Francesca Caccini (; 18 September 1587 – after 1641) was an Italian composer, singer,

lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lute" can re ...

nist, poet, and music teacher of the early

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including th ...

era. She was also known by the nickname "La Cecchina" , given to her by the Florentines and probably a diminutive of "Francesca". She was the daughter of

Giulio Caccini Giulio Romolo Caccini (also Giulio Romano) (8 October 1551 – buried 10 December 1618) was an Italian composer, teacher, singer, instrumentalist and writer of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He was one of the founders of the genre o ...

. Her only surviving stage work, ''

La liberazione di Ruggiero ''La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina'' (''En.'' "The Liberation of Ruggiero from the island of Alcina") is a comic opera in four scenes by Francesca Caccini, first performed 3 February 1625 at the Villa di Poggio Imperiale in Florence, ...

'', is widely considered the oldest opera by a woman composer. As a female composer she helped to solidify the agency and the cultural and political programs of her female patron.

Personal life

Early life

Caccini was born in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico a ...

, and received a humanistic education (Latin, some Greek, as well as modern languages and literature, mathematics) in addition to early musical training with her father. According to Liliana Panella, the first well-founded testimony of Francesca's singer's activity, together with her sister Settimia, at the Medici court, is 1602: in his diary Cesare Tinghi notes that on 3 April 1602 St. Nicholas church in Pisa, where the court moved every year during Lent, polychoral music was directed by "Giulio Romano iulio Caccini having the wife (the second wife, Margherita) and the two daughters singing well". Rome In her early life, Caccini performed with her parents, her half-brother Pompeo, her sister Settimia, and possibly other unnamed Caccini pupils in an ensemble contemporaries referred to as ''le donne di Giulio Romano''. After she was hired by the court, she continued to perform with the family ensemble until Settimia's marriage and resulting move to Mantua caused its breakup. Caccini served the Medici court as a teacher, chamber singer, rehearsal coach and composer of both chamber and stage music until early 1627. By 1614 she was the court's most highly paid musician, in no small part because her musical virtuosity so well exemplified an idea of female excellence projected by Tuscany's de facto Regent, Grand-Duchess

Christina of Lorraine Christina of Lorraine or Christine de Lorraine (16 August 1565 – 19 December 1637) was a member of the House of Lorraine and was the Grand Duchess of Tuscany by marriage. She served as Regent of Tuscany jointly with her daughter-in-law during t ...

. By 1623 she earned 240

scudi The ''scudo'' (pl. ''scudi'') was the name for a number of coins used in various states in the Italian peninsula until the 19th century. The name, like that of the French écu and the Spanish and Portuguese escudo, was derived from the Latin '' ...

Later life

After Caccini's first husband (Giovanni Battista Signorini, with whom she had one daughter, Margherita, in 1622) died in December 1626, she quickly arranged to marry again in October 1627, this time to a melophile nobleman in

Lucca Lucca ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the Serchio River, in a fertile plain near the Ligurian Sea. The city has a population of about 89,000, while its province has a population of 383,957. Lucca is known as one ...

, Tommaso Raffaelli. Although her legal name remained Francesca de Giulio Caccini, it was only the discovery of documents using Francesca Raffaelli that makes it possible to follow her traces from 1627 to 1634. She lived in Raffaelli's Lucchese homes, apparently bearing a son (also Tommaso, in 1628), and having some musical relationship to the Buonvisi family in Lucca, until his death in 1630.Rebecca Cypess: "Francesca Caccini: Italian composer and singer" at britannica.com
Accessed 2 November 2017 Although as the wife of a nobleman she had declined at least one request to perform (in Parma, in 1628), once she was widowed Caccini immediately tried to return to Medici service. Her return delayed by the plagues of 1630–33, by 1634 Caccini was back in Florence with her two children, serving the court as music teacher to her daughter Margherita and to the Medici princesses who lived at or frequently visited the convent of La Crocetta, and composing and performing chamber music and minor entertainments for the women's court. Caccini left Medici service on 8 May 1641, and disappeared from the public record.

Professional career

Caccini is believed to have been a quick and prolific composer, equal in productivity to her court colleagues

Jacopo Peri Jacopo Peri (20 August 156112 August 1633), known under the pseudonym Il Zazzerino, was an Italian composer and singer of the transitional period between the Renaissance and Baroque styles, and is often called the inventor of opera. He wrote the ...

and

Marco da Gagliano Marco da Gagliano (1 May 1582 – 25 February 1643) was an Italian composer of the early Baroque era. He was important in the early history of opera and the development of the solo and concerted madrigal. Life He was born in Florence and li ...

. Very little of her music survives. Most of her stage music was composed for performance in comedies by poet

Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger Michelangelo Buonarroti il Giovane (baptized 4 November 1568 – 11 January 1646) was a Florentine poet, librettist and man of letters, known as "the Younger" to distinguish him from his granduncle. Education From 1588 to 1591 he studied math ...

(grand-nephew of the artist) such as ''La Tancia'' (1613), ''Il passatempo'' (1614) and ''La fiera'' (1619). In 1618 she published a collection of thirty-six solo songs and soprano/bass duets (''Il primo libro delle musiche'') that is a compendium of contemporary styles, ranging from intensely moving, harmonically adventurous laments to joyful sacred songs in Italian and Latin, to witty strophic songs about the joys and perils of romantic love. In winter 1625 Caccini composed all the music for a 75-minute "comedy-ballet" entitled ''La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina'' which was performed for the visiting crown prince of Poland, Ladislaus Sigismondo (later

Władysław IV Władysław is a Polish given male name, cognate with Vladislav. The feminine form is Władysława, archaic forms are Włodzisław (male) and Włodzisława (female), and Wladislaw is a variation. These names may refer to: Famous people Mononym * ...

). Combining witty parodies of early opera's stock scenes and self-important characters with moments of surprising emotional intensity, the score shows that Caccini had mastered the full range of musico-theatrical devices in her time and that she had had a strong sense of large-scale musical design. ''La liberazione'' so pleased the prince that he had it performed in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...

in 1628. This is also widely regarded as the first opera written by a female. There is no evidence to suggest that Caccini composed any of the accompanying poetry, however, it is known that her peers Michelangelo Buonarroti, Andrea Salvadori and Francesco Gualterotti.

Compositional style

Caccini's musical and compositional style has been likened to that of

Monteverdi Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi (baptized 15 May 1567 – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, choirmaster and string player. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is considered ...

and

, and she started composing music after the closing of the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

period, becoming a key player in pushing the

style of music forward. She composed within a very innovative musical context. For many of her songs, she was the author of the accompanying poetry, which also tended to be comedic. Caccini's ''Primo libro'' is noted as utilising self-reflexivity. This is because many of her songs within this collection have titles which appear to 'answer' one another. For example the song "Che fai?" which means "what are you doing?" is followed by "Ardo" which translates to "I burn." The songs are also advanced in terms of breath control needed for performance, coordination of hands and voice, as well as the vocal range. Caccini uses

romanesca Romanesca is a melodic-harmonic formula popular from the mid–16th to early–17th centuries that was used as an aria formula for singing poetry and as a subject for instrumental variation. The pattern, which is found in an endless collection of ...

s in a unique and unconventional way in these songs. The songs in this collection is accompanied by an instrumental piece, with the intention of the individual performer improvising harmonies over. Although the musical pieces did not denote a specific instrument to use to play the accompaniment, it is likely that a

theorbo The theorbo is a plucked string instrument of the lute family, with an extended neck and a second pegbox. Like a lute, a theorbo has a curved-back sound box (a hollow box) with a wooden top, typically with a sound hole, and a neck extending out ...

would be widely used.

Works

Francesca Caccini wrote some or all of the music for at least sixteen staged works. All but ''La liberazione di Ruggiero'' and some excerpts from ''La Tancia'' and ''Il passatempo'' published in the 1618 collection are believed lost. Her surviving scores reveal Caccini to have taken extraordinary care over the notation of her music, focusing special attention on the rhythmic placement of syllables and words, especially within ornaments, on phrasing as indicated by slurs, and on the precise notation of often very long, melodically fluid vocal melismas. Although her music is not especially notable for the expressive dissonances made fashionable by her contemporary

, Caccini was a master of dramatic harmonic surprise: in her music it is harmony, more than counterpoint, that most powerfully communicates affect. Opera and stage works: *''La Stiava'' (performed 1607) (lost) *''La mascherata, delle ninfe di Senna'',

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

to,

Palazzo Pitti The Palazzo Pitti (), in English sometimes called the Pitti Palace, is a vast, mainly Renaissance, palace in Florence, Italy. It is situated on the south side of the River Arno, a short distance from the Ponte Vecchio. The core of the presen ...

, 1611 *''La tancia'',

incidental music Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, or some other presentation form that is not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as th ...

, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 1611 *''Il passatempo'', incidental music to balletto, Pallazo Pitti, Florence, 1614 *''Il ballo delle Zingane'', balletto, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, music lost, 1615 *Il Primo libro delle musiche a 1–2 voci e basso continuo (1618) *''La fiera'', incidental music, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 1619 *''Il martirio de S. Agata'', Florence, 1622 *''La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina'',

musical comedy Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movement ...

, Villa Poggio Imperiale, Florence (1625) *''Rinaldo inamorato'', commissioned by Prince Wladislaw of Poland, 1626.

References

Notes Sources *

External links

* *
Free choral scores by Francesca Caccini
at the

Choral Public Domain Library The Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL) is a sheet music archive which focuses on choral and vocal music in the public domain or otherwise freely available for printing and performing (such as via permission from the copyright holder). It is ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Caccini, Francesca Italian Baroque composers Italian women classical composers Italian opera composers 1587 births 1640s deaths Women opera composers Musicians from Florence 17th-century Italian composers 17th-century Italian actresses Italian stage actresses 17th-century Italian women 17th-century women composers