#ClassicsaDay #WomensHistoryMonth Week 2, 2025

March is Women's History Month. And it's a great opportunity for Classics a Day to focus on the contributions of women to classical music. 

Women composers are often unjustly overlooked by history. The problem is seldom the quality of their work -- just the worker's gender. The challenge in March is to post examples of music by women composers. There's a millennium of music to choose from. For me, the challenge was what to leave out. Here are my posts for the second week of #WomensHistoryMonth.

3/10/25 Francesca Caccini (1587–1640?): O Che Nuovo Stupor

Her father was one of the first opera composers, and Francesca herself wrote incidental music for plays by Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, grand-nephew of Michelangelo.

3/11/25 Leonora Duarte (1610–1678): Sinfonia No. 4

Duarte was an accomplished instrumentalist. She played the lute, virginal, and viol. She composed a set of seven sinfonias for the viol, probably in the late 1620s.

03/12/25 Barbara Strozzi (1619–1677): Cantate, Ariette e Duetti No. 16, Op. 2

Strozzi was a talented instrumentalist, singer, and composer. In the 1670s she had the most secular music in print of any composer, male or female.

03/13/25 Isabella Leonarda (1620–1704): Sonata duodecima

Leonarda entered a convent at age 16. But her talent for composition extended far beyond its walls. She published 20 collections of her music and was known as the Muse of Novara.

Mlle Bocquet (early 17th C.-after 1660): Gigue

We don't know her first name or much about her life. But she was once considered one of the best lutenists in Paris and her music was widely distributed throughout Western Europe.