Scholarly Writings

Editing Strozzi's Ghost Accidentals

Richard Kolb

Essay published in Barbara Strozzi in Context, Ed. Beth Glixon and Wendy Heller, Cambridge University Press, 2025, Ch. 30

Abstract:

      Strozzi's scores are generally more detailed in providing accidental signs than was the norm in her time, but their unwonted thoroughness complicates the handling of passages with unsigned notes that might appropriately be raised or lowered according to the context. Since Strozzi was so conscientious in supplying signs in situations where performers were most often left to be guided by rules of common practice, it seems possible that the omission of signs in some other passages might indicate a preference for uninflected pitches, rather than simple conformance with prevalent casualness of pitch notation. This essay examines passages in which modern performers and editors have frequently added accidentals according to modern performance practice norms, in many cases significantly affecting the way the music sounds, where Strozzi the (usually) detailed editor might have supplied accidentals had she wanted them.

Consolation amid Barbarous Misfortune: Barbara Strozzi’s ‘Appresso ai molli argenti’ and the Mid- Seventeenth-Century Lament

Richard Kolb and Barbara Swanson

Essay published in Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers, Ed. Laurel Parsons and Brenda Ravenscroft, Oxford University Press, 2018, Ch. 4

Abstract:

Appresso ai molli argenti exemplifies Barbara Strozzi's sophisticated approach to the mid seventeenth-century cantata. On the surface, Appresso is a five-section work consisting of opening and closing recitatives which enclose three aria sections. Strozzi makes judicious choices in setting Giovanni Pietro Monesi's text, drawing attention to two contrasting aspects of lament, each defined by two distinct trends in the operatic lament tradition—the recitative lament and the aria-based descending tetrachord lament. By giving voice to despair and creating room for reprieve through well-defined musical idioms and tonal plans, Strozzi shapes the cantata into a tight-knit and musically compelling narrative. 

Lecture notes and Handouts for New York Continuo Collective

All files can be read on the New York Continuo Collective website: https://continuony.org/?page_id=450

Fall 2018: English Theater Music c. 1642-1688

Civil War, Commonwealth, Restoration (lecture)Handout 1: Composers Pt. 1

Handout 2: Foreign composers

Handout 3: John Blow & Henry Purcell

Spring 2019: English Music Theatre c. 1600-c.1710

Handout 1-Masque 1600 to 1649

Handout 2-Masque vs. opera 1650 to 1700

Handout 3-Italian opera in England, c. 1690-1710

Fall 2019: Poetic Forms of the 16th and 17th Centuries

Handout 1-Versification

Handout 2-Sonetto

Handout 3-Ottava rima-strambotto

Handout 4-Arie per cantar ottave

Handout 5-Canzonetta

Handout 6-Terza rima-Trionfo-Capitolo

Spring 2020: The Lament

Handout 1-The Lament during the Late 16th and Early 17th Centuries

Handouts 2/3-Monteverdi's Lamento d'Arianna

Fall 2020: Various topics

Lecture: Printing & Notation

Lecture: Vincenzo Giustiniani and the Roman Scene

Handout 1: Francesca Caccini

Handout 2: Vincenzo Giustiniani, Discorso sopra la musica (1628)-Transl. RK

Spring 2021: Various topics

Lecture 1: Pietro Della Valle

Lecture 2: André Maugars

Spring 2022: Monteverdi in His Letters

Handout-Monteverdi life events

Monteverdi Letters Pt. 1-Cremona & Mantua 1567-1608

Monteverdi Letters Pt. 2-Mantua 1604-1611

Monteverdi Letters Pt. 3-1611-1615 Mantua and Venice

Monteverdi Letters Pt. 4-July 1615-January 1620

Monteverdi Letters Pt. 5-January 1620 to Feb. 1626

Fall 2022: Chamber Music in Rome c. 1620-1660

Lecture 1: Intro and examples

Lecture 2: Vocal & Instrumental Music: Michi/Savioni/Violin

Handout 1: Roman Vocal Chamber Music Overview

Spring 2023: Roman Opera Survey

Lecture: Overview; La Catena d'Adone, 1626 (D. Mazzocchi); Erminia sul Giordano, 1633  

    (M. Rossi); Il Palazzo Incantato, 1642 (L. Rossi)

Fall 2023: English Theater Music c. 1690-1710

Lecture

Spring 2024 Rinaldo & Armida (1698), Music by John Eccles

Lecture (coming soon)

Fall 2024 Francesco Cavalli and Opera in Venice

Lecture

Lecture handout

Spring 2025 Origins of Monody, c. 1570-1620

Lecture

Fall 2025 17th-century Spanish Song

Lecture