For Johann Sebastian Bach’s birthday today and as we near Easter we'll look ahead with his complete "Easter Oratorio" in which biblical characters sing of their discovery that Christ has risen. It’s today's Midday Masterpiece

And throughout the day today for Women’s History Month we’ll spotlight five women who made their mark on music in the baroque era:

• Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (French; 1665-1729). Harpsichordist and composer.
• At age 5 she performed for Louis XIV [14th] which led to her eventually becoming a musician at his court. 
• After her marriage in 1684 [about age 19] she taught, composed, and gave concerts at home and throughout Paris, to great acclaim.
• Jacquet de La Guerre was one of the few well-known female composers of her time and, unlike many of her contemporaries, she composed in a wide variety of forms.

• Barbara Strozzi (Italian; 1619-1677). Composer and singer.
• Strozzi published eight volumes of her own music. 
• She's said to have had more secular music in print than any other composer – man or woman – in the middle of the 17th century.
• This was achieved without any support from the Church and with no consistent patronage from the nobility.

• Rosa Giacinta Badalla (Italian; c 1660-c 1710). Composer and Benedictine nun.
• She had only one printed collection, Motetti a voce sola (1684, Venice), a book of solo motets. One musicologist describes it as "remarkable among Milanese solo motet books…for its patent vocal virtuosity, motivic originality and self-assured compositional technique".
• There are also two surviving secular cantatas, Vuò cercando (ca. 1680) and O fronde care (ca. 1695).

• Camilla de Rossi (Italian; fl 1670-1710). Composer of oratorios. 
• Known for composing oratorios in Vienna during the early 1700s.
• De Rossi has the most surviving works of the women composers in Northern Italy and Austria during this period.

• Francesca Caccini (Italian; 1587-1640). Composer, singer, lutenist, poet, & music teacher.
• Caccini served the Medici court as a teacher, chamber singer, rehearsal coach and composer of both chamber and stage music until early 1627. By 1614 she was the court's most highly paid musician.
• Caccini left Medici service on 8 May 1641, and disappeared from the public record.
• Her only surviving stage work, La liberazione di Ruggiero, is widely considered the oldest opera by a woman composer.