Leonora Duarte

[2] Gaspar I played the harpsichord and was musically trained (as was Catharina), although professionally he was a successful jewelry merchant who specialized in diamonds.

The correspondence of Leonora’s father and her brother Diego with Constantijn Huygens shows that there were frequent contacts with the cultural élite of the Low Countries and England, including Huygens himself and his sons Constantijn and Christiaan, Dutch poet and artist Anna Roemers Visscher, and William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle.

[3] In addition to his business in jewels, Gaspar and Diego were also heavily involved in the collection, trading, and commissioning of art.

Duarte received a superb musical education that included instruction on viol, virginals, and lute, as well as lessons in composition.

[1] Leonora was capable of combining her compositional skills with the latest ideas and theory in Italian and French music due to the rich traffic of visitors from all parts of Europe that regularly made it to the Duarte’s house on the Meir.

4 resembles English fantasia writing, including the practice of composing over top of a cantus firmus.

Duarte's reimagining preserves Frescobaldi's music with minimal changes, although she omits measures 35-mid 64, and adds the second treble part to make a fifth voice.

[1] Leonora Duarte was never commissioned by the church or the court over her lifetime, but stood out in her musical family due to her compositional talent.

[1] Her seven short sinfonias reflect the creation and compositional workings of Baroque music within the domestic sphere, where it would have originally been heard and performed.

[2] The manuscripts for the Sinfonias are held at the Christ Church College Library at Oxford University, although for many years they were mistakenly catalogued as being composed by "Leon Duarte.