Search - Barbara Strozzi, Mary Nichols, Deborah Roberts :: Barbara Strozzi: Vocal Music

Of the several female composers who published their works in 17th-century Italy (an unusually free time and place for creative women), none was more celebrated or (arguably) more skilled than Barbara Strozzi, adopted (and probably actual, though illegitimate) daughter of a Venetian noble and man of letters. La Strozzi was famed as a virtuoso singer and wrote music largely for herself to perform (occasionally with colleagues); her solos, duets, and trios have vocal fireworks to match those written for the Ladies of Ferrara 80 years earlier, but with more interesting and unusual harmonies and original texts (often written by her father). Deborah Roberts, resident high soprano of the Tallis Scholars, formed the ensemble Musica Secreta specifically to perform this sort of repertory: for the most part she and her colleagues take to Strozzi's music with ease. Mary Nichols sounds somewhat uncomfortable in her two solos, but her fresh, youthful contralto is a joy to hear in ensemble pieces; Roberts and soprano Suzie LeBlanc (who often sounds strikingly like Emma Kirkby) don't quite have all the Italianate brio one could imagine but execute Strozzi's virtuosic writing easily and beautifully. --Matthew Westphal