Isabella Leonarda Essentials

Drawn to devoting her life as a nun during her mid-teens, Isabella Leonarda (1620-1704) supplied the sisters of the Collegio di Sant’Orsola in the northern Italian city of Novara with a rich musical diet. She became mother superior and consigliera (councillor) to her Ursuline convent, for which she created around 200 works for use in sacred services or to deepen spiritual contemplation. Isabella’s deep faith is reflected in the intensity of her rapturous Salve regina, an impassioned prayer to the Virgin Mary for soprano, two violins and continuo, and the emotionally charged music of O anima mea, in which two solo voices express their burning desire to embrace Christ on the cross. Powerful emotions surface, too, in Ad arma, o spiritu and the sonate da chiesa (“church sonatas”) of her Op. 16, a collection from 1693 comprising thrilling trio sonatas and the blood-quickening Sonata for violin and continuo.