Four Centuries of Great Music June 23, 2024 Women Composers of Vienna

Today on Four Centuries of Great Music is a program inspired by a lecture I heard online at the Boulanger Initiative by Dr. Kerry Ginger.   Dr. Ginger is an Assistant Professor of Voice  at Sewanee -The University of the South.  She gave two online lectures about Women composers in Vienna.  So today’s Four Centuries of Great Music will be all women composers who lived in Vienna at some point in their careers.  Dr. Ginger’s lecture focused on modern women composers, but I am going to begin by reaching back to the classical era of great music.

We open with music by Marianna Martines.  Martines was born in Vienna and lived as a child in a large building on Michaelerplatz in Vienna.  In this same building on the lowest floor were the rooms of the dowager princess of the wealthy Esterházy family. The Martines family were on the third floor. Another resident of the middle floors was Nicola Porpora, a well-known Italian singing teacher and composer.[4] At the very top, in a cold and leaky attic room, lived a struggling young composer, Joseph Haydn, who was trying to make his way as a freelance musician.

Young Marianna showed great promise and began singing and playing the piano.  She took vocal lessons from Porpora,  and keyboard lessons from Haydn.  Already as a child Martines was good enough to perform before the Imperial court, and as an adult was frequently asked to perform before the Empress Maria Theresa.  She began composition quite early and became so well known that she was admitted to the Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna in 1773, the first woman to gain admission.  She was friends with both Haydn and Mozart.

Today we will be hearing her Symphony in C Major which is in 3 movements:  I. Allegro con spirito; II. Andante ma non troppo and III. Allegro spiritoso

Marianna Martines:  Symphony in C Major: I. Allegro con spirito
Marianna Martines:  Symphony in C Major: II. Andante ma non troppo
Marianna Martines:  Symphony in C Major: III. Allegro spiritoso

Here is a performance of Marianna Martines:  Symphony in C Major by Salzburger Hofmusik conducted by Wolfgang Brunner from the album Martines: Symphony in C Major, Psalms 110 & 151 CPO Records

There are a couple of other composers from the classical era who lived in Vienna.  

One is Maria Theresia von Paradis.  Von Paradis became blind as a child but she had a fabulous ear and memory so became a touring pianist and composer in adulthood.  She was friends with Mozart, knew Haydn and Gluck and studied composition with Antonio Salieri.  Most of her music was lost but one of her works that is quite popular is her Sicilienne in E-Flat Major.  We are going to listen to this piece in an arrangement by Teodora Miteva for Cello & Chamber Orchestra here performed by Teodora Miteva, Cello and the & World Chamber Orchestra from her album La femme: Journey of Female Composers Naxos

Maria Theresia von Paradis’ Sicilienne in E-Flat Major

Another woman composer from Vienna during the classical era was Anna von Schaden.  Anna von Schaden was a very famous pianist and improviser in her time and a composer.  However only three works come down to us today two piano concertos written in collaboration with Antonio Rosetti and a Rondo in C Major.  Lets listen to the Anna von Schaden: Rondo in C Major as performed by Erica Sipes, piano in a live performance.


Let’s open this second half hour of today’s Four Centuries of Great Music featuring music of women composers from Vienna with music by the romantic era composer Julie von Webenau.

Born in Lemberg, Austrian Empire (today Lviv, Ukraine) and studied piano and composition with Mozart's son, Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart in Lemberg.  She moved to Vienna and was good friends with Robert Schumann.  Schumann dedicated his Humoresque op. 20 to her and in return she dedicated her L'Adieu et le Retour to Schumann as well as her Morceaux de Fantaisie pour Pianoforte.  She is most known for her piano works and art songs.

Today we will be listening to two art songs and part of her L'Adieu et le Retour.

Lets star with the two art songs.  First is  Julie von Webenau: Die Elfenkönigin from 3 deutsche Lieder, Op. 10 sung by Elissa Alvarez, soprano with Eunmi Ko, at the piano.  Second is Julie von Webenau: The grave rose  as performed by Andrei Bondarenko  baritone  with Antonii Baryshevskyi at the piano.  Both of these are live recordings.

You have been listening to

Let’s open this second half hour of today’s Four Centuries of Great Music featuring music of women composers from Vienna with more music by the romantic era composer Julie von Webenau.  This is the first movement I. L'Adieu. Moderato from her Julie von Webenau: L'Adieu et le Retour, Op. 25 here in a performance by Yaara Tal, piano from the album  “Love? Homage to Clara Schumann”. Sony Music

Julie von Webenau: L'Adieu et le Retour, Op. 25: I. L'Adieu. Moderato


We are taking a jump to close out this first hour of Four Centuries of Great Music featuring music of women composers from Vienna to the late 19th century and early 20th century with Alma Mahler.  Best known perhaps for her marriages to composer Gustav Mahler, architect Walter Gropius and poet Franz Werfel, she was also a composer.  She is best known for her art songs.  Today we will listen to her Vier Lieder composed in 1915.  These 4 songs are:
Alma Mahler: Vier Lieder Nr1 Licht in der Nacht
Alma Mahler: Vier Lieder Nr2 Waldseligkeit
Alma Mahler: Vier Lieder Nr3 Ansturm
Alma Mahler: Vier Lieder Nr4 Erntelied

Here is a performance of Alma Mahler: Vier Lieder by Karen Leiber, soprano & Martin Schelhaas, piano from the album Kennst Du meine Nächte        Voice Records


Lets open this second hour of Four Centuries of Great Music featuring music of women composers from Vienna with music by Luise Walker.

Luise Walker was one of the most prominent classical guitarists at the beginning of the 20th century.  And she was also a composer.  But she also composed for the guitar.  Today we will be listening to three of her works for the guitar:
Luise Walker:  Kleine Romanze;
Luise Walker:  Small Variations on a Catalonian Folk Song
Luise Walker: Variations on a Spanish Song
Kleine Romanze performed by Danny Yeh from the album Guitar Works   Chimei Museum Foundation Records
Small Variations on a Catalonian Folk Song performed by Luise Walker from a  Artia Prague recording entitled Luise Walker Guitar Recital
And Variations on a Spanish Song also performed by Luise Walker from a Philips recording entitled  Luise Walker Guitar Recital

You have been listening to:


Elizabeth Gyring
Born, educated and began her career in Vienna, emigrated to the United States escaping the Nazis in 1939.  Her papers are housed at Washington State University because she worked there for a short time.

Piano Sonata No. 2_ I. Con brio
Piano Sonata No. 2_ II. Allegretto

Piano Sonata No. 2_ III. Adagio
Piano Sonata No. 2_ IV. Finale, Vivace
Mitchell Andrews
Harrison: Suite for Percussion/; Perry: Homunculus, C.F.; Gyring: Piano Sonata No. 2
Anthology of Recorded Music

Charlotte Schlesinger.   (1909-1976)
German born and educated but taught at the Vienna Conservatory before leaving to teach for a brief time in Ukraine before emigrating to the United States

5 Songs_ No. 2, Es ziehen die Reihe lang
5 Songs_ No. 3, Wie hell das Licht mir scheinet

5 Songs_ No. 4, Was hör ich

Hermine Haselböck, soprano & Clemens Zeilinger, piano
EntArteOpera Festival
Gramola Records

Evelyn Faltis 1887-1937
Born in Bohemia to Viennese parents, began her musical education at a convent school in Paris before tranferring to the Vienna Music Academy.  Worked in Germany before moving back to Vienna where she died of pneumonia.

Evelyn Faltis: LIEBESLIED (Rainer Maria Rilke), op. 8/5
Evelyn Faltis & Else Lasker-Schüler: Traum, op. 14,1.
 Daniel Johannsen, tenor & Tatjana Dravenau, piano
Live performance  Ungeschnittene EDIROL-Proben-Aufnahme aus dem Alten Konzertsaal am Rennweg der mdw Wien, 15. September 2022

I am going to close today’s Four Centuries of Great Music episode featuring women composers who spend some of their professional life in Vienna with contemporary composer Olga Neuwirth.  Olga Neuwirth was born in Graz, Austria and was educated at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. She studied with Tristan Murail and worked at IRCAM, producing works such as the one we are featuring today on Four Centuries of Great Music. Neuwirth’s highly original compositional style is characterized by the use of diverse compositional techniques and hybrid sound materials, with a constant questioning of artistic and socio-political norms. She refers to her music as “art in-between”.  She draws her compositional inspiration rom a multitude of “sources...from art, architecture, literature, music, intellectual history, psychology, natural science, and everyday reality”

She has numerous chamber and orchestral works to choose from including both acoustic and electo-acoustic works.  Today I am featuring her work ?risonanze!... for viola D’amore by Olga Neuwirth as performed by Garth Knox, viola D’amore from the album Olga Neuwirth Chamber Music


 …?risonanze!... for viola D’amore by Olga Neuwirth as performed by Garth Knox, viola D’amore from the album Olga Neuwirth Chamber Music KAIROS

Thank you for joining me today on Four Centuries of Great Music.  Remember this episode will encore on this coming Saturday from 3-5 pm.  A new episode  featuring classical music releases in May and June will air and stream next Sunday from 3-5pm.