Hildegard von Bingen, Maddalena Casulana, Francesca Caccini, Barbara Strozzi, Isabella Leonarda, Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre, Fanny Hensel, Anna Bon – do these names ring a bell? Probably not.
Most of us never heard the names of these women, but they all lived between the 12th and the 20th century and all of them were musicians and composers.
They have something else in common: all of them remained largely unknown, their works were rarely performed and, in some cases, they were forgotten, almost written out of history.
Everything is not lost, though, as Italian artist Donatella Lombardo has been researching them hoping to rediscover their works through her art pieces.
Lombardo digitally printed their compositions on fabric and then used delicate threads attached to spindles to create geometrical abstractions on the compositions. In this way the artist reinvented a new linguistic code, reuniting music with crafts, visual and textile arts. The artworks are currently on display as part of the "Partiture Mute. Note a margine" (Silent Scores. Marginal Notes) at the Museo Internazionale e Biblioteca della Musica (International Music Museum and Library; until 23rd February) in Bologna as part of the event Art City Bologna.
While the main point behind Lombardo's works is to bring back the attention to the compositions and making the music available again, there's more behind the pieces. Lombardo enhances the compositions with needlework, traditionally considered as a "feminine craft" that she combines with digital prints, suspending the scores between the past and the present, traditions and modern times.
Lombardo's artworks remain silent, but they actually speak to visitors, looking for people who may be willing to perform the music compositions, and give them a new life and audience.
Hopefully, the compositions will find new fans and some visitors will also be prompted to read more also about the lives of these women. Maddalena Casulana, for example, Italian composer, lutenist and singer, lived in the late Renaissance and published books of madrigals. Casulana must have been a strong and determined woman: in the inscription to her first book, dedicated to Isabella de' Medici, she highlighted how, through her work, she wanted to show the world that vainglorious men who did not believe women could be as intellectually gifted as them were utterly wrong. Looks like the compositions are just one side of these clever women we may want to rediscover.
Image credits for this post
1.
Donatella Lombardo
Partitura 19 - Hensel Fanny - Lieder fuer das Pianoforte Bote Pastorella, 2016
Needlework and digital print on fabric, plexiglas, expanded polyurethane, spindles, pins
Cm 49 x 20 x 13 ca
Courtesy of the artist
2.
Donatella Lombardo
Partitura 14 - Francesca Caccini - Delle musiche a una e due voci, 2016
Needlework and digital print on fabric, plexiglas, expanded polyurethane, spindles, pins
Cm 43 x 20 x 12,5 ca
Courtesy of the artist
3.
Donatella Lombardo
Partitura 22 - Hildergard Von Bingen - Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum et Ordo virtutum, Riesencodex
Hs.2, n.d. (ca 1175-1190), 2018
Needlework and digital print on fabric, plexiglas, expanded polyurethane, spindles, pins
Cm 60 x 20 x 10
Courtesy of the artist
4.
Donatella Lombardo
Partitura 15 - Di Chiara Anita - Cantu di carritteri , 2016
Needlework and digital print on fabric, plexiglas, expanded polyurethane, spindles, pins
Cm 45,5 x 20 x 11,5 ca
Courtesy of the artist
5.
Donatella Lombardo
Partitura 22 - Hildergard Von Bingen - Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum et Ordo virtutum, Riesencodex
Hs.2, n.d. (ca 1175-1190), 2018 (detail)
Needlework and digital print on fabric, plexiglas, expanded polyurethane, spindles, pins
Cm 60 x 20 x 10
Courtesy of the artist
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