Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677) was born in
Venice to Isabella Garzoni, a servant who was in the employ of Giulio Strozzi,
a poet/librettist and an influential figure on the innovative new opera art
form. In 1634, from when Barbara was fifteen, Giulio had her sing at his
at-home accademia meetings. The attendees - writers, thinkers, and
artists of the first rank - were awed and inspired by her artistry. She was
educated and immersed in a vibrant artistic environment mostly inaccessible to
women of her time, when professional female musicians were often stigmatized as
disreputable. Strozzi studied with such eminent composers as Francesco Cavalli,
becoming an influential Venetian composer and singer, recognized for her
significant contribution to solo vocal music of the mid-17th century. Barbara
Strozzi published several works, beginning with her first collection of
madrigals in 1644, then composing throughout her life. Her oeuvre includes
cantatas and sacred works. Indeed, she published more cantatas than any of her
contemporaries in Italy, male or female. Her work was published prolifically
during her lifetime. It was the composer Nicolò Fontei who referred to Strozzi
as "la virtuosissima cantatrice" , (the most virtuosic
singer.)
"Barbara Strozzi: virtuosissima
cantatrice and her Venetian milieu" was one of several events of the 5th
"Witches?" Festival. The festival, directed by Prof. David Shemer and
under the auspices of the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra, showcases female
composers, performers, muses and the influence of women in music and culture.
Featuring Daniela Skorka (soprano), Kati Debretzeni (Baroque violin) and David
Shemer (harpsichord), this concert took place at the Jerusalem International
YMCA on October 17th, 2026.
The event opened with Kati
Debretzeni's performance of her own arrangement for solo violin of
Strozzi’s Che sì può fare (What can one do?), an aria from Opus 8
(Strozzi's final opus.) Showing the listener through the various textures and
gestures of the variations of this (tear-motif) ostinato-based aria of the lamento
genre, her playing was finespun and subtle. Daniela Skorka's performance of
Strozzi arias and cantata excerpts was vibrant, dramatic and convincing as
she fully addressed each emotional gesture and the dynamic contrasts that serve
to increase the dramatic element and create an atmosphere of unpredictability.
The unprepared dissonances and dissonances between the voice and accompaniment
coloured and endorsed the songs' extreme emotions. The texts are about love -
mainly misery in love and unrequited love. Strozzi's style merges older,
declamatory vocal styles with free-flowing melodic invention. It anticipates
18th-century bel canto. The music's technical demands indicate that Strozzi
must have had superb breath control. At the festival concert, the artists'
performance of Strozzi's music was an intoxicating whirl of dramatic gestures,
colourful emotion, twirls of melismatic flights and sensuality. In L'Eraclito
amoroso" (Heraclitus in Love), a cantata from "Cantate,
ariette e duetti" Op.2 (1651), its ostinato also based on the"
tear motif", Skorka and Shemer's rendition, carefully paced, was fraught
with yearning, its expressive musical gestures including plunging chromatic
intervals and dramatic, wide vocal leaps incorporated to heighten the emotional
intensity of the text. And, as no concert of Venetian vocal music would
be complete without a work of Claudio Monteverdi, we heard Et è pur dunque
vero (And so it is true) from the composer's Scherzi musicali (1632.)
Scored in strophic-variation form for solo voice, a treble instrument and basso
continuo, Skorka and Debretzeni's spontaneous and finely ornamented treatment
of the alternating solo sections created pleasure and interest.
Remaining in Venice, the program included
three instrumental works. Of the short-lived composer Dario Castello
(1602-1631), Debretzeni and Shemer performed Sonata seconda from Sonate
Concertate in Stil Moderno II (1629), taking their inspiration to create
its many moods and dynamic variety from Castello's imaginative and virtuoso
style, one that was typical of the early Baroque Venetian composers. Biagio
Marini (1594-1663), a famous violinist, settled in Venice, for a while playing
at Saint Mark's Basilica in Venice under the direction of Monteverdi. In
Marini's Sonata quarta 'per il violino per sonar con due corde'
(sounding two strings), written in three contrasting sections, each featuring a
different tempo, time signature, and technique, Shemer and Debretzeni dipped
into the rich palette of the sonata, a work referring to styles from the newly
emerging opera genre, with some passages even suggesting the speech-like,
rhythmically free recitative. Calling for tremolo and various techniques
showcasing unique violin techniques, this sonata is unique in the introduction
of the use of double stopping. The artists' reading of it included some
marvellous, elaborate ornamenting. Organist, lutenist and harpsichordist
Giovanni Picchi is best known for his keyboard dance music. From Intavolatura
di Balli d'Arpicordo (1621), Picchi's diverse
collection of character dances representing different European traditions,
Shemer gave a fetching, unmannered performance of Ballo alla Polacca, Ballo
Ongaro and Todescha, the compositional style pointing to the kind of
music being played in Venetian salons in the late 16th and early 17th
centuries.
An event of interest and outstanding
performance.
