Composers were pretty much three-a-penny, a-pfennig, every schloss had more than enough to keep the local court orchestra busy with new pieces, and the drawing room alive to the sound of the Margrave's daughter's fingers on the harpsichord. (Just as now-a-days, where Irish and English orchestra's are rare and relatively unsupported compared to the hundreds of German professional bands; so it wa in the eighteenth century, most of the Irish and English Big House types cared little for supporting composers or musicians...).
But the three-a-penny German eighteenth century composer was male. It wasn't that the German eighteenth century female mind was less musical, or less creative, or less imaginative, or in any way inferior to that of the male; it was just that that was the way it was. Except it wasn't. Take the sisters of the fellow we know as Frederick the Great: they not only played music but also composed, and their music was performed. Princess Friederike Sophie Wilhelmine of Prussia, who became Princess Wilhelmine Margravine of Bayreuth and established the beginings of the musical life that was in later generations to nuture the talent of Wagner, well, the good Princess not only played and composed for flute and harpsichord, but she also employed a female composer in her court, Anna Bon di Venezia. The Venezia part was not exactly true, her parents (both musicians) came from the lagoon state, but she was definitely a woman and a composer, and...
...and on March 26th 2015 three intrepid and very musical girls in Sligo will re-create the sounds that Ms Anna Bon imagined some two hundred and fifty years ago in the schloss of the the good Princess Wilhemine.
Charlotte Kinsella and Magan Corcoran (flutes) and Emily Gaine (harpsichord) are currently rehearsing Ms Bon's trio opus 3 No 1 – as well as doing the odd bit of study for their Junior Cert. They will perform it as part of the sbos Student Soloist Concert and if you are not there you will miss this bit of entirely female creativity and recreation.
And you will also miss other students performing in works by Mozart, Handel, Vivaldi, Dowland and Heinichen
SBO Student Soloist, with Guest Leader Niamh Crowley The Model
6.30 pm Thursday March 26th
The Model, Sligo
admission €5 - children free