Antonia Padoani Bembo.(The Seven Psalms of David, vol. 1)(Sound Recording Review)

Antonia Padoani Bembo. The Seven Psalms of David, Vol. 1. La Donna Musicale. [self-released], 2004.

While Antonia Padoani was not born into nobility, she was certainly a child of privilege--the daughter of a prominent Venetian physician, she had private music lessons from no less a teacher than Francesco Cavalli, then the maestro di cappella of the cathedral of San Marco. While some of the details of her subsequent musical career remain unclear, what is known indicates that her comfortable childhood gave way to a difficult adulthood: she married a Venetian noble and gave birth to three children, but she later filed for divorce and was left with little financial support. She left her daughter in the care of a local abbess (and her sons, presumably, with her ex-husband), and went to live in a "women's community" in Paris, under the sponsorship of King ...