(‘La Cecchina’)(b Florence, 18 Sept 1587; d after June 1638). Italian composer and singer, daughter of Giulio Caccini. She was the first woman to compose opera and probably the most prolific woman composer of her time. She sang with members of her family before becoming a singer at the Florentine court. In 1607 she wrote her first music for the stage and over the next ten years she composed much chamber music; her canzonettas and romanesca arias in Il primo libro delle musiche (1618) show her precise and graceful setting of Italian speech rhythms and her command of swift changes in intensity. Her surviving opera, La liberazione di Ruggiero dall′isola d′Alcina (1625), uses a variety of genres, including canzonettas, strophic arias and stile recitativo.

The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.