Soprano Maria Ladurner, an internationally renowned specialist in early music, recorder player Anne-Suse Enßle and Ensemble Maddalena turn their attention – or rather, our ears – to pioneering achievements of the European High Baroque in their programme “Les Génies”. Works by celebrated masters such as Bach, Vivaldi and Handel are heard alongside music by female composers waiting to be rediscovered. At just 22 years of age, Mademoiselle Duval – whose first name, Louise, is not securely documented – composed the opera “Les Génies ou les Charactères de l’Amour”. With her Sonata in B-flat major, Anna Amalia of Prussia points the way towards the early Classical period with striking stylistic innovation. Julie Pinel came from a family of musicians and, at the age of 26, received the rare privilege for a woman of her time of being allowed to publish her works, including a collection of arias.
Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre is often referred to today as the “Mozart of the French High Baroque”, having performed before Louis XIV at the age of just five. Mrs. Philharmonica – a pseudonym believed to have concealed a woman’s identity – published twelve trio sonatas in London in 1715, helping to establish in England the new style associated with Arcangelo Corelli.
