This chapter interrogates the widespread modern framing of Strozzi’s life and music through the unanswerable asking of whether or not she was a courtesan, and proposes alternative viewpoints from which and with which to understand and represent her. Working from a reception study of popular and academic cultural framings, new engagement with primary materials, and intersectional feminist perspectives on the analysis and representation of contested gendered experiences, this chapter asks what it is that this repeated question does – its functions and its fall-outs – and suggests another way of engaging with the scanty material evidence that has survived of Strozzi’s life. This chapter concludes with a proposal to retire the courtesan question in favor of a more grounded and culturally sensitive understanding of Strozzi’s family life through common seicento Venetian relationship practices, restoring Strozzi’s own representation of herself to the forefront of our representations of her music and person.

This chapter traces Price’s stylistic development as a composer of symphonies and tone poems, with particular attention to orchestration, form, and musical narrative. The mid-century context of orchestral music performance in Chicago is also considered.

This essay connects Barbara Strozzi’s life and career to the complex dynamics of Seicento Italian academies and to the strategies women cultural producers and their academic supporters devised in navigating and even reshaping gender norms. We begin with analysis of two thorny discourses in which Strozzi plays a starring role: a 1637 satiric dialogue in manuscript (“Sentimenti gioiosi”) that lampoons the Accademia degli Unisoni, a sodality that served in part as a performance venue for Barbara Strozzi assembled by Giulio Strozzi, a poet and probably her father; and a printed celebration of the Unisoni’s interdisciplinary activities, the Veglie de’Signori Unisoni (Venice, 1638). These representations of Strozzi’s engagement with the Unisoni lead us to consider other women cultural producers who interacted with Italian academies, particularly Isabella Andreini and Virginia Ramponi (fl.1580s–1630s). This exploration affords a new appreciation of the ways that Italian academies both enabled and constrained creative women.

A distinctive feature of Barbara Strozzi’s compositional style is her predilection for unusual endings that defy the expectations by concluding too abruptly (leaving the listener hanging on the dominant or without a strong sense of closure) or delaying the final cadence (inciting the listener’s desire for closure). After briefly summarizing ideas about closure from classical rhetoricians and early modern musicians and considering the likely influence of the humorous and often ironic rhetorical stance that was popular among Strozzi’s friends and acquaintances in the Accademia degli Incogniti, I explore Strozzi’s enigmatic conclusions in a selection of both sacred and secular compositions. Drawing upon Bettina Varwig’s Music in the Flesh, I propose that the endings are remarkable not only for the ingenious ways they respond to their text and eschew convention, but also because of the profound impact on the listener’s physiological responses, inspiring variously laughter, irony, frustration, yearning, pleasure, or even rapture.

Barbara Strozzi and Francesca Caccini enjoyed distinguished musical careers in their respective cities of Venice and Florence. Both received acclaim for their abilities as performers and composers. Yet while Barbara Strozzi performed mainly in the academy and private settings first established by her adoptive father, Francesca Caccini was an employee of the ruling Medici family. And unlike Strozzi’s situation as an independent musician, the conditions of Caccini’s employment necessitated her participation in a variety of musical genres and contexts, ranging from theatrical and chamber works performed at court to sacred music sung as part of liturgical services. Her responsibilities also included providing music and musical instruction for Medici princesses and other court ladies. Archival documents confirm that female musicians surrounded Caccini throughout her life, serving as role models, colleagues, and students. Caccini similarly emerges as the centerpiece and narrative goal of Cristofano Bronzini’s contemporary account of women’s musical contributions.

It has often been said Barbara Strozzi’s dedication of each of her printed books of music to a different patron demonstrates her lack of success in finding stable support. A careful examination of the system of dedications leads to a different conclusion. The main function of a dedication was to obtain the gradimento, or appreciation, of the dedicatee for the gift of the book, which would be expressed, almost always, in financial terms, as a gift to the author of cash or valuables. In agreeing to this exchange, the dedicatee also gained a reputation as a patron of the arts, but even more so as an exemplar of generosity. Strozzi’s dedications, therefore, demonstrate success in obtaining the approval of a series of important patrons.

In 2003, the late Rae Linda Brown wrote a paper called “‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’: Harry T. Burleigh’s Influence on Florence B. Price.” The paper was intended for a national conference called “The Heritage and Legacy of Harry T. Burleigh.” Brown’s plans to deliver the paper did not materialize, but with the permission of Brown’s sister, Carlene J. Brown, and the University of Illinois Press, Brown’s paper forms the basis of this chapter. Burleigh’s influence on Price’s art songs was profound and their correspondence reveals a mentorship model in which Burleigh’s authority (especially in his approaches to text, harmony, and vernacular idioms) was unquestionable. Price’s connection to Burleigh illuminates his position as a central figure in the wider community of early twentieth-century Black classical composers in the United States. This chapter brings greater context to the creative milieu in which Price worked.

Strozzi’s scores are generally more detailed in providing accidental signs than was the norm in her time, but their unwonted thoroughness complicates the handling of passages with unsigned notes that might appropriately be raised or lowered according to the context. Since Strozzi was so conscientious in supplying signs in situations where performers were most often left to be guided by rules of common practice, it seems possible that the omission of signs in some other passages might indicate a preference for uninflected pitches, rather than simple conformance with prevalent casualness of pitch notation. This essay examines passages in which modern performers and editors have frequently added accidentals according to modern performance practice norms, in many cases significantly affecting the way the music sounds, where Strozzi the (usually) detailed editor might have supplied accidentals had she wanted them.

Women’s musical networks in the United States were largely fractured along the color line. While Florence Price found acceptance within some white women’s musical organizations, a number of them were invested in white supremacy (a dynamic that was deeply rooted in the exclusionary and expedient practices of white women suffragists). Black women’s activism formed a necessary antidote to these conditions. African American women’s cultural organizing wove into the city’s Black concert scene, generating the musical sisterhood to which Price belonged. The result birthed a dynamic era of classical music-making in what came to be known as the Black Chicago Renaissance. Using a Black feminist framework, this chapter examines the Black feminist bonds between Price, the Bonds family (Margaret and Estella), and Marian Anderson, while citing further individuals (e.g., Nora Holt) and institutions (e.g., the National Association of Negro Musicians) that enabled Black women to thrive in the classical music sphere.

Barbara Strozzi’s Sacri musicali affetti of 1655 is part of a vastly larger repertoire of Latin liturgical and nonliturgical sacred texts published and widely disseminated in seventeenth-century Italy. Her print fits within the category of non-liturgical texts, most often referred to as motets, sacri cantiones, or concerti ecclesiastici. Within this category there is a special subgroup of motets exclusively for solo voice and continuo (typically an organ, sometimes with the addition of other instruments), of which at least 163 other examples survive between 1608 and 1715. This subgroup is characterized by diverse aspects of general style, such as melodic typologies (arioso, aria, recitative, syllabic declamation, melismatic ornamentation, vocal virtuosity, ) and approaches to musical structure (ABA, AABB, ABB, strophic, through- composed, refrains, instrumental ritornelli, sectional shifts between duple and triple meters, changes of tempo, motivic patterns treated sequentially, sustained harmonic support of the vocal line or active bass lines in counterpoint with the vocal part, transposition of motives or longer passages, and tonal organization of segmented compositions. Examples of specific solo motet collections serve to highlight changes in style and structure from the first publication to Strozzi’s at mid century.

This essay aims to reconstruct Strozzi’s ideal poetic library and to understand the impact that her literary choices had on her compositions. The poems she set come from a variety of traditions, from madrigals looking back to the late sixteenth century, to more contemporary styles, some of them quite irreverent. The poets named in her volumes include some of the leading figures rom the Venetian literary, theatrical, and academic spheres of the mid-seventeenth-century: authors of dramme per musica such as Giulio Strozzi, Aurelio Aureli, Pietro Paolo Bissari, and Giacinto Andrea Cicognini; noble amateurs such as Marc’Antonio Corraro, Nicola Beregan, and Pietro Dolfin; academics such as Gian Francesco Loredan; as well as several poets and librettists linked to the Roman singing world such as Sebastiano Baldini and Giovanni Pietro Monesio. Strozzi’s interpretation of metrical models and her stylistic originality shine through in the variety of forms she offers.

The reawakening of the Black Lives Matter movement in the summer of 2020 ignited a wave of racial and social consciousness that prompted many arts-based organizations to consider the larger implications of their programmatic visions. As a composer known to, but under-programmed in, the mainstream classical music establishment, the music of Florence Price was thrust into an even greater spotlight. This chapter considers what it means to meaningfully celebrate the rediscovery of Price’s manuscripts and her revival in the mainstream. It models discourse that ensures that more African American composers are recognized and that the communities that kept names and works alive are remembered in the historical record.