“I’m amazed! I didn’t know you could compose so pretty. In a word, your Lied is beautiful. Please try to do these things more often.”

This certificate of esteem is reported in a letter from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart sent from Italy and addressed to his elder sister Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Mozart.

It is dated July 7, 1770, the same year Beethoven was born.

It is not known if Nannerl (this was her nickname) still composed, because no trace of her music remains, not even the Lied that had thrilled her brother.  Sometimes I like to think that, in any case, in some domestic performance the music of what is remembered simply as “Mozart’s sister” could have been performed and perhaps listened to by Beethoven himself. Nannerl, played the harpsichord, fortepiano, and piano excellently, and, apparently, composed admirably, a talent which, if she had not had to, due to social and family constraints, find a husband and settle down, she would probably have expressed in the best possible way, as her brother was allowed. A missed opportunity for composition!

Nannerl’s destiny was shared by most women who wanted to undertake composition, who were socially allowed to perform, singing or instrumental virtuosity, the stage and the limelight, but not that process of thought from which music is born. Despite the social and cultural constraints of their time, some managed to contribute to music that, even today, has no place in the collective memory.  The names of the composers, if you think about it, are all male.

Our site could not forget the other half of the sky or consider it only as a source of inspiration for the Maestro from Bonn, so the Beethoven Center Music Research opens a new window on the world of music entitled:

 Ask the female composers-Dialogue through the life and work of women musicians of Ludwig van Beethoven’s time.

We will try, without ambition of exhaustiveness, to explore female musical production in the classical period, a female journey that will have me and Prof. Antonietta Cappelli come guide. Siete pronti/e ad affrontare il viaggio ed esplorare, oltre agli inediti beethoveniani, anche questa parte poco conosciuta della musica classica?

So, let’s get started and let Nannerl help us!!

Fiorella Romenzi