Barbara Strozziaus barock

Barbara Strozzi (baptised 6 August 1619 in Venice; † 11 November 1677 in Padua) was an Italian singer (soprano) and composer of the Baroque period.

Life

Barbara Strozzi was born in Venice in 1619. She was the adopted daughter and probably the biological daughter of the lawyer, poet and librettist Giulio Strozzi (1583-1652), and his domestic servant, Isabella Griega. Giulio Strozzi founded the “Accademia degli Unisoni” in 1637, before whose members Barbara Strozzi recited and sang her own works. She set texts by her father and other members of Venetian academies to music. In addition to her father, her musical teachers were Francesco Cavalli and Antonio Cesti.

She had four children (two sons, two daughters) with Giovanni Paolo Vidman, a married nobleman 14 years her senior, but did not live with him, but continued to live in domestic community with her parents and children, most recently from 1650 in a house of her own in the Corte del Remer in Cannaregio.

Strozzi composed mainly for her own use, that is, for solo soprano. The instrumentation she preferred was for one singing voice, two melody instruments and basso continuo. Her compositions show that she was familiar with the stylistic means common at the time; they have similarities with early opera. The virtuoso bass lines in particular are individually shaped. The treatment of dissonance often deviates from the rules of the strict movement for the sake of the tone-painting presentation of the text. Barbara Strozzi uses the “genere guerriero” several times.
Source Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Strozzi