Melanie Spiller and Coloratura Consulting
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Composer Biography: Maddalena Casulana (c1540- after c1590)
Melanie Spiller and Coloratura Consulting
Also known as Signor Maddalena Casaulana de Mezari or Maddelena Mezari dette Casulana.
Casulana was a composer, lutenist, and singer of some repute, and was probably the first woman to declare
herself a professional musician and composer.
By 1568, when her piece was conducted at a royal wedding by Orlando di Lasso (c1530-1594), she was
already known to be a woman of notable pride and confidence. In the same year, Antonio Molino (c1495-
1571), a Venetian merchant, actor, and whimsical writer thought to be one of the founding fathers of the
commedia dell’arte movement, dedicated his book of four-part madrigals to Casulana. He said that the work
was a product of old age and of studying music with her.
In 1569, the Vicentine poet Giambattista Maganza (c1513-1586) dedicated a canzone to her. In the following
year, Maddalena dedicated her second book of madrigals to Dom Antonio Londonio (dates unavailable), a
highly placed official in Milan, whose wife, Isabella (dates unavailable), was a noted singer.
She was probably born in Casole d’Elsa near Sienna, based on her name. Author and astronomer Alessandro
Piccolmini (1508-1579) claims her for Sienna tells us nothing else about her.
She trained in Casole and then moved to Florence, where her patrons were first to hear her own
compositions. From there, she went on to Venice, where she gave private lessons in singing and
composition, from around 1568. She was also known to play the lute for private entertainments. She visited
Verona, Milan, and Florence, and probably met her husband as she traveled. Nothing is known about her
husband.
In 1568, she published her first collection of madrigals for four voices in Venice. The next two collections
were published in 1570 and 1583, and her last was published in 1586. Her works appeared in anthologies in
1566 and 1567.
As I mentioned at the start, one of her secular Latin pieces was played by Orlando di Lasso (c1532-1594) at
the marriage of Archduke Wilhelm V of Bavaria in 1568, along with that of another female composer,
Caterina Willaert, a relative (but not offspring) of the famous master, Adriano Willaert (c1490-1562). Sadly,
the music hasn’t survived, but it was called Nil mage incundum. It was a five-part madrigal.
Her personal writings indicate that in her early 20s, Casulana set out to be a professional musician, and to
support herself with her art. Despite this unusual assertion, she was regarded well by the upper echelons of
society.
Not much is known about her activities after 1570, but the poet Giambattista Crispolti (dates unavailable)
describes a banquet in Perugia where Casulana sang for her supper in 1582. In that same year, publisher
Angelo Gardano (1540-1611) dedicated his collection of madrigals to her, begging her to favor him with her
own contributions to the neglected genre.
She performed at a meeting of the Acadamia Olimpica in Vincenza in 1583, which, at one time, owned a
portrait of her. In her 1583 publication, her name was Madalena Mezari detta Casulana Vicentina, which
suggests that she married at some time after 1570 and settled in Vicenza. Perhaps it was her marriage that
kept her out of the public eye. It isn’t known whether she had children or not.
Compositions
Casulana wrote three books of madrigals, the first published musical works ever by a woman. The first
collection, printed in 1566, was called Il Primo libro di madrigal.
In total, there are 66 madrigals, of which five previously appeared in anthologies. Another is found only in
an anthology (Primo libra de madrigal a Quattro voci, Venice 1568). It was dedicated to Isabella de’ Medici
Orsina (1542-1576), a noted patron and amateur musician. Casulana made a comment in her dedication to
the effect that men don’t hold a monopoly on efforts of intellect.
Her madrigals reveal originality and personal style, but they suffer from being a kind of catalogue of word-
painting devices. She doesn’t seem to have had a teacher, as some of the stock elements are missing, or
over- or underused. For instance, there are few examples of imitation, and themes are repeated at too close
an interval to contrast with the generally homophonic texture. She overuses chromatic alteration and uses
such mannerisms as excessive voice crossing (where a low voice ends up higher than a high voice), awkward
ranges, strange chord inversions, and too-frequent parallel fifths and octaves.
These weaknesses are eclipsed by original and stunning effects. Textures, sometimes monotonous and
cramped, at other times provide effective contrast, such as in passages with dramatic opposition between
high and low registers, or passages in the fauxbourdon (parallel fifths, sixths, or octaves) style. Her harmonic
effects are often striking.
Sometimes, a long line is created where one voice makes a slow and dramatic chromatic rise, culminating at
the climax of the piece. Her use of dissonance is also masterful and modern, often sprinkled with dominant
seventh chords, approached and resolved in the usual way, at a time when this chord could hardly be found
elsewhere, except in the music of such composers as Cipriano Rore (c1515-1565), Adrian Willaert (c1490-
1562), or Orlando di Lasso (c1530-1594).
Her texts include some of her own and some by Petrarch (1304-1374), Annibale Caro (1507-1566), Luigi
Tansillo (1510-1568), Jacopo Sannazaro (1458-1530), Serafino Aquilano (1466-1500), Vincenzo Quirino
(dates unavailable), Bernardo Tasso (1493-1569) and Giulio Strozzi. (dates unavailable, but adoptive—and
probably natural—father of Barbara Strozzi).
Composer Philippus de Monte (1521-1603) tried to enlist her help in reviving the three-part madrigal, and
referred to her as “the muse and siren of our age.” But then she disappeared.
Sources
“The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers,” edited by Julie Anne Sadie and Rhian Samuel. W.W.
Norton & Company, New York, 1995.
“Women in Music,” edited by Carol Neuls-Bates. Northwestern University Press, Boston, 1996.
“The History of Western Music,” by J. Peter Burkholder, Donald Jay Grout, and Claude V. Palisca. W.W.
Norton & Company, New York, 2010.
“Women & Music, A History,” by Karin Pendle. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2001.
“Women Making Music, The Western Art Tradition, 1150-1959,” edited by Jane Bowers and Judith Tick.
University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1997.