From Sappho to Strozzi to Errollyn Wallen: Nardus Williams, Elizabeth Kenny & Mary Beard’s Women and Power at Wigmore Hall

Riana Duncan cartoon from Punch (1988) – From Flickr

Women and power: Maddalena Casulana, Isabella de’ Medici, Barbara Strozzi, Francesca Caccini, Settimia Caccini, Rosa Giacinta Badalla, Claudia Sessa, Errollyn Wallen; Nardus Williams, Elizabeth Kenny, Mary Beard; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 8 March 2026

Mary Beard brings out the political undertones and classical references in music by 16th and 17th century Italian women composers in pleasingly direct and intimate performances from Nardus Williams and Elizabeth Kenny leading to the premiere of a terrific piece by Errollyn Wallen.

International Women’s Day at Wigmore Hall began with Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective in Fanny Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio, plus music by Madeleine Dring, Amy Beach and Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, then in the afternoon violist Rosalind Ventris presented a programme of unaccompanied viola music from 20th and 21st centuries by Lilian Fuchs, Imogen Holst, Elizabeth Maconchy, Thea Musgrave, Sally Beamish, and Amanda Feery.

In the evening, Nardus Williams (soprano), Elizabeth Kenny (lute/theorbo) and Mary Beard (speaker) presented Women and Power, an evening that mixed 16th and 17th century Italian music by women composers with Beard’s illuminating discourse and ended with the premiere of Errollyn Wallen‘s setting of Carol Ann Duffy, Eurydice.

There were seven historic composers featured, Maddalena Casulana (c.1544-1566/83), Isabella de’ Medici (1542-1576), Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677), Francesca Caccini (1587-1641), Settimia Caccini (c.1591-1660), Rosa Giacinta Badalla (c.1660-c.1710), and Claudia Sessa (c.1570-c.1613/9).

Maddalena Casulana is notable for being the first European woman to have her music published: a collection of madrigals issued in Venice in 1568 and dedicated to Isabella de’ Medici (who was the next composer in the programme). Casulana’s O notte, o ciel’, o mar which contrasted plangent long notes with more chattery sections, proved to be a touching piece sung with a gentle fragility by Williams.

She and Kenny projected this intimate music in Wigmore Hall in a way which drew us in and did not suggest any need to amplify their manner to fill the space. Williams had a lovely ease of manner and pleasing directness, along with a way of capturing the fleeting emotions in this music.

Isabella de’ Medici had to suffer a dynastic marriage and may have been killed on the orders of her husband. One of the most accomplished women of the age, Lieta vivo et contenta is her only known work. It proved to be a fairly fleet piece, combining lyric melancholy with fragility.

The evening included five pieces by Venetian Barbara Strozzi, a noted performer and composer though one still suffering the allegations of sexual licence that plagued women performers. Giusta negativa was a strong piece, a claim to a woman’s power over her own voice presented in a free arioso that rose to a vibrant climax. By contrast, La, sol, fa, mi, re, do used humour for a similar purpose. The result was fast-paced with lively story telling from Williams, complete with knowing looks and flashing eyes.

Daughter of a famous musician father who enabled her training, Francesca Caccini also benefitted from two female patrons, rulers of Tuscany. Chi nel fior di giovinezza is from her opera, La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina (1625), the first surviving opera by a woman. The music of a siren, the piece was a charming song with a vocal line full of lovely ornamentation.

Returning to Strozzi, we heard Lagrime mie and Mi fa rider la Speranza both from a 1659 publication. The first was florid, intense and passionate, the tears though for Lidia imprisoned by her stern father. The second, ‘Hope makes me laugh’ was pert with fast, elaborate runs so that the refrain was busy indeed, leading to a vivid ending.

The first half ended with a piece by Francesca Caccini’s younger sister, Settimia Caccini, a virtuoso singer and composer who moved between the principal courts of Italy. Only eight of her works survive. Due luci ridenti proved to have a rather touching melody, gently but intently sung by Williams.

After the interval we turned back to Francesca Caccini. Her La Pastorella mia set poetry by Michelangelo’s great nephew (and heir). A quietly exuberant piece, its lyricism enlivened by virtuoso flourishes.

We then moved on to a pair of nuns from Milan, both of whose works suggested a familiarity with the wider musical world. Non plangete by Rosa Giacinta Badalla began with a concentrated melody unfolding over a ground bass before the piece became freer, faster and more florid leading to a striking climax. By contrast, Claudia Sessa’s Vattene pur lasciva orecchia humana was touchingly melodic and rather gentle.

The final Strozzi piece was Begli occhi, light fleet and charming. Then we heard Francesca Caccini’s Io mi distruggo, et ardo from her first book of madrigals; florid with an underlying melancholy, it built slowly in intensity.

Linking these was Mary Beard’s lucid and entertaining discussion of women and power, often focusing on women’s voice and its control by men, owning and silencing. Many of the works, and their poetry, leaned into this theme, but Beard also brought in references to Telemachus telling of his mother, Penelope in Homer’s The Odyssey, Henry James’s The Bostonians, a 1988 cartoon Miss Triggs by Riana Duncan, Ovid’s description of Circe turning Odysseus’s men into pigs written from the point of view of a man turned into a pig, Virgil’s account of Dido’s lament, Sappho read in both Greek and English and a complete scene from Aristophanes’s Lysistrata.

All this came together in the final work, Errollyn Wallen’s Eurydice setting Carol Ann Duffy’s words from her poem Eurydice which comes from her 1999 publication, The World’s Wife, with Wallen setting a somewhat compressed version of the poem for soprano, speaker and theorbo. In the poem, Duffy retells the story of Orpheus and Eurydice but from Eurydice’s point of view. Just as in Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld, which tells the story from the male point of view with Orpheus not wanting Eurydice back, so Duffy makes this so that Eurydice does not want to return to Orpheus. She is happy in hell, undisturbed by Orpheus and does everything in her power to make him turn back.

We began with a spoken section, and introduction from Beard with stark accompaniment from Kenny’s theorbo. Throughout the piece, Wallen’s writing for theorbo inclined to strong gestures punctuating the piece, along with striking textures. Williams’s first entry, done offstage, was a single wordless note echoing the texts referring to the underworld as a place ‘where the words had come to an end’.

From Williams’s entry onto the stage, she took control of the narrative, presenting the story in a sly confiding manner and talking to us directly. This was a vivid and colourful narrative, with occasional florid moments and edgy accompaniment. Throughout Williams’ was delightfully appealing, and very communicative with fine diction. For the ending, with its repeated ‘I did everything in my power to make him look back’ had an almost bluesy feel in the accompaniment.

The work got a terrific reception and the three performers rewarded us by performing it again. A real treat and a terrific climax to this concert.