Document Type
Thesis
Date of Award
2025
Degree Name
Master of Music (MMUS)
Department
Music
First Advisor
David Moskowitz
Abstract
It is generally agreed upon that studying underrepresented women composers is vital to expanding the breadth of musical study prior to 1900. However, when teaching about lesser-known women musicians, it is often misconstrued that these women were simply “granted” a musical career by a man within their network, and that because society would not allow them a chance otherwise, the woman had little say in what happened next. This study will show that Venetian composer and virtuosa Barbara Strozzi (1619–1677) exemplifies the early woman composer who had personal agency in the flourishing of her career. While Strozzi was allowed certain privileges due to the circumstances of her upbringing, she used those privileges strategically despite the oppressive societal standards against women of seventeenth-century Europe. The goal of this thesis is twofold: first, to amplify the ways in which Barbara Strozzi utilized the societally acceptable means available to her as a Venetian virtuosa in order to empower herself as a composer; second, to show the ways in which this empowerment was made manifest in her first published opus, Il primo libro de madrigali, simultaneously closing some of the gaps in research pertaining to Strozzi’s madrigals.
Subject Categories
Music
Keywords
Italian madrigal Second practice Seicento Vocal music Women composers
Number of Pages
84
Publisher
University of South Dakota
Recommended Citation
Rockhill Beckler, Abigail, "Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677): Empowerment in the Life and Madrigals of the Venetian Virtuosa" (2025). Dissertations and Theses. 349.
https://red.library.usd.edu/diss-thesis/349