Barbara Strozzi’s “Lagrime Mie” (My Tears), Portrait by Bernardo Strozzi (no relation)

Being a woman, I am concerned about publishing this work. Would that it lie safely under a golden oak tree and not be endangered by swords of slander which have already been drawn to battle against it.  (Barbara Strozzi’s preface to her first book of madrigals)

The painter’s idea for one exposed breast a rumor that haunts Strozzi for the next five centuries. Though she published 8 books of madrigals, more than any of her contemporaries in music-rich Venice, she is still best known as both courtesan and composer. The sheet of music to her right balanced (or offset, undercut?) by the flowers in her hair. Yes, yes, she seems to express with an imperfectly masked exasperation beaten down by time and experience: too many see me only that way.  

Notes as tears fall in a long, chromatic descent of an octave with two pauses for extended trills (a more intense weeping). This cascade of notes or tears finally ends with an extended clash of dissonance before resolving into a temporary moment of repose. Strozzi was called “la virtuosissima cantatrice” — the most dazzling singer — by her contemporaries. I imagine her singing her own compositions much as Mozart played his piano concertos before audiences who were swept away. That long held note on “dolere” (pain) while the shifting harmonies and bass line add evolving shades of emotion to the pain she seems to hold forever. The word “dolente” (grieving) repeated in phrases of one long note and two short ones again and again, each time descending a step as if pausing on a staircase unwilling to go down while fully aware the next step is down. The descent continued long after her death.

A moving performance of Strozzi’s “Lagrime Mie” from Brandon Acker’s YouTube channel.

* Barbara’s Strozzi’s inventiveness, daring, and wide range of musical expression points to her as one of the most important composers of the early Baroque, though her music was largely ignored for centuries. The artist, Bernardo Strozzi, is not related to Barbara Strozzi as far as we can tell.  

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Image of Bernardo Strozzi’s artwork taken from Wikimedia Commons.