Heike Matthiesen - Guitar Divas (2023) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

For this recording I have selected challenging compositions by four female composers from a single generation but with very different life stories. The works are similar in temperament and are filled with lightness and exuberance.

The names of many women composers are well-known today and their music is performed with increasing regularity. However, much of their work never found their way to publication, particularly during the 19th century, a circumstance that presented the greatest hurdle for safeguarding their work for posterity up until the end of the 20th century. Only the internet allows women composers to seek out performers and audiences themselves.

Moreover, social circumstances made it difficult and often impossible for women to embark on careers as performers. Fostering a child prodigy and preparing them for the concert stage was a potentially lucrative opportunity for ambitious parents not only in the time of Mozart, but also in the 19th century. But marriage was obligatory for girls, after which they were forced to limit their spheres of activity to salons and charity events. Besides, women were not allowed to study, and with notable exceptions, many only received a rather superficial musical education.

The long careers of the four women composers on this recording were made possible through their relationships to men who were professional musicians themselves, and a different set of rules applied to foreign women compared to the “decent ladies” of local society.

Tracklist:
01. Giuliani-Guglielmi: Prelude No.1
02. Giuliani-Guglielmi: Variazioni su Non più mesta di Rossini op.5
03. Emmerich: Six variations pour la guitar seule
04. Pratten: Carneval de Venise
05. Pratten: Rambling thoughts
06. Pratten: Fairy Sketches: Queen Mab
07. Pratten: Fairy Sketches: Puck
08. Pratten: Dance of the witches (Fantasia Grotesque)
09. Pratten: 5th Divertimento (Variations on a theme by Mozart)
10. Pratten: Serenade
11. Pratten: Spanish Dance
12. Pratten: Moorish Dance
13. Goñi: La Jota Aragonese
14. Goñi: Carnival of Venice
15. Goñi: L’Adieu


Thanks to the Original customer!