An Ursuline nun of Novara,
Name: Isabella Leonarda,
Wrote music and song,
And thought it not wrong
To devote to our mater beata.

Indeed, many of Leonarda’s works carry a double dedication to our Lady and to someone whose funding or other such secular patronage she might have sought on behalf of her convent. She came from a prominent local family and was clearly well educated; some have thought that her authority within the convent came from her family’s patronage, though it seems hard to see on what specific evidence that is based. In fact, in one of her prefaces she comments that she composes only in her dedicated rest time, so as not to neglect her wider duties. If true, this suggests energetic and dutiful work as marks of her value in her community.

Seventeenth-century Italian music was a vibrant and exciting scene, although in certain ways it seems that Leonarda, perhaps on account of her cloistered life, ignores some of the distinctions between prima and secunda pratica, writing music that is both creative and well crafted.

Our case study in this post is Leonarda’s motet O Anima mea, arde (O my soul burn), a duet for two voices with continuo. The text, as might be imagined from the title, is passionate, burning desire and haste to grasp the beloved are both explicitly expressed. The desire in question, however, is for the crucified Lord, whose open wounds and spilling-out intestines are equally explicitly described.

Even though we are journeying through Passiontide as I write, you may be glad to know that the music does not exactly reflect the more gruesome aspects of the text. Even the self-retributive verse which looking inward contrasts the first person heart of stone with the sacrificial love of the redeemer is musically light, the negativity of the text being perhaps lightly referenced by a descending rather than an ascending run of notes. A change from duple to triple time, with the effect of the movement appearing to accelerate, nicely sets a part of the text in which the soul is exhorted to hurry towards the blessed arms of Christ.

The final word-painting to note is at the very end of the movement, setting first the words volo vivere (I want to live) and then volo amore mori (I want to die of love) with the mori repeated and getting quieter.

As, then, we approach Holy Week, are we also prepared to see the cost of the Saviour’s love for the world, and to see those wounds as, somehow, desirable?