Sep 25, 2026 · 42 min · 9 segments
\[Please feel free to leap straight into this second part of the 'Diving for Pearls' episode but there's background information in the first half you might enjoy if by chance you have missed it.] How…
Isabella Leonarda spent essentially her entire life inside a convent in Novara in Northern Italy.
She entered as a teenager and became Mother Superior decades later, and yet across roughly 60 years, she published over 200 works, making her one of the most prolific composers, male or female, in the entire century.
Almost everything she wrote was sacred vocal music for use within her own convent.
But in 1693, she published a single collection of purely instrumental music, her sonatas.
It's amongst the very first published instrumental sonatas by any composer at all, let alone a woman.
The genre itself was still being invented, and Leonarda was there at the start of it.
It's performed by Cappella Artemisia under Candice Smith, and it is about four and a half minutes long.
Isabella Leonarda spent essentially her entire life inside a convent in Novara in Northern Italy.
She entered as a teenager and became Mother Superior decades later, and yet across roughly 60 years, she published over 200 works, making her one of the most prolific composers, male or female, in the entire century.
Almost everything she wrote was sacred vocal music for use within her own convent.
But in 1693, she published a single collection of purely instrumental music, her sonatas.
It's amongst the very first published instrumental sonatas by any composer at all, let alone a woman.
The genre itself was still being invented, and Leonarda was there at the start of it.
It's performed by Cappella Artemisia under Candice Smith, and it is about four and a half minutes long.
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