Concerto delle donne

The Estense palace in Ferrara, the focal point of activity for the concerto delle donne

The concerto delle donne (lit. consort of ladies) was a group of professional female singers in the late Renaissance court of Ferrara, renowned for their technical and artistic virtuosity. The main ensemble was founded by Duke Alfonso II of Ferrara in 1580 and was active until the court was dissolved in 1597. Giacomo Vincenti, a music publisher, praised the women as "virtuose giovani" (virtuosic youths), echoing the sentiments of contemporary diarists and commentators.

The ensemble started out as an amateur group of high-placed courtiers who performed for each other in the duke's musica secreta. Later the ensemble evolved into an all-female group of professional musicians who performed concerts for members of the inner circle of the court and important visitors.

The concerto delle donne revolutionised the role of women in professional music, and continued the tradition of the Este court as a center for music. Word of the ladies' ensemble spread across Italy, inspiring imitations in the powerful northern courts of the Medici and Orsini. The founding of the concerto delle donne was the most important event in secular Italian music in the late sixteenth century, foreshadowing the imminent invention of opera.

History

First period

The concerto started out as part of the duke's musica secreta, a regular series of chamber music concerts performed for an exclusive audience. To maintain secrecy, the music, composed by Luzzasco Luzzaschi, was not published until after the duke's death. The concerto delle donne was originally comprised of talented but amateur members of the court: the sisters Lucrezia and Isabella Bendidio, Leonora Sanvitale, Vittoria Bentivoglio, and the bass Giulio Cesare Brancaccio, who was specifically brought to the court in 1577 for his singing ability). Only later did professionals replace these original singers. The first recorded performance by the professional ladies was on November 20 1580; by carnival season in 1581, they were performing together regularly. According to Grana, a contemporary correspondent, "Signora Machiavella, Signora Isabella, and Signora Vittoria have abandoned the field, having lost the backing of Luzzaschi".

Second period

The new concerto delle donne was created by Alfonso in part to amuse his new wife, Margherita Gonzaga d'Este. It was viewed as an extraordinary and new phenomenon, and most witnesses did not connect the second period of the concerto delle donne with the group of ladies who sang in the musica secreta.

The most prominent member of the new ensemble was Laura Peverara, followed by Livia d'Arco and Anna Guarini, daughter of the prolific poet Giovanni Battista Guarini. Guarini wrote poems for many of the madrigals which were set for the ensemble, and choreographed scenes for the balletto delle donne. Some believe Tarquinia Molza sang with the group, but others believe she was involved solely as an advisor and instructor. Whether Tarquinia Molza ever performed with them or not, she was ousted from any role in the group after her affair with the composer Giaches de Wert came to light. Luzzasco Luzzaschi directed and composed music to showcase the ensemble. He also accompanied them on the harpsichord. Ippolito Fiorini was the maestro di capella, in charge of the entire court's musical activities. In addition to his duties to the overall court, he accompanied the concerto on the archlute.

The singers of the second era of the concerto delle donne were officially ladies-in-waiting of Duchess Margherita Gonzaga d'Este, but were hired primarily as singers. Laura Peverara's musical abilities prompted the duke to specifically ask his wife Margherita Gonzaga to bring Peverara from Mantua as part of her retinue. The new singers played instruments, including the lute, harp, and viol, but focused their energies on developing vocal virtuosity. This skill became highly prized in the mid-sixteenth century, beginning with basses. The ladies' musical duties included performing with the duchess' balletto delle donne, a group of female dancers who frequently crossdressed.

Despite their upper-class background, the singers would not have been welcomed into the court's inner circle had they not been such skilled performers. Livia d'Arco belonged to the nobility, but a minor family only. Laura Peverara was the daughter of a wealthy merchant, and Tarquinia Molza came from a prominent family of artists.

Gold scudi, minted for the Este court, were part of the compensation members of the concerto delle donne recieved. They were also given apartments at the palace pictured above.

The duke did not announce the creation of a professional, all-female ensemble; instead, the group infiltrated the musica secreta, so that after the dismissal of Brancaccio for insubordination in 1583, no more male members of the musica secreta were hired. The women were paid salaries and received other benefits, such as dowries and apartments in the ducal palace. Peverara received 300 scudi a year, and lodging in the ducal palace for herself, her husband, and her mother - as well as a dowry of 10,000 scudi upon her marriage.

The women would perform up to six hours a day, either singing their own florid repertoire from memory, sight-reading from partbooks, or participating in the balletti as singers and dancers. Although one writer posits that the women of the concerti delle donne provided sexual favors for members of the court, there is no evidence for this, and the circumstances of their marriages and dowries argues against this interpretation.

In 1597, Alfonso II died without an heir, legitimate or otherwise. (The Este family had a long history of illegitimate heirs.) Control of the city reverted to Pope Clement VIII in 1598, through a combination of "firm diplomacy and unscrupulous pressure." The court was dissolved, and the Concerto delle donne disbanded.

Influence

The concerto delle donne was a revolutionary musical establishment; its success took women from obscurity to "the apex of the profession." Women were openly brought to court to train them as professional musicians. By 1600, a woman could have a viable career as a musician, independent of her husband or father.

Not only was the concerto a success musically, it brought Alfonso and his court international prestige, it was a powerful tool of propaganda, and it was discussed throughout Italy and southern Germany. The concerto delle donne was so influential and often imitated that it became a cliché of northern Italian courts. These singers helped effect a shift in women's role in music. The concerto delle donne inspired the creation of numerorus other ensembles of women as well as compositions written specifically for them, resulting in far more women as professional singers, and more music for them to perform.

Music

Luzzachi's Quinto libero dei madrigali for five voices.

The greatest musical innovation of the concerto delle donne was the multiplying of the ornamented upper voice, from one voice singing diminutions above an instrumental accompaniment, to two or three voices singing varying dimunitions at once. This practice, which listeners found remarkable, was imitated by composers.

A number of composers wrote music either inspired by the concerto delle donne or specifically for them. Aspects which mark pieces as having being written specifically for the group include a high tessitura and a virtuosic, florid style, as well as a large range. Lodovico Agostini's third book of madrigals was perhaps the first publication to exploit the new singing style made famous by the group. It contains pieces dedicated to Guarini and Peverara, as well as to Luzzaschi. Carlo Gesualdo wrote music for the group in 1594 while in Ferrara marrying the Duke's niece Leonora d’Este. Giaches de Wert also wrote for the group. Claudio Monteverdi's Canzonette a tre voci was probably influenced by the "Ladies of Ferrara". Although works for three voices were most clearly written for this new group, solo singing with accompaniment and diminutions also remained an important skill, one for which Laura Peverara was frequently lauded.

Newcomb uses Luzzaschi's book of madrigals for one, two, and three sopranos with keyboard accompaniment published in 1601 as the exemplar of the musical style of the concerto delle donne. These pieces were probably written in the 1580s. Alessandro Striggio, in response to requests from Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1584, wrote letters about the concerto delle donne, and also wrote pieces in imitation of their style so that the duke could start his own concerto delle donne. The works he mentions are an ornamented four voice madrigal for three sopranos and a dialogue with imitative diminutions for two sopranos. He mentions that he forgot the intabulation for the first of these in Mantua, and says that Giulio Caccini, himself a skilled singer, could play the bass part on either lute or harpsichord.

The output of the ducal printer, Vittorio Baldini, was largely of music written for the concerto delle donne, including the madrigals of the foremost madrigalists, Luzzasco Luzzaschi, Carlo Gesualdo, and Alfonso Fontanelli. His first work for the duke was Il lauro secco (1582), which was followed by Il lauro verde (1583), both of which contained music by the foremost madrigalists of the time.

Although the music written for the concerto focused on high voices, there is no evidence that castrati or falsettists were ever used, a contrast with Margherita's father's court, where Guglielmo Gonzaga actively sought out castrati.

During the concerts themselves members of the select group allowed to see the concerto would sometimes play cards. Orazio Urbani, having waited several years to see the concerto, complained that he was forced to play cards while listening to the women, as well as admire and praise their music. After at least one of the concerts, as a continuation of the entertainment, a dwarf couple danced.

After having earlier seen the concerto delle donne in Ferrara, Giulio Caccini created a rival group, sponsored by the Medici family, made up of Caccini's family and a pupil, who traveled to Paris and performed for Maria de' Medici. Francesca Caccini had much success working in the style of the concerto delle donne, both as a composer and a singer. Rival groups were created in Rome by the Orsini family, and Mantua by the Gonzaga family. There was even a rival group in Ferrara itself, created by Alfonso's sister Lucrezia d'Este, Duchess of Urbino. She had lived at the Este court since 1576, and shortly after Margherita's marriage to Alfonso in 1579, Alfonso and his henchmen killed Lucrezia's lover, straining relations within the royal family. Barbara Strozzi is thought to be the last of the composers and performers in this style, which by the middle of the seventeenth century was seen as archaic.

The women wrote out many of their own ornaments, which were greatly admired. The specific ornaments used by the concerto delle donne mentioned by sources in 1581 are passaggi, cadenze, and tirate, popular 16th century ornaments. The accenti however, a staple of early Baroque ornamentation, are absent from the list. The musical scores and madrigal text were made available to listeners. The music which the ladies sang together included all of the diminutions and ornaments which were sung, changing the nature of the ornaments from improvisations to highly worked out musical forms, orchestrated mainly by the composer. This may or may not have been the case for the pieces which the women sang solo. In 1592 Giulio Caccini claims he was asked by Duke Alfonso to teach his ladies the new accenti and passaggi styles of ornamentation.

References

• From Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy, grovemusic.com (subscription access). All last accessed April 11 2006.
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  • Fenlon, Iain. "Lodovico Agostini."
  • Harris, Ellen T. "Virtuosa."
  • Hitchcock, H. Wiley. "Caccini(2) Francesca Caccini."
  • Newcomb, Anthony. "Tarquinia Molza."
  • Tick, Judith. "Women in music, §II: Western classical traditions in Europe & the USA 3. 1500–1800."
• LaMay, Thomasin (2002). "Madalena Casulana: My body knows unheard of songs". Gender, Sexuality, and Early Music: 41–72. ISBN 0815333943. {{cite journal}}: |format= requires |url= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Haskell, Francis (1980). Patrons and Painters:A study in the relations between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the Baroque. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300025408.
• Knighton, Tess (1998). Companion to Medieval and Renaissance music. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 0520210816. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Newcomb, Anthony (1980). The Madrigal at Ferrara, 1579-1597. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691091250.
• Pendle, Karin. Women and Music: A History. Indiana University Press, Bloomington IN. (2001) ISBN 025321422X
• Sherr, Richard (1980). "Gugliemo Gonzaga and the Castrati". Renaissance Quarterly. Vol. 33 (No. 1): pp. 33-56. ISSN 00344338. {{cite journal}}: |format= requires |url= (help); |issue= has extra text (help); |pages= has extra text (help); |volume= has extra text (help); Cite has empty unknown parameters: |quotes= and |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

• Springfels, Mary. "Newberry Consort Repertoire - Daughters of the Muse". Newberry Library. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• Women Making Music: the Western Musical Tradition, 1150-1950 ed. J. Bowers and J. Tick. "Courtesans, Muses, or Musicians: Professional women musicians in sixteenth-century Italy." pp. 90-115 by Anthony Newcomb. Urbana, IL. 1986. ISBN 0252014707

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