Camilla de Rossi

Camilla de Rossi (fl. 1707–1710) was an Italian composer. Several women are known to have composed music in Northern Italy and Austria during the period 1670 to 1725. Of those women, though there is no remaining biographical information, Camilla de Rossi by far has the most surviving works. The only known biographical detail about Camilla is her Roman citizenship. She always signed the title pages of her manuscripts as Romana, or a woman of Roman descent. Rossi composed four oratorios for solo voices and orchestra, all of which were commissioned by Emperor Joseph I of Austria and were performed in the Imperial Chapel in Vienna.

All of Rossi’s surviving works demonstrate an intimate knowledge of stringed instruments and, as Barbara Garvey Jackson describes, "a keen interest in tone color". Her oratorios are all for solo voices; none of her works use choruses. She calls for various instruments (chalumeaux, archlute, trumpets, oboe) with string orchestra (including continuo). Her oratorio, Il Sacrifizio di Abramo, reveals her knowledge of instruments, strings in particular, but also demands two chalumeaux, an instrument first heard in Vienna in 1707, one year before her oratorio was performed for the first time in 1708. Her cantata Frá Dori e Fileno is for strings and two soloists. Where she learned these skills as a musician and as a composer are entirely unknown as of today. Especially given the fact that she was a woman from Rome, she would not have had access to the musical gatherings fostered by the pope and his cardinals.