Desperate Measures: The Life and Music of Antonia Padoani Bembo (review)

Comprehensive, erudite, detailed, fascinating, and, yes, screenplay. These are the words that come to mind as one reads Claire Fontijn's account of Antonia Bembo's life and works (ca. 1640–ca. 1720) in Desperate Measures: The Life and Music of Antonia Padoani Bembo. Few could argue that Bembo was one of the most gifted and determined of all Western European female composers. Hers was a life of extraordinary adversity which she overcame with stunning success, demonstrated not only by her strength of character but also by the power and beauty of her music. Forced to undertake a daring escape from her native Venice, leaving behind her abusive husband and three children, she was able to establish herself as a composer (and perhaps performer) in Paris under the protection of King Louis XIV. But hers was also a life of secrecy and silence, which made Fontijn's task as researcher extremely exigent, a challenge she met with great perseverance and yet joy at the prospect of introducing to the world this phenomenal composer. Indeed, Fontijn's ability to traverse a wide variety of documentation in the archives of three countries—Italy, France, and Croatia—is impressive. Also notable is her ability to bring together a wealth of knowledge, not only from archives, but also from historical, social, cultural, and musical sources, that results in a remarkable narrative about a composer whose story needs to be told and music heard and understood. Desperate Measures reveals just as much about the events, personalities, and music of the times as it does about Bembo's life and music.

The book begins with Bembo's dedicatory letter to Louis XIV, which introduces her first manuscript collection of music, Produzioni armoniche. From this we learn that she left her family in Italy and made her way to the French royal court, that she was abandoned by the person who took her away from Venice (Fontijn speculates later in the book that abandonment most likely referred to the death of Francesco Corbetta in 1681), that the King recognized her talent, awarded her a pension, and allowed her to stay in the community of Notre Dame de Bonne Nouvelle, and then moved her to a "holy refuge" (Petite Union Chrétienne). The questions raised by this letter, as well as shorter studies on Bembo by Yvonne Rokseth ("Antonia Bembo, Composer to Louis XIV," Musical Quarterly 23, no. 2 [April 1937]: 147–69) and Marinella Laini ("Antonia e le altre: percorsi musicali femminili nella Venezia del Sei-Settecento," in Ecco mormorar l'onde: la musica nel Barocco, ed. Carlo de Incontrera and Alba Zanini [Trieste: Stella Arti Grafiche, 1995], 138– 69), inspired Fontijn to undertake her own, more comprehensive examination of Antonia Bembo. Fontijn asks: "Why would she [Bembo] leave Venice? How had she gained admiration for the king so early in life, and under which circumstances did he deem her a singer worthy of a pension? How was she abandoned and what was 'the community of Notre Dame de Bonne Nouvelle'? When did she move to the 'holy refuge' and where was it? How did she learn to compose all of this music?" (pp. 3–4) Many details of her life will presumably never be recovered. Given that Bembo was not a member of a prestigious musical family, as were well-known women composers/performers Francesca Caccini (1587–ca. 1640) and Elizabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre (1665–1729), nor able to practice her musical skills in a Venetian academy, as did Barbara Strozzi (1619–1677) under the care of her father, and given that she had to escape an abusive husband who had every right to hunt her down and punish her, she had no choice but to remain hidden, drawing as little attention to herself as possible. Because she had to live much of her life in secrecy, Fontijn was forced...