Biographies music

Emilie Mayer

Emilie Mayer by Ute-Gabriela Schneppat Emilie Mayer by Ute-Gabriela SchneppatEmilie Mayer(* 14 May 1812 in Friedland; † 10 April 1883 in Berlin) Emilie Mayer is probably the first professional female composer. In contemporary reviews she was celebrated as a...

Misia – muse, patron and model

Misia – Muse, Mäzenin und Model von Anja Weinberger Misia - muse, patron and model by Anja WeinbergerI first came across the name Misia Sert when I was looking for a topic for my diploma thesis. The course of study...

Anna Bon di Venezia

Anna Bon di Venezia by Anja WeinbergerTruly astonishing things happen when you try to learn more about Anna Bon. Like a mirage, she appears on the horizon of music history in the 1750s, only to disappear again in the mid-1760s. During this rather short period, she...

The women of the Boulanger family

The women of the Boulanger family by Anja Weinberger The women of the Boulanger family by Anja WeinbergerThere were three particularly musical women in the Boulanger family. One was named Marie-Julie, a Halligner by birth, and the...

Misia – muse, patron and model

Anna Bon di Venezia

The women of the Boulanger family

Johann Sebastian Bach’s sonatas for flute

Bach’s sonatas for flute are very different; technically they lie between “can be played by students” and “a challenge every time”. I have been playing some of them since my early days as a flute student and some others have only been in my repertoire for a few years …

The posthumous fate of Ludwig van Beethoven

Rest in Pieces by Rita Klement Rest in Pieces...

Antonio Salieri

Antonio Salieriby Andrea StroblMost of us know...

Emanuel Schikaneder

Emanuel Schikaneder was born on September 1, 1751. Although he wrote 55 operas, plays and songs in his lifetime, he is best known for writing the text to The Magic Flute, having the play performed in his theater, and also for writing the …

Johann Pachelbel

The life of Johann Pachelbel, a musical journey to his roots and around his connection to Erfurt.

Sigfrid Karg-Elert

Siegfried was born in Oberndorf am Neckar in 1877 as one of 12 children of the Karg family. Even the little three-year-old boy displayed an almost morbid enthusiasm for bells and could be kept busy for hours with numbers and arithmetic problems …

Johann Sebastian Bach and the “Musical Offering”

Johann Sebastian Bach is – I think – known to almost everyone. Therefore, I limit myself here only to a few facts. On the other hand, one is probably a musician or at least a particularly interested concertgoer, if one is also familiar with …

Fauré and his wonderful fantasy

Gabriel Urbain Fauré was born in 1845 in the very south of France. He was a gifted little boy in a not particularly musical family. Favorable circumstances allowed him to go to the École Niedermeyer in Paris. There he learned (almost) …

Albert Roussel and the “Joueurs de Flûte”

Albert Roussel by Anja WeinbergerAlbert Roussel...

Everything twice – Doppler, Fürstenau, Moyse and co.

We flutists stumble again and again over this drawn picture of the Doppler brothers playing the flute, one holding the flute to the right, one to the left – and that with this name .(“doppelt” in German means “twice the same”) Unfortunately, I have now read that this is pure invention. Both have, …

Francis Poulenc’s Flute Sonata

Francis Poulenc's Flute Sonataby Anja...

Gabriel Fauré and Claude Debussy

Gabriel Fauré und Claude Debussy waren Zeitgenossen. Fauré wurde 1845 und Debussy 1862 in Frankreich geboren. Genau genommen trennte sie beinahe eine ganze Generation, 17 Jahre, jedoch waren beide Teil dieser spannenden Zeit, die mit so unterschiedlichen Namen …

Gaubert’s wonderful chamber music

We are in France before the turn of the century. A young boy is born in Cahors (1879), it soon becomes apparent that he is musically very talented. A favorable wind inspires his life path …