ABSTRACT
Many musicians of the European Baroque gained musical renown due to social class and family connections. Unlike the female members of the Bach and Mozart families whose public musical work was suppressed, Francesca Caccini, Barbara Strozzi, Isabella Leonarda, and Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre all had connections that allowed them to continue musical activities when they reached adulthood, and all four were published during their lifetimes. Even as late as the 1980s, however, these prominent musicians were missing from textbooks and discographies, their stories lost in centuries of reformulated narrative. By the turn of the twenty-first century, their stories reemerged, pieced together from court and convent records, publications, written correspondence, and earlier historical accounts. This chapter highlights the work of four prominent composers as it simultaneously addresses how composers in Western art music have traditionally achieved lasting renown.
