Overview

"The composers included in Volume 5 of ""Women Composers: Music Through the Ages, Large and Small Instrumental Ensembles,"" were born between 1700 and 1799. Some women found here are also represented in Volumes 3 (keyboard music) and 4 (vocal music). Unlike most of the composers in Volumes 1 and 2 who belonged to religious orders or noble families, the eighteenth-century composers are of secular background. Many are members of musical families that include mothers, daughters, wives, and sisters-in-law of other composers and musicians. Volume 5 contains fourteen works in a variety of forms and genres by twelve composers from England, France, Germany, Italy, and Poland. The English composers include Maria Barthelemon, M.H. (MarieHester) Park, and Jane Mary Guest (Mrs. Miles). Barthelemon, mother of Cecilia Barthelemon (see Volume 3), is one of many women who published sonatas and other keyboard music in late-18th century London. Her ""Sonata, Opus 1, no.3,"" exemplifies the attractive, playable style for which the era is well known. Park wrote solo and accompanied sonatas, vocal music and a piano concerto. She taught music to members of the nobility and gentry. Guest, known as Mrs. Miles after her marriage, was a brilliant pianist who excelled as a composer for her instrument. Two of her works for solo keyboard can be found in Volume 3. France, despite the unrest of the Revolution, produced talented composers. Madame Louis and Amelie-Julie Candeille both wrote in large forms. Louis's opera Fleur d'epine was performed twelve times by the Comedie Italienne in Paris during the troupe's 1776-1777 season. The score contains an overture and twenty other musical numbers. The overture isincluded here; six vocal numbers from the opera are included in Volume 4. Candeille was one of the most fascinating French women musicians of the Revolutionary era, at times an actress, singer, playwright, pianist, harpist, composer, novelist, and music teacher. Her first play-with-music, ""Catherine, ou la Belle Fermiere,"" enjoyed revivals well into the 1830s. The overture and march from this work are included in this volume; vocal music from ""Catherine"" may be found in Volume 4. Her attractive piano concerto was clearly composed as a vehicle for her own virtuosic keyboard technique. Helene Montgeroult was another leading French pianist and teacher at the Paris Con- servatoire. She composed piano sonatas, vocal nocturnes, piano transcriptions, and an important set of progressive etudes; for the development of piano technique. Her accompanied piano sonata is included here. The German composers in this volume are either from royal or musical families. Francesca Lebrun (1756-1791), an almost exact contemporary of Mozart, was the daughter of cellist Innocenz Danzi and sister of composer/cellist Franz Danzi. She married oboist Ludwig August Lebrun; their daughters were also musicians. Francesca, a singer and composer, published two sets of piano sonatas with violin accompaniment. Maria Margarethe Marchand Danzi married Francesca Lebrun's brother, Franz. Both Maria and her brother studied with Leopold Mozart. Sonatas with violin obbligato by both Lebrun and Danzi are included in this volume. An opera was commissioned in honor of the birth of composer Princess Royal of Saxony, Maria Antonia Walpurgis, the daughter of Emperor Karl VII of Bavaria and Archduchess Maria Amalia of Austria.Walpurgis, also a patron of the arts, wrote poetry and published two operas, ""Il triofo della fedelta"" and ""Talestri, regina delle amazoni. ""The overture to ""Talestri ""appears here. The works of Maria Szymanowska are found in each of the three 18th-century volumes. This Polish born virtuoso pianist and composer wrote over 100 pieces. Two chamber works are presented here. Volume 5 concludes with music by the Venetian-born composer, Maddalena Lombardini Sirmen. Her style, technical virtuosity and aesthetic standards were shaped by her intensive musical education at the Mendicanti in Venice and by the influence of her violin teacher and mentor, Giuseppe Tartini. Sirmen's well-crafted works were widely circulated in Europe, both in manuscript copies and in multiple printed editions."

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