Maddalena Casulana

The Italian composer of the late Renaissance Maddalena Casulana Mezari (* uncertainly, 1544 in the province of Siena, Italy, † unknown) was also a singer, lutenist and composition teacher. She has published in the years 1566-1586 several volumes 3-5 -voice madrigals, which appeared primarily in Venice. These are regarded as the earliest printed music of a woman.

• 2.1 The Munich Wedding

Life, travel, work

And place of birth and date of death and place of Maddalena Casulana remained unknown. About her life, you just know that she was living as a composer in various places, taught and performed as a singer and lutenist. The analysis of ancient and modern sources about their appearances in the cities of Vicenza, Venice, Siena, Munich, Verona, Perugia, Brescia, Innsbruck, Florence, Vienna, Ferrara, Milan (List of places mentioned ), as well as about their possible participation in the Accademia Vice Tina is not complete, and gives a total picture is not uniform.

Maddalena Casulana is considered the first woman to be made ​​public its status as a composer, multiplied by their works by the pressure. The latest 1591 as displayed under their name in two volumes 4 -voice Madrigali spirituality are lost, and therefore do not seem to authorize clear. The attributed to her portrait, which ( only ) was installed in 1650 within 44 musicians representations in the newly established instrument chamber of the Innsbruck Hofburg is not yet confirmed. Due to their second name " Mezari ", which additionally appear from the 1580s, after the composer had previously published only in " Casulana ", it is believed that she married in the meantime; However, neither wedding date yet her husband's name were known. Your double name is specified as " Signora Maddalena di Casulana Mezari " or " Maddalena Mezari detta Casulana Vice Tina ," the latter. Featured on the cover of their 3rd volume Madrigals Occasionally it is listed only under their second name Mezari.

Her works - all ensemble chants - were printed almost entirely in Venice, the earliest part of the collection " Il Desiderio " in 1566 and 1567, 1st and 3rd band, along with works by famous contemporary composers such as Cipriano de Rore and Orlando di Lasso; Maddalena Casulana was as a composer that is already known beyond the borders of Italy. She taught a prominent student, actor, poet and musician Antonio Molino (about 1496-1571 ), who called in 1568 his printing plant I dilettevoli madrigali (Venice 1568) explicitly as his composition teacher.

On February 22, 1568 Munich Hofkapellmeister Orlando di Lasso led with his band for the wedding of Duke Wilhelm V of Bavaria and Renata of Lorraine, among many other compositions, works of two composers on, these were Willaert Catarina, daughter of the famous Venetian St. Mark's Basilica - Adrian Willaert and bandmaster Maddalena Casulana. According to testimony of a court musician Massimo Troiano, who witnessed the " magnificent musical presentation of" the feast as a singer and meticulously chronicled, she was a " > virtuosissima < on the Lute ". After his testimony sounded as Tafelmusik Latin motets of the two composers, including Casulanas 5 -voice works Nile mage iucundum, of which only the text of Nicolò Stopio received.

After Casulanas suffix " Vice Tina " this city was probably her birth or principal place of action. This name met for the first time in 1569, after which she was apparently an honorary citizen of Vicenza. From about 1570 Casulana is called as a singer and composer in the chamber music of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II in Vienna. For more information about this but was not known. There should be a previously unknown track to Casulanas " unknown " decade from 1570, the information gap leads the secondary literature consistently.

Giambattista Crispolti handed her appearance at a banquet in Perugia 1582. In August of the same year it is a cable laid by Angelo Gardano Edition with 3 voice madrigals Philippe de Montes dedicated. The three voices at that time was particularly timely because of the famous Concerto delle Donne di Ferrara.

In Germany, the name of the composer takes 160 years later with the display of their first band madrigals in Musicalisches Lexicon of the Weimar Kapellmeister, organist and musicologist Johann Gottfried Walther (Leipzig 1732) with the following entry:

" Casulana ( Maddalena ) of their composition are at. 1568 four-part to Venice Madrigalien bey Hieron. [ Imo ] Scoto been printed. see Draudi Bibl.Class.p. 1628. "

Academic Activities

Casulanas operation at the Olympic Academy ( Accademia = Vicentina ), which is connected with the famous name of Andrea Palladio, is " considered at least since the 1580s " by Gabriele Nogalski. Another academic connection seems to have existed at the Accademia Filarmonica di Verona, where it 1582/83 (?) Concerted and their " patron" Mario Bevilaqua dedicated her third Madrigal band. On January 18, 1583 Casulana played music at a concert at the Accademia Vice Tina. The occasion is unknown. The probability of a connection Casulanas to this Academy in Vicenza is corroborated by their possession - at least temporarily - a portrait of the artist.

Composer

Maddalena Casulana is described in the literature several times as a confident, professional composer, also with the fact that they apparently became the first woman of the opportunity to be known by the pressure made ​​use. Your cooperation with the Venetian poet and actor Antonio Molino, own, written by her texts, of which Molino three set to music, show that it was in the middle of the discourse to a novel merging of text and music, which led to the " monody ". It should be found for example in the dedications to her other material. Your traditional, secured for her compositions are almost exclusively 3-5 -voice secular madrigals and almost all were in Venice, the city of the early printed music published. The anonymous portrait (?) It provides with a view to the sky looking dar. rather than religious artist

Madrigals were then the highest secular musical art form that propelled the styles moderno and the " monody ". Whether their solo singing lectures, which they accompanied with the sounds that were adaptations of their own madrigals, or possibly now lost solo compositions, is not known. Such a presentation of " Casolana famosa " at a Banquet in Perugia in 1582 is described in an old source of Giambattista Crispoldi as "Canto al liuto di musica divinamente " (see above).

On August 20, 1582 her dedicierte the publisher Angelo Gardano a publisher band with Madrigali a tre ( 3-part ) Philippe de Montes and thus linked the request that it may also compose three -voice madrigals. The 3- consistency made ​​about 10 years later by the three singers of the famous Concerti delle Donne Ferrara school.

That Casulana was not only welcome as a composer in the world of men, is already read in its dedication in 1568, because it justifies the dedication of their first independent band to Isabella de ' Medici ORSINA Il primo libro di madrigali a quattro voci follows (excerpt):

" [ ... ] To be ( at least in the form in which it is granted to me in the profession of musician ) to show the world the foolish mistake of men who magnanimously believe themselves that they alone were the masters of high intellectual abilities. And they think that these skills can not be present among women in equal measure. "

We conclude that she knew as a composer difficulties that had to do with their composing as a woman together. Nevertheless, followed by a second volume Madrigals 1570 and a third in 1583 Il primo libro di madrigali a cinque voci, that band, its title is called " Maddalena Mezari detta Casulana Vice Tina " from which it is concluded that she was married. In total, over 65 madrigals were published by her.

Her works also learned new editions, so Il primo libro di madrigali a quattro voci, which experienced a second edition in 1586, as well as a 3 -voice madrigal, which is known only in its 2nd edition from 1586.

The Munich Wedding

This 14t -day glorious feast of Bavarian Erbherzogs Wilhelm V and Renata of Lorraine in February 1568 treated Horst light man in his book The Munich Royal Wedding 1568 (1980). The original quote is from 1568

" On the same evening, at the sumptuous dinner, let the illustrious Orlando di Lasso, in addition to other entertainment and great music for the confection a five-part composition of the Signora Maddalena Casulana present, which was listened to with the utmost attention. The sound of this great music, I can not let you hear; [ ... ] These highly gifted woman has put it [the text] in music, the fine art, nature and civilization is known to all noble spirits of our happy age. "

Research needs

• The poet set to music of their texts and their own need of investigation.
• Likewise Casulanas activities at the academies of Vicenza and Verona.
• The dedication texts to the composer and apparently their own hold further details of their whereabouts and other life circumstances.
• The famous people of their intercourse and their connection to it should be investigated.
• About the publication places and the number of requirements are expected more information to be found.
• The portrait of Casulana has yet to be confirmed.

Works

• 5 madrigals in collection / compilation Il Desiderio, Venice, Girolamo Scotto 1566 and 1567 (after Pendle ).
• Il primo libro di madrigali a quattro voci, Venice in 1568, dedicated to Isabella de ' Medici ORSINA. 2nd edition 1583rd
• Il secondo libro di madrigali a quattro voci Venice in 1570, dedicated to Francesco Pesaro, City Captain of Vicenza (after MGG 1) or Milan Don Antonio Londonio ( according to Grove, 2001 ).
• Il primo libro di madrigali a cinque voci, Ferrara (? After Pendle ) in 1583, dedicated to Mario Bevilaqua, patron of the Accademia Filarmonica di Verona ( according to Grove, 2001 ).
• 3 -voice madrigal in anthology Il Gaudio, Venice 1586, only 2nd edition known.

• 5 - part Latin motet " Nile mage iucundum " performed in February 1568 as Tafelmusik at the Munich wedding.

• Madrigali spirituali, 4 voices, 2 volumes, catalog entry in 1591, quoted in Michiati, Vol II, IV, V ( according to Grove in 2001 and Pendle ).

• Beatrice Pescerelli, ed: I Madrigali di Maddalena Casulana. Leo S. Olschki, Florence 1979. With biographical text.