SACRIFICIUM ….women’s stories….

With Lore Binon (soprano), Sofie Vanden Eynde (theorbo and artistic direction), Sarah Ridy (triple harp), Lies Wyers (viola da gamba & lirone), Bart Jacobs (harpsichord & organ), Lidewij Van der Voort (baroque violin)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VtDMwNnPCY

Exploring the themes of love and sacrifice, I can’t help but linger on the work of Francesca Caccini. Her dramatic, expressive, and deeply emotional style is as comfortable with rejuvenating Old Testament scenes, as it is with devotional ecstasy or depicting Christ’s agony on the cross, without ever forgetting the pain of unrequited earthly love.

Only the first book of her songs, il primo libro delle musiche, survives. It contains both secular and religious music — an interesting, though not unusual, combination in the 17th century.

Yet if we take F. Caccini’s work as a point of departure for a voyage of discovery through the oeuvre of other 17th century female composers, these themes take on an entirely different hue. For a woman not only to compose, but have her compositions performed in public, was by no means self-evident. F. Caccini was able to live a fairly conventional life; she was, after all, the daughter of the influential Giulio. But B. Strozzi never married, though she did bear four children; and, based on a painting in which she is shown dressed in rather little, historians have wondered whether acting as a courtesan or prostitute might not have been her main source of income. Other female composers had entered a convent and taken vows. Was this the only way for them to be both women and professional musicians? Or was it the love of God that inspired their divine compositions?

This programme was created at the Festival van Vlaanderen “Mechelen hoort stemmen” in April 2017, and was be performed again at the Valletta International Baroque Festival Malta in January 2019.

Music by F. Caccini, I. Leonarda, B. Strozzi