Madame Ravissa

Who is Madame Ravissa?

Madame Ravissa de Turin was an Italian singer and composer. She was from Turin, but apparently lived in Paris from 1778 until 1783. She published six sonatas for harpsichord in Paris in 1778, on which she was described as Maîtresse de Clavecin et de Chant italien. A copy of the sonatas survived in the collection of Kaiser Franz II of Austria. In 1933 the manuscript was discovered in storage at Steiermärkischer Musikverein by musicologist Ernst Fritz Schmid, and is now housed at Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna. In 1778 her work was described in the Parisian Almanach Musical as "bold modulations that the Italians love and our timorous composers do not dare to allow themselves."