Maddalena Casulana
arr. Colin Matthews
Il vostro dipartir
Little is known about Maddalena Casulana (c.1544–c.1590) beyond the fact that she was the first European woman to have her music printed and published. In the dedication to Isabella de’ Medici of her first book of madrigals, published in Venice in 1568, she wrote: ‘I want to show the world, as much as I can in this profession of music, the vain error of men that they alone possess the gifts of intellect and artistry, and that such gifts are never given to women’. This is a free arrangement of one of the madrigals from her second book, published in 1570, whose text seemed to be very fitting for Martin’s wonderful project.
Il vostro dipartir, donna, mi diede noiosa vita
E con si dubbia spene di voi, caro mio bene
Ch’alti si n’pera di ciò fia cagione
Le vostr’alme virtut’ al mondo sole
E rio timor mi spinge ond’ i miei lumi
Sembran d’amare lacrime duo fiumiYour departure, lady, leaves my life insipid
And my hope for you is so unsure, my dearest,
That I aspire to nothing less
Than your soul, the only virtue in the world.
And fear brings tears repeatedly to my eyes
As if they were two streams of bitter tears.