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Zusatztext well-documented and richly detailed book ... Kendrick's ability to navigate the larger currents of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Milanese culture in order to contextualize the practices of the city's female monasteries is only one of the many strengths of this impressive study. ... The overview provides an excellent summary of stylistic trends in Milan at the time and keeps the reader focused on the main objective: to understand how the music reflects monastic traditions or conditions. ... Kendrick is to be commended for the extensive musical documentation he supplies ... his scrupulous examination of the music yields most satisfying results. ...Celestial Sirens is an essential addition to the library of any historian with an interest in the sacred music of Seicento Italy. Klappentext This study investigates an almost unknown musical culture: that of the cloistered nuns in one of the major cities of early modern Europe. These women were the most famous musicians of Milan, and the music composed for them opens up a hitherto unstudied musical repertory, which allows insight into the symbolic world of the city. Even more importantly, the music actually composed by four such nuns - Claudia Sessa, Claudia Rusca, Chiara Margarita Cozzolani, and Rosa Giacinta Badella - reveals the musical expression of women's own devotional life. The two centuries of battles over nuns' singing of polyphony, studied here for the first time on the basis of archival documentation, also suggest that the implementation of reform in the major centre of post-Tridentine Catholic renewal was far more varied, incomplete, subject to local political pressure and individual interpretation, and short-lived than has commonly been assumed. Other factors that marked these women's musical lives and creative output - liturgical traditions of the religious orders, the problems of performance practice attendant upon all-female singing ensembles - are here addressed for the first time in the musicological literature. Zusammenfassung This study investigates the musical culture of cloistered nuns in the city of Milan. The music composed by four nuns - Claudia Scossa, Claudia Rusca, Chiara Margarita Cozzollani and Rosa Giacinta Badalla - reveals the musical expression of women's devotional life....
