Francesca Caccini and Maddalena Casulana were very influential composers of their time. Both of them had their own style of composition because of where they composed. They were also both seen differently and lead their lives in different ways.
Francesca Caccini was born in Florence on September 18, 1587 to a musical family. When she was very young she learned harpsichord, lute, how to sing, music theory, and composition from her father, Giulio Caccini. .
As she grew older, many famous male composers, such as Monteverdi saw her as being able to sing and play instruments "all very well."" Her first performance as a singer was at the wedding of Maria de' Medici and Henri IV, King of France in 1600. Though she was good at these forms of entertainment, she was most valued as a composer. In her late teens, she began her composing alongside Michelangelo Buonaroti the Younger as the lyricist. .
Caccini was the first composer to compose an Italian opera performed outside of Italy. She composed a total of five operas, which she called "ballettos."" These ballettos were written with court dramatists and a large amount of sacred and secular songs set to her very own poetry. Only one of her operas, La liberazione di Ruggiero d'al isola d'Alcina of 1625, and her Primo Libro of 1618 survived. Il primo libro, which is a collection of short vocal pieces for one or two voices and basso continuo, contains thirteen secular and nineteen sacred solo songs, and four duets for soprano and bass.
One of the things that Fracesca Caccini wrote was ornamentation. Since she was both a singer and composer, she placed all ornamentation in her pieces that she wanted to have done, including any trills that would indicate a cadence. Caccini also had a very unusual tonal sense and individual sense. In primo libro contained a strong walking-bass line called a romanesca bass. Her pieces also contained unprepared dissonances, musical word painting, displaced rhythmic accents, and other emotional or descriptive effects.