Search - Deborah Howell, Richard Fuchs :: Baroque for the Mass: Ursuline Composers of the 17th Century

Isabella Leonarda (1620-1704) and Maria Peruchona (ca.1652-after 1709) were but two of many northern Italian women composers who published music during the 17th century. They lived just a few miles from one another in towns situated northwest of Milan. Both composed music in the Baroque style, using liturgical texts as well as original texts drawn from the spiritual and devotional language of the time. Both belonged to religious organizations called Collegio di Sant'Orsola, foundations of a new non-monastic style of religious life that attracted large numbers of women in the 17th and 18th centuries. Leonarda published over 200 musical works in the course of her lifetime, making her one of the most prolific women composers of her age. Peruchona published a single opus containing eighteen pieces. Both composers lived at a time of great musical activity, when more women emerged in Italy as composers than at any previous period in Western music history. Largely ignored in the centuries that followed, the music of these women is being rediscovered only in our time. Not only is the artistic merit of their work finding renewed appreciation, but so too is its ability to find a response in the human spirit. Recording producer: Marnie Hall. "Mass" recorded by Malcolm Addey at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas, 1982. Motets and anthem recorded by Marnie Hall, in the Colgate Rochester Divinity School chapel, Rochester, New York, 1998. Editing, mastering and graphic design: Marnie Hall. Cover: "Nuns in Choir," Master of St. Jerome, ca. 1421, by permission of the British Library. This recording is made possible with public funds from The New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. Additional funding provided by the Arkansas Arts Council, Lily Peter and Dilly Patrick © Leonarda Productions, Inc., 1998. All rights reserved. Made in USA.