www.swissdisc.ch (17^th of january 2005)

This original release from RAMÉE is a magnificent performance, inviting the listener on a poetic journey, an enchanting reverie. The recording has been produced with great care and attention, and is accompanied by a comprehensive and remarkably well written booklet.
»O Dulcis Amor« is essentially devoted to women composers, mostly of noble extraction or members of the rich bourgeoisie, who made their appearance in northern Italy from the end of the 16^th to the middle of the 17^th centuries.
The works of five women, composers of various forms of music such as madrigals, motets, cantatas etc, are presented here with great finesse.
Caterina Assandra (circa 1590 - after 1618) who, after having published her collection of motets, three of which appear on this recording, retired to a Benedictine convent and continued to compose motets in the original traditional style.
Vittoria Aleotti (circa 1575 - after 1620), with madrigals written in verse by the poet Giovanni Battista Guarini, bearing witness to the different styles of the 16th century.
Francesca Caccini (1587 - after 1641), eldest daughter of the composer Giulio Caccini, who became the first woman to write an opera and who enjoyed a long career as a singer, composer and teacher.
Barbara Strozzi (1619 - after 1664), daughter of the famous poet and intellectual Giulio Strozzi who was very much in vogue in Venice during that period. She published eight collections of madrigals, arias, cantatas and motets for solo voice using texts written mostly by her father.
Isabella Leonarda (1620 - 1704), whose sonata presented here is probably one of her most successful and harmonically mature works.

Pascal Souhard