Leonora Baroni

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Leonora Baroni on a portrait by Fabio Della Cornia. Scuola Edile di Perugia

Eleonora Baroni or Leonora Baroni , also Lionora Baroni (* December 1611 in Mantua , † April 6, 1670 in Rome ) was an Italian singer (soprano), musician and composer . She also played theorbo and viola da gamba , on which she accompanied herself to the singing.

biography

Leonora Baroni was the daughter of the famous singer Adriana Basile and the Calabrian nobleman Muzio Baroni. Her uncle was the poet and man of letters Giambattista Basile . She received her first name in honor of Eleonora de 'Medici, wife of the Duke of Mantua Vincenzo I Gonzaga , and was also called l'Adrianella or l'Adrianetta (= little Adriana) after her mother Adriana . She probably received her first musical training from her mother.

Leonora first grew up in the cultivated atmosphere of the court in Mantua, and also took part in various (concert) trips of her mother, partly in the wake of the Gonzaga court. In 1624 the Baroni family moved back to Naples , Adriana's homeland. There Leonora was already noticed in her youth with her beautiful voice and musicality.

In 1630 she traveled with Adriana to Genoa , where Prince Mattias de 'Medici reported in a letter dated April 23rd to his brother Gian Carlo that he had heard "... Adriana and her little daughter ... a thousand gallantries of canzonettes" singing "... and especially one where there is always a Zizì , and which a handful of beautiful women particularly liked ... ”. A few days later they reached Florence, where they sang “ diverse aria ” in front of the Grand Duchess Maria Maddalena d'Austria on May 3rd and 7th .

From 1633 the Baroni family lived in Rome under the protection of Cardinal Antonio Barberini . Her mother gave u. a. in her own house concerts in which Leonora sang with her in a duet and together with her 9 years younger sister Caterina also in a trio . All three of them were called the "Adrianen" (Italian: Adriane ). Leonora also composed and wrote verse, and frequented aristocratic and intellectual circles in Rome such as the Accademia degli Umoristi . The English poet Milton met her during his stay in Rome 1638–1639 and dedicated several Latin epigrams to her under the title Ad Leanoram Romae canentem .

Her fame as a singer was so great that an entire anthology was dedicated to her in 1639, with poems by authors such as Fulvio Testi , Francesco Bracciolini , Lelio Guidiccioni and Claudio Achillini . The French viol player André Maugars also heard Leonora in Rome in 1639 and wrote on October 1st:

“She is gifted with a beautiful spirit. She has very good judgment to distinguish bad from good music; She understands that perfectly, especially since she also composes, and this is why she has absolutely mastered what she sings and that she perfectly pronounces and expresses the meaning of the words. She doesn't train herself to be beautiful; but she is neither uncomfortable nor flirtatious. She sings with a self-assured modesty, with a magnanimous modesty, and with a sweet seriousness ("gravité"). Her voice is wide, clear, full-bodied, harmonious; she lets them swell up and down without effort, and without making any grimaces. Her enthusiasm and her sighs are not lascivious, there is nothing impure in her looks, and her gestures are of the decency of an honorable girl. When she goes from one note to the other, she sometimes lets you hear the divisions (or decorations ?; orig .: "divisions") of the chromatic or enharmonic genera, with so much skill and grace that there is no one who is not charmed by this beautiful one and difficult singing method. She does not need to beg for the help of a theorbo or viol, without which her singing would be imperfect, because she herself plays these two instruments perfectly. "

- André Maugars : Responce faite à un curieux sur le sentiment de la musique d'Italie (Rome / Paris, 1639)

Leonora Baroni married Giulio Cesare Castellani, the personal secretary of Cardinal Francesco Barberini , on May 27, 1640 . In February 1644 they traveled to Paris at the invitation of the Queen Mother and Regent Anna of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin , possibly triggered by André Maugars ' positive description. At the French court the Italian style of singing and the “stile recitativo ” were still relatively unknown, and so the reactions of the courtiers were initially ambivalent. The Italian abbot Agostino Scaglia reported in a letter from March / April 1645 to the regent Christina of Savoy that everyone agreed that Leonora's voice was excellent, but that it was “... better suited for the theater and the church than for them Chamber, and that her Italian manner was difficult to hear; but it was immediately contradicted that the queen had said that one couldn't sing better ”.

Leonora was one of the first Italian musicians to make the new style of singing in Italian opera known in France, along with the composer Marco Marazzoli , the soprano castrato Atto Melani and his brother Jacopo Melani, and even before Luigi Rossi and Marc'Antonio Pasqualini who did not come to Paris until 1646/1647. Leonora received numerous presents from the Queen Mother, but only stayed a year. In April 1645 she was already on her way back to Rome, where she lived until her death.

Here she continued to socialize in the highest circles, and even after her husband's death on January 4, 1662, she ran a salon in her house. She was particularly closely connected to Cardinal Giulio Rospigliosi and his family. Therefore, it was particularly fortunate for them when Giulio was elected Pope in 1667 and as Clement IX. ascended the papal throne (1667–1669). The envoy of the Republic of Genoa Ferdinando Poggi mentioned “Lionora” frequently in his notes, and on March 23, 1669 he reported: “... there was a musical performance ( rappresentazione in musica ) where all the rospigliosi came ... Lionora sang ... this was always the one Favorite of the Pope ... and she is now more than ever, and whoever wants any grace from him turns to her ”.

Clement IX died a short time later, and Leonora Basile also died at the age of 58 on April 6, 1670. She was buried next to her husband in the church of Santa Maria della Scala in Rome.

Unfortunately, as far as we know today, nothing of her compositions has survived.

swell

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Liliana Pannella:  Basile, Andreana (Andriana), detta la bella Adriana . In: Alberto M. Ghisalberti (Ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 7 (Bartolucci – Bellotto), Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1965.
  2. ↑ Presumably onomatopoeic like the German “scht” or “pscht”, as a request to be quiet (translator's note).
  3. ↑ Liliana Pannella: "BARONI, Eleonora (Leonora, Lionora), detta anche l'Adrianella o l'Adrianetta". In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol. VI (1964) , Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1965, online: http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/baroni-eleonora-detta-anche-l-adrianella-ol -adrianetta_ (Dizionario-Biografico) , (seen on October 14, 2017)
  4. ↑ This is reported by the Florentine Cesare Tinghi (in A. Solerti: Musica , Ballo e Drammatica alla Corte medicea dal 1600 al 1637 , Florence, pp. 196 & 224). Here after: Liliana Pannella: "BARONI, Eleonora (Leonora, Lionora), detta anche l'Adrianella o l'Adrianetta". In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol. VI (1964) , Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1965, online: http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/baroni-eleonora-detta-anche-l-adrianella-ol -adrianetta_ (Dizionario-Biografico) , (seen on October 14, 2017)
  5. ^ Estelle Haan: From Academia to Amicitia: Milton's Latin writings and the Italian academies , Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, 1998 ( ISBN 0871698862 ), ( ISBN 9780871698865 ), pp. 99–117.
  6. ↑ Anna Jameson: Memoirs of the loves of the poets: Biographical sketches of women celebrated in ancient and modern poetry , Ticknor and Fields, Boston 1866, p. 249 ff.
  7. ↑ Vincenzo Costazuti (ed.): Applausi poetici alle glorie della signora Leonora Baroni , Rome, 1639.
  8. ↑ This means that she was apparently able to distinguish the finest pitch differences from a quarter tone (e.g. between G sharp and A flat) in the mid-tone tuning and to sing, as she did on many harpsichords with split upper keys ( harpsichord cromatico ) can be found; see also nineteen-step tuning .
  9. ↑ "Elle est douée d'un bel esprit: elle a le jugement continued bon pour la mauvaise distinguer d'avec la bonne musique; elle l'entend parfaitement bien, voire elle y compose, ce qui fait qu'elle possède absolument ce qu'elle chante, et qu'elle prononce et exprime parfaitement bien le sens des paroles. Elle ne se pique pas d'être belle; corn elle n'est pas desagréable ni coquette. Elle chante avec une pudeur assurée, avec une généreuse modestie, et avec une douce gravité. Sa voix est d'une haute étendue, juste, sonore, harmonieuse; l'adoucissant et la renforçant sans peine, et sans faire aucune grimace. Ses élans et ses soupirs ne sont point lascifs, ses regards n'ont rien d'impudique, et ses gestes sont de la bienséance d'une honnête fille. En passant d'un ton à l'autre, elle fait quelquefois sentir les divisions des genres chromatiques et enharmoniques, avec tant d'Adresse et d'agrément, qu'il n'y a personne qui ne soit ravi à cette belle et difficile method de chanter. Elle n'a pas besoin de mendier l'aide d'un théorbe ou d'une viole, sans l'un desquels son chant serait imparfait, car elle-même touche les deux instruments parfaitement. »André Maugars: Responce faite à un curieux sur le sentiment de la musique d'Italie, écrite à Rome le 1st octobre 1639, Paris, 1639, quoted in: François-Joseph Fétis: Biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliographie générale de la musique, t. I, Paris, Firmin Didot, 1866, p. 251.
  10. ↑ ie her voice was relatively big and voluminous.
  11. ↑ " Che ella abbia voce eccellente non V'E chi non l'accordi; alcuni la dissero al principio più propria del teatro e della chiesa, che della stanza, e che la maniera sua italiana riuscisse all'orecchio dura: opposizioni che cessarono subito che la Regina ebbe detto, che non si poteva cantar meglio… ". This is what the Italian abbot Agostino Scaglia wrote in a letter of March / April 1645 to “Madama Reale Cristina di Francia”, the regent of Savoy (In: A. Ademollo: I primi fasti della musica italiana a Parigi (1645/1662), Milan 1884, pp. 12-14). Here after Liliana Pannella: "BARONI, Eleonora (Leonora, Lionora), detta anche l'Adrianella o l'Adrianetta". In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol. VI (1964) , Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1965, online: http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/baroni-eleonora-detta-anche-l-adrianella-ol -adrianetta_ (Dizionario-Biografico) , (seen on October 15, 2017)
  12. ↑ Joachim Steinheuer:  Melani. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 11 (Lesage - Menuhin). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2004, ISBN 3-7618-1121-7 , Sp. 1496–1502, here 1498.
  13. ↑ Alessandro Ademollo, I primi fasti della musica italiana a Parigi: (1645-1662), Milan, R. Stabilimento Musicale Ricordi, 1884.
  14. ^ A. Ademollo: La Leonora di Milton e di Clemente IX, Milan 1885, pp. 13-14. Here after: Liliana Pannella: "BARONI, Eleonora (Leonora, Lionora), detta anche l'Adrianella o l'Adrianetta". In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol. VI (1964) , Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1965, online: http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/baroni-eleonora-detta-anche-l-adrianella-ol -adrianetta_ (Dizionario-Biografico) , (seen on October 14, 2017)
personal data
SURNAME Baroni, Leonora
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Baroni, Eleonora; Baroni, Lionora
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian opera singer (soprano), musician and composer
DATE OF BIRTH December 1611
PLACE OF BIRTH Mantua
DATE OF DEATH April 6, 1670
Place of death Rome