Book contents
- Barbara Strozzi in Context
- Composers in Context
- Barbara Strozzi in Context
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Musical Examples
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Barbara Strozzi Chronology
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part IThe “Exceptional” Woman
- Part IIFamily, Sex, and the Problem of Women in Seicento Venice
- Part IIIGender Ideology and the Venetian Academies
- Part IVContextualizing Strozzi’s Music
- Chapter 16The Religious Landscape of Early Modern Venice
- Chapter 17The Sacred Context for Strozzi’s Opus 5
- Chapter 18Strozzi and the Habsburg Connection
- Chapter 19The French Context for Barbara Strozzi’s “Sul Rodano severo”
- Chapter 20Sketching a Context for the Refrain Structures in Barbara Strozzi’s Opus 1
- Part VPoetry and Music
- Part VIStrozzi and Material Culture
- Part VIIPerforming Strozzi
- Afterword
- Further Reading
- Index
Chapter 20 - Sketching a Context for the Refrain Structures in Barbara Strozzi’s Opus 1
from Part IV - Contextualizing Strozzi’s Music
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 March 2026
Book contents
- Barbara Strozzi in Context
- Composers in Context
- Barbara Strozzi in Context
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Musical Examples
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Barbara Strozzi Chronology
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part IThe “Exceptional” Woman
- Part IIFamily, Sex, and the Problem of Women in Seicento Venice
- Part IIIGender Ideology and the Venetian Academies
- Part IVContextualizing Strozzi’s Music
- Chapter 16The Religious Landscape of Early Modern Venice
- Chapter 17The Sacred Context for Strozzi’s Opus 5
- Chapter 18Strozzi and the Habsburg Connection
- Chapter 19The French Context for Barbara Strozzi’s “Sul Rodano severo”
- Chapter 20Sketching a Context for the Refrain Structures in Barbara Strozzi’s Opus 1
- Part VPoetry and Music
- Part VIStrozzi and Material Culture
- Part VIIPerforming Strozzi
- Afterword
- Further Reading
- Index
Summary
This essay reviews some of the music that Barbara Strozzi may have heard in Venetian churches and homes or sung and studied with her teachers, Nicolò Fontei and Francesco Cavalli. It introduces the terms “madrigal,” “aria,” “motet,” and “cantata” and considers the importance of guitar accompaniment in determining changes in aria styles in the 1620s and 1630s. In particular, I trace the use of refrains in both strophic arias and more complex through-composed pieces, a technique that was to prove important in the music of Strozzi’s Op. 1 (1644). Finally, I speculate on the identity of the lover Tirsi in the second of Strozzi’s Madrigali.
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- Barbara Strozzi in Context , pp. 208 - 216Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
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