Volume 14, no.

1:

Desperate Measures: The Life and Music of Antonia Padoani Bembo. By Claire
Anne Fontijn. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. [xx, 372 p. ISBN-10 0-
19-513538-5; ISBN-13 978-0-19-513538-1. $45.]

Reviewed by Michele Cabrini*

1. Overview

2. Organization and Biography

3. The Music

4. Conclusions

References

1. Overview

1.1 Antonia Bembo is one of a series of important seventeenth-century women composers to

finally receive the attention she deserves. Thanks to painstaking scholarship over the course of
the last thirty years, Bembos major female contemporariesFrancesca Caccini, Barbara Strozzi,
and lisabeth Jacquet de La Guerreall have claimed their place within the musicological
Olympus. Conversely, because of a lack of crucial information, Antonia Bembo remained one of
the enigmas of music history, as one of her early scholars remarked. 1 This unfortunate state of
affairs has come to an end thanks to Claire Fontijns book. Through groundbreaking archival
findings and impeccable research, Claire Fontijn has created the composers first full-length
biography and comprehensive analytical study of her works.
2. Organization and Biography

2.1 Fontijns book is organized into two parts. The biography appears in the first two chapters,
while chapters three through seven examine Bembos music. Fontijns primary sources (in
addition to the five surviving musical manuscripts) consist of a wide variety of documentsbirth
records, letters, legal documents, and dedicatory poemsfound in the archives of Mantua,
Venice, Paris, and Pazin (Croatia); a look through this wide array of material, some handily
reproduced in the original language in an appendix, provides a glimpse into the extraordinary
challenges posed by this project. Fontijn assembles the various parts of the puzzle with
impeccable academic rigor yet with a vivid prose worthy of a mystery novel.

2.2 Bembos dedication to Louis XIV in one of the musical manuscripts is a sort of
autobiographical prcis covering the main events in the composers life: her escape from Venice,
her admiration of Louis XIV since childhood, the recognition of her talent by Louis XIV and
subsequent reward with a pension that allowed her to focus on composition and live at the Petite
Union Chrtienne. It provides the point of departure for the questions Fontijn addresses in her
book. These include the reasons for her escape, the motives behind the Kings admiration and
rewards, and circumstances regarding her musical training and her new life at the Petite Union
Chrtienne. Inspired by this dedication and by previous scholarship by Rokseth and Laini,
Fontijn undertakes her own more exhaustive study of Bembos life and music. 2 Fontijns
remarkable ability to navigate the wealth of documents allows her to create both a solid picture
and a web of enticing connections and hypotheses that add spice and strength to Bembos
biography, particularly since many of the details about the composers life will likely never be
recovered. Fontijn always elucidates her intentions and expectations clearly even in the most
complex of speculations, and this kind of authorial integrity helps the reader to maintain focus
and separate easily suppositions from facts.

2.3 The first two chapters, which deal with reconstructing the composers life and whereabouts,
constitute Fontijns groundbreaking contribution to the scholarship on Antonia Bembo. Fontijns
achievement consists not only in setting the record straight, but also in bringing the various
characters multifaceted personalities to the surface. In chapter 1 Fontijn carefully reconstructs
Bembos complex familial web, in particular the two important male figures that shaped her life:
her father and her husband. We learn about her concerned father, Giacomo Padoani, a doctor
working in Padua and Venice, who recognized his daughters musical talent and used it to boast
his own marketability during tricky negotiations with Duke Carlo II Gonzaga over a post at the
Mantuan court. For reasons not entirely clearpossibly the gossip of which he was a target, or a
general anxiety about moneythe appointment never took place. In several letters to the Duke,
Giacomo mentions his daughters singing ability (her nickname in the letters is la figlia che
canta) bragging about her desirable virtuesa thorough education and a musical training with
none other than Francesco Cavallireinforced by his careful use of genteel and desirable labels,
la figliuola (the demure, good-natured daughter) and la damigella (the damsel).

2.4 The most undesirable figure in Bembos life was clearly her husband, Lorenzo, a scoundrel
and a crook. Several key episodes chart Lorenzos problematic personality: an early legal dispute
with Antonias father, resulting in the couples eviction from her fathers house; his five-year
absence to fight in the War of Candia, resulting in further marital embitterment; Antonias
attempt to file divorce proceedings based on his infidelity and family desertion (the legal battle
employs colorfully colloquial language [p. 37]); and, the crowning achievement, a desperate
resort to embezzle public funds in order to fix his financial troubles, which ultimately cost him
dearly. He was sentenced to prison for the last thirteen years of his life. Not surprisingly, these
adversities took a toll on Antonia. Although headstrong in her youthher father even threatened
to disinherit her because of her tendency to disobedience (p. 16)Bembo was crushed first by
her father then by her husband. This situation yielded ultimately to a fundamental anxiety to
please authority, no doubt exacerbated by her status as a woman and, later, as a foreigner in a
country then often hostile to Italians. This apparent concern can be seen in the numerous
dedicatory pages and the choice of texts to her music for Louis XIV and his court, frequently
tinged by excessive adulation. Later, Bembo led a more secluded life in her new Parisian home,
the Petite Union Chrtienne, a monastic institution whose austere and regimented lifestyle suited
Bembos desire to keep a low profile with regard to her husband.

2.5 Fontijn also corrects errors about Bembos life and amends the work of nineteenth-century
historiographer Emmanuele Cicogna, who mistakenly marked Bembos death as occurring
between 1683 and 1685, presuming that it was her death that prompted the inventory of her
precious belongings. Fontijn shows that it was her absence from Venice rather than her death that
made it necessary for the official treatment and dispensation of her belongings (p. 51). The
author also brings to the fore a crucial power of attorney dated 1703, which represents the only
preserved French legal paper that mentions Bembo, shows her full signature, and confirms her
place of residence.

2.6 Another important aspect of the book is Fontijns persuasive use of circumstantial evidence
to shed light on the dating of Bembos five manuscripts. Given the wide spectrum of stylistic
variety in Bembos first opus, Le produzioni armoniche, Fontijn surmises a long period of
gestationin all likelihood over a lifetime in Venice and in Paris (p. 85). Indeed, while
some pieces suggest a connection to the earlier cantata style of the 1650s, the majority of the
music, Fontijn argues, attests to some twenty years of musical writing at the Petite Union
Chrtienne (p. 85). As for the date of the composition, Fontijn surmises the period of 1697
1701 (p. 213), given the explicit textual references in the wedding cantata to the political
marriage between Marie-Adlade and Louis, Duke of Burgundy, which took place in 1697.
Fontijn speculates the period of 17041705 for the second manuscript, which includes the Te
Deum and the Divertimento dedicated to the birth of the Duke of Brittany in the summer of 1704
(p. 133). This dating matches that in Rokseths older research, but the wealth of Venetian
correspondence newly discovered allows Fontijn to correct Rokseths hypothesis that all of
Bembos scores are autograph: indeed, the comparison between the scribal hand of the second
manuscript and Bembos own letters shows two different handwritings (pp. 17880). Regarding
LErcole amante, Fontijn points out that 1707, the date from the title page, is problematic
because it contradicts Bembos own claim that her Latin motets, likely written in 1708 as a
tribute to the kings victory of the Battle of Tortosa, truly constitute her third opus (il terzo
laboro, p. 213). For the last manuscript, a setting of Les Sept Psaulmes de David, Fontijn infers
a date of 1710, given Bembos own statement in the dedication that she had spent by then more
than half of her life in Paris (p. 214).
2.7 The book also presents a number of tempting suppositions, the most enticing of which is the
hypothesis suggesting that Francesco Corbetta, a renowned guitarist and composer who boasted
an international career, may have helped Bembo escape to Paris. The hypothesis is quite
plausible: Corbetta is mentioned in letters by a Mantuan envoy working in Venice, Antonio
Bosso, which imply an arranged matrimony between the girl who sings and Corbetta himself.
Furthermore, it is known that Corbetta had several career ties to Paris, and Fontijn links a
Venetian luthier, Domenico Selles, who held Bembos last-minute items (including a spinet)
before her escape, to Corbetta. Fontijn speculates that Bembos contention that she was
abandoned by the individual who helped her escape from Venice (p. 3) is likely a reference to
Corbettas death.

2.8 Another enticing theory concerns the intersection among the careers of Corbetta, Bembo, and
two members of the Comdie Italienne working in Paristhe actress and poet Brigida Fedeli and
her son MarcAntonio Romagnesi. There is indeed a web of connections between them: the
poetry of both Fedeli and Romagnesi matches the style of the verses in Bembos Produzioni
armoniche, whose table of contents even includes the words Parole dAurelia Fedeli just above
the entry for one of the pieces; Fedeli lived in the same Parisian neighborhood as Bembo, and in
her final years she retired in a building adjacent to the Petite Union Chrtienne. There are also
putative ties between Romagnesi and Corbetta, who were both associated with Paris and Mantua
during the same years. Although no documents confirm the hypothesis that Corbetta and the
actors of the Italian community in Paris provided shelter for Bembo (p. 66), Fontijns persuasive
piecing of circumstantial evidence and intelligent reasoning lends credence to this and other
suppositions.

3. The Music

3.1 A substantial portion of Fontijns book is dedicated to Bembos music, which is fairly eclectic
and navigates smoothly between two cultures and between her worldly and religious
environment (p. 8). Fontijn analyzes each of Bembos manuscripts in detail, and her
meticulousness, though justified given the lack of previous analytical commentary of Bembos
music, sometimes gets in the way of fluidity, particularly after the vividness of the biographical
section of the book. Though Fontijns analyses have a tendency toward lengthy and overly
descriptive digressions, they are persuasive and include a number of felicitously evocative
moments. Most importantly, however, they provide a much-needed overview of Bembos
musical styles, from the secular to the religious realm. My only general criticism here concerns
the puzzling paucity of musical examples, given the considerable amount of music treated.
Throughout the book there are long stretches of analysis that only direct the reader to modern
editions (inevitably difficult to obtain), and the book includes only a few brief examples in the
text and eleven longer examples in an appendix. I also find the combination of examples in
modern notation and in facsimile rather distracting, in that it forces the reader to go back and
forth between clef systems. Fortunately, the included CD does help the reader gain a sense of the
sound of Bembos music.

3.2 The most impressive manuscript in terms of its scope is Le produzioni armoniche, whose
remarkable stylistic breadth (see its table of contents, p. 86) recalls that of Monteverdis Vespers.
Indeed, I think the encyclopedic extent of Le produzioni may suggest a parallel with the Vespers:
much as Monteverdi presumably used the publication to boast his compositional skill in order to
gain employment at Saint Marks, Bembo may have employed Le produzioni as a calling card for
seeking a position and refuge in Paris. 3 Fontijn calls attention to the possible autobiographical
clues in this collection. Though potentially problematic, this type of approach seems justified
here given the myths and the texts Bembo employs. The myths highlight the composers guarded
position vis--vis her new patron and environment: while the Ovidian tale of the nymph Clytie,
in love with the sun (present in both nos. 15 and 16), reflects the story of the Venetian girasole,
Bembo, sustained by the metaphorical Sun King (p. 88), the tale of Icarus (no. 8) warns about
the dangers of getting too close. The texts, too, provide a tempting basis for possible
autobiographical clues: no. 15, for example, begins:

Far from her homeland,

Despised by the stars and scorned by fortune,
Clizia, who since birth
Harbored in her heart a burning affection,
Fixing her eager glances on her beautiful sun
Sweetened the air around her
With the sad sound of these bitter accents.

The poem later continues:

Magnificent King of the Sunbeams,

Pure light of the stars,
Only to you do my handmaidenly wishes
Render eternal homage.
These verses echo Bembos dedicatory letter to the king.

3.3 Le produzioni represents a distillation of Bembos musical styles and genres, from both the
sacred and the worldly realms: motets, arias, and different types of cantatas, (encomiastic,
sacred, amorous, and even one composed for a royal wedding). Organized in a clear, logical
fashion, the collection first establishes her identity as an artisan of glory (p. 131), continues to
demonstrate her Italian heritage, and concludes by showing her ability to handle the novel trend
of les gots runis, thus exhibiting several of the composers later traits. On the one hand her
music shows several seventeenth-century Italian traits: a marked tendency towards evocative
madrigalism, basso ostinato, motto techniques, da capo arias, and a colorful use of obbligato
instruments for dramatic effect. On the other, one finds French mannerisms: use of petites
reprises; ornamentation; descriptive rubrics; graceful, conjunct melodic motion; and use of
pervasive counterpoint la Charpentier in the motets. Notably, French traits such as the use of
descriptive rubrics find their way into the Italian pieces as well, as shown by the pervasive use of
distinctive adjectives (aria spiritosa, aria violente [sic], recitativo affettuoso, and others) in both
Le produzioni and in her later opera LErcole amante. I believe Bembos use of rubrics
anticipates the later eighteenth-century French fascination with expressive labels typical of
Franois Couperin and his contemporaries, showing that Bembo was ahead of her time.

3.4 One aspect I find less convincing is the authors recurrent attempts to relate a few of
Bembos pieces to several by Barbara Strozzi. The strongest basis for Fontijns claim is that the
two composers shared the same teacher; however, this does not account for individual stylistic
traits, which in the case of Strozzi are quite distinctive, nor does it account for the generational
gap between the two composers, about twenty years. Other bases for this claim seem more
tenuous as they rest on general features of the era as opposed to more specific evidence. On p.
104, for example, Fontijn claims that Bembo may have modeled them [her sacred cantatas] on
several pieces by Strozzi that employ a narrative/first-person voice/narrative format, in which the
narrator provides a framework for the subjective story told in the first-person voice by the
character or characters concerned. Though several pieces by Strozzi operate this way, this poetic
format is certainly not unique to her works. Rather, the format is typical of mid-seventeenth
century Italian music and can be found in the solo song repertory by Antonio Cesti, Luigi Rossi,
and others, as Margaret Murata has shown.4 On p. 105, Fontijn argues that Bembos Lamento
della Vergine may have been modeled on Strozzis Il Lamento originally published in op. 2
(1651). It is difficult to ascertain the basis for the authors claim here, as these two pieces are
quite different. Strozzis is a male lament, unusual enough for Senici and Daolmi to contend that
crafting the piece as such would have appealed to Giulio Strozzis academy, employing a
replacement for the more customary female lament because of the putative homosexual relations
between the French king Louis XIII and the squire Henry (p. 105). 5 In a curiously circular
argument, Fontijn goes on to say that Bembos lament draws on the tradition of the female
lament rather than the twist that might have been taken for the purposes of the Academy of the
Incogniti (p. 105). What then is the connection between the two pieces? That Bembo would
have known all three of Strozzis publications in which Il lamento was first published and
later reprinted (p. 105) seems not enough proof, and the implied connection based on the ostinato
bass pattern, the multiple sections, the triple meter, and the position of the lament as the
centerpiece constitutes a truism about many a seventeenth-century Italian lament. Stylistically,
Bembos soprano line in the centerpiece lament (reproduced on p. 107) recalls the dance-like,
short-breathed melodiousness (yet without the enthralling repetitiveness) of Stefano Landis O
morte gradita from Il SantAlessio rather than the unpredictable chromaticism and the jagged
twists and turns of Strozzis music. Also, though Bembos text painting (and music in general) is
downright exquisite, her madrigalisms do notas they sometimes do in Strozziraise the status
of the melisma to an additional voice that seems to compete with, or even transcend, the text
itself.6 Much more convincing is Fontijns connection between Bembos Mi basta cos, (no.
23) and Strozzis Basta cos, from op. 7 based on more substantial evidence: same poetic
schemes, same tonalities, similar titles, similar tronco scansion and refrain structure, and
identical musical form (pp. 1134).

3.5 Fontijn identifies a recurring feature of Bembos works, silence employed both as a poetic
theme as a symbol of humility and quiet devotion (Le produzioni armoniche no. 9 and no. 10
discussed on pp. 10011 and Bembos own dedication to her Te Deum, p. 181) and as a musico-
dramatic device (Le produzioni armoniche no. 4, pp. 989, and LErcole amante, pp. 2523).
Given the evidence, I agree with the author that in Bembos works silence and humility
represent such recurrent tropes that they seem to have more to do with working out a personal
issue than with customary expression of obligation (p. 274). However, Fontijn overstretches the
argument when she tries to connect the theme of poetic silence of nos. 9 and 10 to the silent
interjection in m. 24 of no. 4 (p. 101), where musical silence has more to do with emphasizing
the text rhetorically than anything else (see the example on p. 99). Fontijn herself admits that
silence itself appears as an important recourse for the singer delivering these poems (p. 98). A
noteworthy instance of musical silence occurs in LErcole amante, in which the ritornello to
Junos aria Ma in amor ci chaltri fura (But in love, that which swindles others) comes to a
grinding halt to match the text on the ending of the second verse on pi dAmor gioia non
(is no longer Loves joy) (p. 252). Fontijn compares this moment to two instances of silence in
Jacquet de La Guerres Cphale et Procris contending that it is noteworthy that the two most
prolific women composers of Louis XIVs reign both grappled with the notion of silence from
within their sounding creation, but, not surprising, given that both were raised in cultures
dictating that girls should exhibit proper modesty and, in general, keep quiet (pp. 2523). I find
this statement problematic because of the following reasons: 1) Jacquet de La Guerre and Bembo
lived under profoundly different circumstancesthe former benefiting from both royal and
public support and achieving enough success to merit an entry in Titon du Tillets Le Parnasse
franois, the latter practically living under monastic conditions, and they were thus unlikely to
share the same constraints of feminine propriety; 2) since the musico-dramatic use of silence in
the Baroque was not limited to women composers, Fontijns argument seems arbitrary.7 The
statement seems particularly questionable given Fontijns efforts at the beginning of the book (p.
7) to make a compelling case for Bembos situation being quite different from that of Jacquet de
La Guerre. Fontijn herself admits as much when she says that Bembos text shows her own
ambivalence toward her status as a foreign woman who stood, unlike her French colleague
Jacquet de La Guerre, outside the royal patronage system (p. 94).

3.6 Another important contribution of Desperate Measures concerns Bembo as an early

harbinger of les gots runis, an issue that Fontijn examines in chapter 5, discussing Bembos
motets against the French tradition of Lully and Charpentier. Here, too, Bembos music navigates
two cultures successfully as she found a balanced synthesis of the reigning tastes of her times
(p. 186) through the use of a diplomatic lingua franca, Latin. On the one hand one finds several
French traits: the timbre of the haute-contre voice, the five-part orchestra and chorus, flutes and
bassoons for soft echo effects, hautes-contres de violon as fillers, and French violin clefs. On the
other hand, one finds Italian features such as split scoring, prominent, high-register thirds at
cadences (p. 186), madrigalisms, descending bass tetrachords, and ritornellos in the concluding
sections.

3.7 Regarding Bembos use of keys, Fontijn provides several useful tables that give glimpses into
the composers harmonic practices. What transpires is a marked tendency to use modal contrast
for the sake of dramatic effect and variety, which appears to be an Italian procedure of
juxtaposing different roots as well as major/minor modes rather than the more typical French
practice of employing modal contrast on the same tonic. One also finds old-fashioned
techniques, such as a textually motivated durus momenta sudden chromatic turn on mortis
aculeo (the sharpness of death) worthy of Monteverdi (p. 146)and even at one point a stream
of descant six-three chords that lend an archaic quality reminiscent of the stile antico (p.
208). Fontijns seemingly sporadic attribution of specific characters to certain keysA minor is
melancholic (p. 87), A major bright (pp. 154 and 206), C minor somber (p. 206), B minor
sober (p. 199), and F minor unusual (p. 230)without any mention of Charpentier, Rameau,
or other French theorists is odd, given that they had so much to say about the matter, and that
much of Bembos music was produced in France.8
3.8 The last chapter is devoted to Bembos crowning achievementa new musical setting of
Butis LErcole amante (1707), with which Bembo sought to emphasize her identity as one of
the Venetian disciples of Francesco Cavalli (p. 241), who had set the opera in France under
Mazarin fifty years previously and was received with much criticism. Given the particularly
troubled history of this opera in France, Bembos attempt was a double-edged sword: the
pressure and expectation that Bembo was subjected to by the sheer choice of libretto, and the
opportunity that it provided, particularly regarding the treatment of the operas central figure,
Hercules, as a way to glorify Louis XIV. Fontijn aptly points out that, unlike Cavalli, Bembo was
more fortunate in her timing since her arrival coincided with a notable renewal of interest in
Italian music and musicians (p. 247). Fontijn contends that LErcole amante demonstrates
Bembos exposure to the last decade of Lullys work, to the French operatic models of Jacquet
de La Guerre, Campra, and Marais, and to the stylistic mixture of the operas by Paolo
Lorenzani and Theobaldo di Gatti (p. 247). The opera represents a hybrid of tragdie en musique
and late seventeenth-century Italian features. A French overture and entres performed by a five-
part orchestra peacefully coexist with Italian-style ritornellos in trio texture and even an Italian-
style four-movement sinfonia with flutes in Act 5, whose trio sonata texture and tempo and
dance-named rubrics make it look like a cross between a Corellian sonata da camera and a
sonata da chiesa (p. 264). In the French-style sleep scene from Act II, where Pasithea borrows
Sleep personified to lull Hercules to delay his actions, Bembo models the music on Lullys Atys
in terms of conjunct motion, opportunities for notes ingales, and use of tierces coules, but
structures the sleep scene as a giant da capo aria with a contrasting and shorter middle section,
whose faster tempo, spontaneous character, and frequent meter changes denote Italian style (p.
258).

3.9 Although a cursory look at the music of Bembos sleep scene might prompt one to believe
Fontijns assertion that it was clearly modeled on prototypes in the Lullian repertory, notably
that of Atys (p. 255), a careful examination of the score accompanied by a meticulous listening
would likely prompt one to disagree with the author. While recalling Lullys stepwise, flowing
melodies, Bembos sleep scene does not exhibit a fundamental feature of Lullys scene:
continuity achieved by discernible thematic unity throughout all the sections. Bembos sleep
scene is characterized instead by thematic disjunction: the decidedly distinct middle (B)
section of the sleep aria and the almost entirely homophonic chorus that follows it are both based
on different musical material from what constitutes the sleep music proper (the outer sections of
the aria).9 This undermines the type of integration on which the effectiveness of Lullys scene-
complex relies, thereby calling into question Fontijns claim that the effectiveness of the
[Bembos] music matches that of the Sleep Scene from Lullys Atys, Dormons, dormons tous
(II, 4), where the smoothest melodic lines soothe the listener with help from the personifications
of Sleep, Morpheus, Phobtor, and Dreams (p. 257). Futhermore, several other parametersthe
imitative counterpoint between the voice and the instruments, the dramatic use of silences, the
predominantly active bass line, the use of chromatic harmony, particularly the Neapolitan sixth
(mm. 50 and 140), and the practice of moving the continuo line occasionally into the treble clef
rangesound more like contemporary Italian Baroque music, particularly that of Alessandro
Scarlatti, than they do Lullys.

3.10 Bembo achieves her most clever union of the French and Italian styles in the centerpiece
from Act III, scene 1, in which Hercules reflects on his previous labors. Here she provides a
rather unusual lament for the protagonist, in that it includes the typical chromatic bass pattern,
but employs virtually no text or musical repetition (even the chromatic tetrachord is repeated
only once) as if to contextualize the Italian origin of its technique within a French aesthetic of
reason and control. This is all the more appropriate since Hercules not only stands for Louis XIV,
but in 1707 his soliloquy represented an apt analog for the monarchs assessment of his reign
and his own introspection (p. 260). Surprisingly, Fontijn does not mention that Bembos choice
of ground bass here reflects a typically French use of the technique in tragdies en musique to
denote a character facing internal conflicts or making important deliberations. 10 This shows the
type of profound musical acculturation that Bembo was able to accomplish.

4. Conclusion

4.1 Fontijns book provides a penetrating and satisfying discussion of Antonia Bembos life and
music, successfully placing her music within the dual cultural milieu in which it was produced.
Bembos shrewd diplomatic skills allowed her to make the most of her unusual circumstances
bringing into vital confrontation the Italian and French musical cultures with which she was
intimately familiar (p. 273). Thanks to Fontijns scrupulous detective work we can no longer
ignore this significant musical figure of the Baroque. Fontijns biography represents a major
contribution to the scholarship on Antonia Bembo, one that will likely remain the definitive
study on the composer. Though meticulous and persuasive overall, Fontijns analyses of Bembos
music constitute only the point of departure for further studies that might adopt different or more
specific strategies. The authors tendency to descriptive digressions can at times disengage the
reader, and her attempts to relate Bembos music to other women composers like Strozzi and
Jacquet de La Guerre are not always persuasive. I suspect that arguing in favor of Bembos music
as being uniquely distinct from, rather than similar to, the music of those composers might yield
more fruitful conclusions. On the whole, however, Desperate Measures is an excellent book; it
will appeal to the scholar and the performer alike, arouse curiosity about Bembo, and encourage
more performances and recordings of her music.

References

* Michele Cabrini (mcabrini@hunter.cuny.edu) is on the faculty of Hunter College. He is a

specialist in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century vocal music.
1
Yvonne Rokseth, Antonia Bembo, Composer to Louis XIV, Musical Quarterly 23 (1937):
169.
2
Rokseth, Antonia Bembo, and Marinella Laini, Antonia e le altre: Percorsi musicali
femminili nella Venezia del Sei-Settecento, in Ecco mormorar londe: La musica nel Barocco,
ed. Carlo De Incontrera and Alba Zanini (Trieste: Stella Arti Grafiche, 1995), 13869; and
Marinella Laini, La musica di Antonia Bembo: Un significativo apporto femminile alle
relazioni musicali tra Venezia e Parigi, Studi Musicali 25 (1996): 25581.
3
On Monteverdi's Vespers, see John Whenham, Monteverdi: Vespers (1610) (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997), 15.
4
Margaret Murata, Image and Eloquence: Secular Song, in The Cambridge History of
Seventeenth-Century Music, ed. Tim Carter and John Butt (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005), particularly pp. 41122.
5
Davide Daolmi and Emanuele Senici, Lomosessualit un modo di cantare: Il contributo
queer allindagine sullopera in musica, Il saggiatore musicale 7 (2000): 13778.
6
Several scholars have remarked on the disjunction between the text and the music of her overly
indulgent melismas as one of Strozzis most characteristic trademarks. See, for example, Ellen
Rosand, Barbara Strozzi, virtuosissima cantatrice: The Composer's Voice, Journal of the
American Musicological Society, 31 (1978): 2734. More recently, Mauro Calcagno perceives
the dissociation of word and music and the correspondent emphasis of the signifier over the
signified in Strozzis melismas as the sign of her adoption of the Incogniti aesthetic of nulla
(nothing), a nihilistic philosophy emphasizing, among other things, a fundamental mistrust of
language. See Mauro Calcagno, Signifying Nothing: On the Aesthetics of Pure Voice in Early
Venetian Opera, Journal of Musicology 20 (2003): 48688. Most recently, Wendy Heller has
challenged Calcagnos view by proposing Strozzis expressive melismas as a powerful tool for
asserting her compositional control alongside and against the male-dominated authorship of the
poetic texts produced at the Incogniti academy, rather than a passive reflection of the academys
abstract philosophies. See Wendy Heller, I laberinti vivaci: Barbara Strozzi and the
Expression of Desire, in Passaggio in Italia: Music on the Grand Tour in the Seventeenth
Century, ed. Dinko Fabris and Margaret Murata (in preparation). I am indebted to Professor
Heller for allowing me to read her article prior to its publication.
7
On silence in Baroque music, see Anna Danielewicz-Betz, Silence and Pauses in Discourse
and Music (Saarbrcken: Universitt des Saarlandes, 1998); Raphalle Legrand, Pauses
fonctionnelles et silences expressifs: Esquisse dune typologie des silences dans la musique du
baroque tardif, Les Cahiers du CIREM 324 (1994): 2836; Catherine Cessac, Le silence dans
luvre de Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Les Cahiers du CIREM 324 (1994): 3746; and Eric
Gaudibert, Les Silences: Essai sur les diffrentes catgories du silence musical, Les Cahiers du
CIREM 32-34 (1994): 11320. See also Ellen T. Harris, Silence as Sound: Handels Sublime
Pauses, The Journal of Musicology 22 (2005): 52158.
8
See Rita Steblin, The Transition from Modality to Tonality: Early French Key Characteristics,
in A History of Key Characteristics in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries, 2nd ed.
(Rochester: University of Rochester, 2002), 2939.
9
Bembos slumber aria is reproduced fully in Appendix 2 of the book, on pp. 338. For the
beginning of the chorus see Rokseth, Antonia Bembo, 1635.
10
See Geoffrey Vernon Burgess, Ritual in the Tragdie en musique from Lullys Cadmus et
Hermione (1673) to Rameaus Zoroastre (1749) (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1998), 224
34.
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