Monthly Archives: March 2023

A Piccolo Concerto that Deserves a Performance

Florentine Mulsant’s 13-minute Concerto for Piccolo and Orchestra was highly praised by reviewer Carla Rees in the British flute magazine PAN:

Perhaps one of the most notable features of the piece is the timbral quality achieved by the piccolo; one usually associates the piccolo with high, bright and even squeaky sounds, but in this piece, the focus is on expression, delicacy, lightness and timbral variation. Mulsant’s piccolo rarely ventures into the high register, instead she features the earthiness of the low register and
the sweetness of the middle register. This is a notable work that deserves to become an established part of the repertoire.

Concerto pour piccolo et orchestre op. 72 No. 2 and 
Concerto pour piccolo et piano

The Mecklenburg composer Emilie Mayer, whose life dates are almost identical to those of Richard Wagner, was astonishingly successful in her time, her works were performed, many of them
appeared in print. After her death from pneumonia in 1883, however, she fell into oblivion surprisingly quickly.

2023 marks the 140th anniversary of her death († April 10, 1883 in Berlin). To mark the occasion, there are a number of concerts in March, April and May – here’s a small selection:

On March 24 and 25, 2023, a concert commemorating the 140th anniversary of the death of EMILIE MAYER († 10 APRIL 1883 IN BERLIN), featuring her Piano Concerto in B-flat Major. Conductor: Andreas Spering, piano: Katharina Königsfeld. On March 30 and April 1 and 2, there is a concert by the Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra: EMILIE MAYER RETROSPEKTIVE with her Symphony in F minor. The Orchestra of the University of Nebraska – Lincoln will play the Symphony in F minor on April 13. Le Rhin Lyrique will play …

The talented song composer Josephine Lang (* 14 March 1815 in Munich; † 2 December 1880 in Tübingen) was born into a family of musicians in Munich. She heard her godfather, Karl Stieler, who had painted portraits of Beethoven and Goethe, talk about these ‘intellectual heroes’. Her meeting with the 21-year-old Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in 1830 was a turning point in her artistic development. She recalled: “The encounter with this master brought about a complete upheaval in my being. His spirit brought me light, his work gave me an ideal.” Mendelssohn urged her to keep her talent sacred and not to squander her gifts in societies.

The city of Tübingen has announced the 1st Josephine Lang Competition for Lied Duo in her honour. Registration for the 1st Josephine Lang Competition for Lied Duo is open from 15 May to 15 July 2023.

International Women’s Day originated in the struggle for equal rights and the right to vote for women and was first initiated by the Social Democrat Clara Zetkin on March 19, 1911. Millions of women from several countries demonstrated publicly on that day with the battle cry “Out with women’s suffrage!” for equal pay and a right to co-determination. In 1921, Women’s Day was then set for March 8 at Zetkin’s request, because on March 8, 1917, women textile workers in St. Petersburg had gone on strike under the slogan “Peace and Bread!”, making the day globally significant.

International Women’s Day is a public holiday in 26 countries around the world. Within Germany, only in the state of Berlin – since 2019.

In keeping with Women’s Day, Furore Verlag has published four volumes of the “Mund auf statt Klappe zu” series in recent years, featuring songs from the international women’s movement from various eras and countries. The history of the women’s movement includes numerous songs that musically underscored and loudly expressed demands for equal rights, appropriate working conditions, political and social participation, self-determination and development. The selection, which ranges from workers’ songs to women’s suffrage songs and self-determination songs, takes into account different …