CASULANA, Maddalena – All Classical Research

Born ca. 1544
Died in/near Vicenza, ca. 1590

Maddalena Casulana was an Italian composer, singer, and lutenist whose three books of madrigals were the first published by a woman.
Casulana was a well-known and highly respected musician during her lifetime. Unfortunately, frustratingly little is known about her life and upbringing, as is the case with most women musicians of this era. Therefore, musicologists have difficulty determining whether her professional success as a woman composer was an exception or more of a norm of the time.
In a letter to Isabella de’ Medici Orsini, the dedicatee of her first book of madrigals, Casulana expresses that her music endeavors to “not only to give witness to my devotion to Your Eccellency, but also to show to the world (to the degree that it is granted to me in this profession of music) the foolish error of men who so greatly believe themselves to be the masters of high intellectual gifts that [these gifts] cannot, it seems to them, be equally common among women.”
As a composer of madrigals, Casulana was highly adept at text painting and known for her use of chromaticism and unexpected harmonies.¹

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Bio via Music by Women