but it is a statement. It won’t undo centuries of neglect of women composers and performers in the Western tradition but it takes a positive step into the future by demonstrating the relevance of Early Music for our time and the significance of the voice of women as patrons, performers and composers throughout our history. In keeping with our theme of women’s voices, our opening piece is built on “La Monica,” an Italian dance-song that likely dates to the early Renaissance or earlier. The text of the song reflects a part of the lives of women in early modern Europe, when many girls were sent to the convent as a matter of course. “Madre non mi far monaca” recounts a young girl’s protestations to her mother that she does not want to become a nun (monaca.) The story and lyric circulated across Europe from the Middle Ages on. The tune appears in numerous manuscripts and prints from the early sixteenth century well into the seventeenth. Marini unleashes his virtuosic creativity with flying scales tossed between the violins. As the piece draws to an end, however, Marini applies the brakes and offers a reflective take on the tune, perhaps pointing up the darker side of the Monica story. The seventeenth century saw a number of significant developments in musical composition and performance. These included a focus on the solo voice accompanied by chordal instruments as well as the invention of opera, a creative mash-up of poetry, theatre, dance and music. These developments had a monumental impact on the wider musical culture. 3 Program Notes, continued Highly-trained singers—all male—worked primarily within the church but in the late Renaissance a renewed interest in secular music developed, inspired in part by attempts to revive Greek drama. While a demand for textual clarity led to simpler textures, an interest in emotional expressivity led to the development of virtuosic vocal techniques like shakes, trills, turns, and complex passagi. Unlike instrumental music, vocal music, of course, included the additional element of text for composers and performers alike to consider. Composers had to find a way to incorporate the new expressive techniques without rendering the text incomprehensible and performers would have to determine how and when to apply their new skills to the music. At the same time, composers and performers alike faced the question of who would sing this music. Women were barred from singing in church and discouraged from singing in public, but even the best-trained choir boys could not successfully tackle the new virtuosic repertoire. In the final decades of the sixteenth century, a group of virtuoso female musicians defied social norms, performing this new music, paving the way for female performers, and creating a social phenomenon outdone only in later centuries by opera divas. Around 1570, Luzzasco Luzzaschi (1545-1607) became director of Duke Alfonso II’s musica da camera which featured private concerts for the Duke and his guests. Under Luzzaschi the focal point of these performances became the concerto di donne or the “singing ladies of Ferrara,” a trio known for their virtuosic singing and beautiful voices. Not only were audiences limited to the Duke and fewer than a dozen guests, but all music performed in these private concerts was kept secret and locked away. As the Duke’s personal composer, Luzzaschi directed and composed for these concerts, accompanying the ladies on the keyboard. Some of the most virtuosic and difficult music of the late sixteenth century, Luzzaschi’s compositions for these ladies influenced the next generation of composers including Claudio Monteverdi, Carlo Gesualdo, Giulio Caccini and others. In a society where women were generally discouraged from singing in public, these singing ladies were admired throughout Europe for their beautiful tones and remarkable vocal techniques. The most famous of these ladies included Laura Peverara, Anna Guarini (daughter of poet Battista Guarini), Livia d’Arco, Lucrezia Bendido, and Tarquinia Molza. Like many famous singers to follow, these women were often near the center of court circles and scandals. Along with their beauty of tone, they mastered the revolutionary vocal techniques of the time. This virtuosity, combined with poetry of ardent love and devotion, sweet and consonant harmonies, and the inaccessibility of both the performances and music 4 Program Notes, continued Our opening set of vocal works reflects the influence of the concerto di donne on one of the most influential female composers of the era. Singer and composer Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677) was the adopted (and probably illegitimate) daughter of the Venetian poet Giulio Strozzi. Although her mother was a serving lady in Strozzi’s household, her adoptive father afforded his daughter educational opportunities far beyond her status and the girl not only studied with Francesco Cavalli but also participated in the Academie degli Unisoni in Venice, both composing for and singing at its performances. She published eight collections of madrigals, motets, arias, ariettas and cantatas for solo voice (mostly for soprano) and probably sang most of her music herself. Unlike Luzzaschi, Strozzi did not write particularly virtuosic music. While not as difficult to perform, it contains longer, sweeping lines and repetitive ideas with slight contrasts. Her music allows a singer opportunities to show the unique beauty of her tone rather than the ease with which she can perform vocal acrobatics. Both of Strozzi’s trios on tonight’s concert pieces appeared in her first publication of vocal works from 1644. “Le Tre Gratie à Venere” draws on the mythology of the “three graces,” the lesser goddesses who regularly attended Venus. In her setting, Strozzi highlights the ethereal nature of these goddesses with heart-breaking harmonies (listen for the exquisite opening chords) and constantly shifting meters. In the more earth-bound “Libertà,” the three singers rejoice in their triumph as they break free from a lover they once could not resist. The piece cycles through changing textures from trio to duet to solo sections, eventually returning to the opening three-part gesture. Strozzi composed large-scale vocal works as well as smaller songs and madrigals. The slight sinfonia that separates the two vocal trios serves as the opening of a larger and dramatic cantata. Its sinuous lines and crunching dissonances anticipate the drama of the following cantata but also highlight Strozzi’s compositional skills. She clearly had a musical facility equal to her male contemporaries and this little sinfonia shows her deft manipulation of the most up-to-date musical language. 5 Program Notes, continued The next set pairs Strozzi and Marini—masters of their respective instruments. Marini’s “Passacalio” appeared in 1655 in his Sonate da Chiesa e da Camera… a major collection of works for bowed strings in a variety of combinations.