Composer: Emilie Mayer
Orchestra: Philharmonisches Orchester Bremerhaven
Conductor: Marc Niemann
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Hänssler
Catalogue: HC22016
Release: 2022
Size: 1.16 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Symphony No. 6 in E major
01. I. Adagio – Allegro con spirito
02. II. Marcia funebre. Andante maestoso
03. III. Scherzo
04. IV. Finale. Allegro
Symphony No. 3 in C major ‘Sinfonie Militar’
05. I. Adagio – Allegro con brio
06. II. Un poco adagio
07. III. Scherzo. Allegro
08. IV. Finale militair. Adagio – Allegro vivace
The long overdue rediscovery of Emilie Mayer naturally earns her the near-universaI label of “female Beethoven”, which she was called even by her contemporaries. On the one hand that is a great honour, for Mayer is indeed considered the most successful symphonist among the composing women of the Romantic era. She was thus not content with the “domestic” genres of Lieder, piano works and chamber music, which is all that her female colleagues were generally allowed; on the contrary, she designed symphonies on the grand scale.
On the other hand, that label shows that people are still thinking along gender-specific lines – even if they have happily escaped the 19th-century mindset that hampered Emilie Mayer’s own career. As late as 1878, the “Neue Berliner Musik Zeitung” was describing her as a “rare phenomenon” and an “exception” to the rule that the “Production” of orchestral works was solely the “Domain of the creative male intellect”. By that date, Emilie Mayer had already presented eight symphonies. And in 1850, almost 30 years earlier, a critic had exclaimed in the same paper: “Hitherto woman’s fair hand has mastered the Lied at most ( … ). What female powers, powers of the second rank, can attain – that is what Emilie Mayer has achieved and reproduced”.
oh wow – this is a great discovery – wonderful music – I wish to hear more of her