Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677), painted by Bernardo Strozzi
We spent a very pleasant evening at “The Wig” enjoying some early Baroque music, all composed by women.
Roberta Invernizzi and her gang performed the work of four composers:
Janie and I had enjoyed a lunchtime concert of the latter composer’s work only a year or so ago, at the hands of Nevermind – click here or below:
Strozzi and Caccini provided the songs – I suppose I should call them madrigals from that era. They were all operatic in style, which suits Roberta Invernizzi’s theatrical delivery and powerful soprano voice.
Invernizzi was ably supported by period instrumentalists, all extremely capable on their instruments. Two theorboes and a harp seems almost an embarrassment of plucked-string-riches, but the sound was lovely so we wallowed in the excess.
In truth, to our taste, the trio sonatas and passacaille of Leonarda and Jacquet De La Guerre respectively were more to our taste than the madrigals, but we enjoyed the whole concert.
Here is an example of a Leonarda sonata – coincidentally from an album primarily containing Roberta Invernizzi but not on this instrumental piece:
Below, from a separate recording, is Roberta Invernizzi singing Strozzi’s Sino Alla Morte, one of the madrigals we heard:
Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall stub for this concert. It includes a link to the programme which you can also find here.
It was a relatively short concert, 70 minutes, but short can also be sweet. This concert certainly was that.