1000 JAHRE KOMPONIERENDE FRAUEN

"History is created where we look," says the Graubünden mezzo-soprano Maria Riccarda Wesseling – and has taken a look. What she discovered is a musical treasure: works by women who have composed for more than a thousand years – often in the shadow of history, but with great artistic power.

The song recital brings back these voices, long underestimated and displaced by the musical canon, and tells of their themes and expressiveness – from medieval mysticism to modernity. In addition to Hildegard von Bingen, Fanny Hensel, Florence Price, Louise Farrenc and Kaija Saariaho, the focus will be on other congenial female composers, whose works and biographies will be examined in a new way.

Together with the pianist Clau Scherrer, Wesseling sets a quiet but determined sign against forgetting – and perhaps also readjusts music history a little in the process.


Works by: Ethel Smyth, Alma Mahler, Henriette Bosmans, Kaaja Saariaho, Hildegard von Bingen, Lilly Boulanger, Anna Cramer, Amy Beach, Louise Farrenc, Emilie Mayer, Clara Schumann, Fanny Hensel, Pauline Viardot, Florence Price, Martha von Castelberg (from Graubünden), Mel Bonis, Josephine Lang, Barbara Strozzi, Augusta Holmes, Unsuk Chin, Dora Pejačević, Germaine Tailleferre, Teresa Carreño, Cecile Chaminade, Marianna von Martines