Weegy: D. Barbara Strozzi
What little is known about Barbara Strozzi (also known as Barbara Valle) suffices to make her an extremely intriguing figure. [ Perhaps the most outstanding female composer of the seventeenth century, Strozzi studied under respected musicians and published eight collections of her music. Born in 1619 to a servant, Isabella Garzoni, Barbara Strozzi was adopted by Isabella?s master, who may also have been the father of the baby. That master, Giulio Strozzi, was a well-known Venetian intellectual who had young Barbara trained as a musician.
Strozzi studied music with the singer and opera composer Francesco Cavalli. Other musicians knew of her talents as well. Nicol? Fontei dedicated two books of solo songs to her, the first when she was only sixteen years old.
In 1637, her adoptive father founded an academy, the Accademia degli Unisoni (Academy of the Unisons). As the name suggests, the academy was devoted mainly to music, and Barbara seems to have been the center of attention. She not only sang at the academy meetings but also proposed topics for the other members to discuss.
Strozzi never married, but she had four illegitimate children, all born in the early 1640s. Her two sons were Giulio Pietro and Massimo. Her daughters were Isabella and Laura. Their father was probably Giovanni Paolo Vidman, to whom Giulio Strozzi dedicated his opera librettos La finta pazza and La finta savia. This hypothesis is based partly on the fact that members of the Vidman family, including Giovanni Paolo, left money to the children in their wills. In addition, Giovanni Paolo Vidman?s widow paid for the Strozzi girls to enter a convent in 1656. A source dating from after Strozzi?s death says that Vidman raped Strozzi, but this may merely have been a story circulated to preserve Strozzi?s propriety.
Strozzi published her first compositions in 1644. These were madrigals that set poems by her father. The remainder of her eight published ...
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