Isabella Leonarda, born 1620 in Novara in North Italy, an Ursuline nun and one of the most prolific composers of her age. Not only for her sacred music, but for the first violin sonatas we have by a woman.
The details of her life are scant: we know that she was born in 1620 into one of the wealthiest families in Novara, and placed into the family convent like her sisters at the age of 16. We know that her family had close ties to the cathedral and that she likely studied with the Maestro there, because pieces very properly attributed to her appear in a collection he published in 1640. We know that her convent was the most liberal, called a college rather than a convent, and where the Ursuline sisters probably lived at home, bound only to do good works in the community without necessarily even taking the veil.
And the dates are recorded of her rising through the ranks. Madre in 1676: mother superior ten years later; and then titles that have vanished ending in Consigliera when she turned 80 – suggesting that by then, she may had a purely fund-raising, advisory role. We don’t know.
What we do have are quantities of exquisitely beautiful music. Those violin sonatas, the first by a woman, are also extremely imaginative expanding the form into suites going far beyond the usual four movements of the time. We have concertos, masses, Magnificats, motets – over 200 works in total, published in her own lifetime, and displaying a level of expression and sophistication that made her famous even among the church men of her own day. They called her la musa novarese - the Novarese muse
Isabella Leonarda, 1620 – 1704
MUSIC: Sonata in D minor, Op.16 no.12 Rachel Podger, violin; Marcin Swiqtkiewicz, organ
Presented by Anna Clyne
Written and produced by Charlotte Wilson for WMHT
