COUNTESS da DIA (c. 1150 - 1212): an authentic 12th century troubadour born into an ancient family of counts and countesses in the valley of the Drôme river in southern France. She presided over her own court of troubadours, the songsters of chivalric medieval romance, at the castle of her husband William of Poitiers – the son of Eleanor of Aquitaine herself. We don’t know her name: it might have been Beatritz or possibly Isoarda; we don’t know what instruments she played. All we have are five spicy love songs that ended up in Le manuscript di roi collected for King Charles of Anjou. They are addressed not to her husband but to her lover, in the original Occitan, and they’re so beautiful –
Presented by composer Joan Tower for International Women’s Month in March, written and produced by Charlotte Wilson for WMHT
