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Heroines of Love and Loss


"the striking feature of the disc is the array of powerful pieces by ltalian women composers", Gramophone
Diapason d'Or

The women appearing before our ears throughout this programme range from the Virgin Mary and Dido, queen of Carthage, to Shakespeare’s Desdemona and the unfortunate Anne Boleyn, waiting for her execution in the Tower of London in 1536. But the disc also features four other heroines – the Italian composers Claudia Sessa, Francesca Caccini, Lucrezia Vizzana and Barbara Strozzi. All active between 1590 – 1675, they will have required great courage to rise above the social conventions of the time, but this surprisingly productive period for female composers also offered an opportunity that would disappear in later centuries: the all-female environment provided by the convent. More than half of the women who published music before 1700 were nuns, including Sessa and Vizzana, who are here represented by brief meditations on the suffering and death of Christ. Caccini and Strozzi, on the other hand, lived very much in the secular world – Caccini at the Florentine court and Strozzi as a free-lance musician and composer in Venice. Unhindered by the restrictions imposed by the church on sacred music they both adhered to the new stile moderno championed by Claudio Monteverdi. Celebrated for their singing, they composed vocal music which makes ‘the words the mistress of the harmony and not the servant’, to quote Monteverdi’s brother Giulio Cesare. The soprano Ruby Hughes has already made her name for herself in a wide-ranging repertoire, but has a special love for the constellation of lute, cello and voice. With Jonas Nordberg and Mime Yamahiro Brinkmann – who also contribute instrumental solos – she here revels in the dramatic and expressive potential offered by the combination, and by the music by these female composers and their English colleagues Henry Purcell and John Bennet.
 
  • STUDIO QUALITY
    File formats included in STUDIO QUALITY
    • FLAC 24-bit Stereo
    • FLAC 24-bit Surround 5.0
    • FLAC 16-bit Stereo
    • MP3 Stereo
  • CD QUALITY | MP3
    File formats included in CD QUALITY | MP3
    • FLAC 16-bit Stereo
    • MP3 Stereo
$ 17.12
 
Extra material for download
 
 
  Composer: Kapsberger, Giovanni Girolamo
01 Toccata arpeggiata 02:31 $ 0.64 USD
 
 
  Composer: Purcell, Henry
02 Oh! lead me to some peaceful gloom 03:53 $ 0.94 USD
 
 
  Composer: Vivaldi, Antonio
  Cello sonata in G minor, RV 42 15:38
03 I. Preludio 04:01 $ 0.98 USD
 
 
  Composer: Bennet, John
04 Venus’ Birds 03:15 $ 0.80 USD
 
 
  Composer: Vivaldi, Antonio
  Cello sonata in G minor, RV 42 15:38
05 II. Allemanda 03:40 $ 0.89 USD
 
 
  Composer: Strozzi, Barbara
06 L’Eraclito amoroso 07:21 $ 1.78 USD
 
 
  Composer: Piccinini, Alessandro
07 Ciaccona 02:44 $ 0.68 USD
 
 
  Composer: Sessa, Claudia
08 Occhi io vissi di voi 02:03 $ 0.50 USD
 
 
  Composer: Anonymous
09 The Willow Song 03:14 $ 0.80 USD
 
 
  Composer: Caccini, Francesca
10 Lasciatemi qui solo 07:20 $ 1.80 USD
 
 
  Composer: Strozzi, Barbara
11 Lamento: Lagrime mie 07:49 $ 1.91 USD
 
 
  Composer: Vivaldi, Antonio
  Cello sonata in G minor, RV 42 15:38
12 III. Sarabanda 04:36 $ 1.11 USD
13 IV. Giga 03:21 $ 0.82 USD
 
 
  Composer: Vizzana, Lucrezia Orsina
  O Magnum Mysterium
14 O magnum mysterium 03:18 $ 0.82 USD
 
 
  Composer: Purcell, Henry
15 Dido’s Lament 04:56 $ 1.22 USD
 
 
  Composer: Anonymous
16 O death, rock me asleep 05:00 $ 1.45 USD
 
  Album total 71:28
ComposerAnonymous
Bennet, John
Caccini, Francesca
Kapsberger, Giovanni Girolamo
Piccinini, Alessandro
Purcell, Henry
Sessa, Claudia
Strozzi, Barbara
Vivaldi, Antonio
Vizzana, Lucrezia Orsina
TheorboNordberg, Jonas
SopranoHughes, Ruby
CelloMime Yamahiro-Brinkmann
Yamahiro Brinkmann, Mime
ArchluteNordberg, Jonas
LuteNordberg, Jonas

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