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200 years ago Anton Diabelli asked 50 composers to each write a variation on a waltz theme he had written – not a single women composer was among the composers. In 1924, the anthology entitled “50 Variations by the Most Excellent Composers and Virtuosos of Vienna” was published by the music publisher Cappi & Diabelli.
200 years later, on 05.11.2023, an extraordinary musical event will take place in the Staatstheater Braunschweig: The 50th premiere of waltz variations for solo piano on the same waltz theme by Diabelli. What makes this event particularly remarkable is that this time the variations are exclusively by 50 talented women composers from 22 different countries. The project was initiated by musicologist Claudia Bigos from Braunschweig and is under the patronage of General Director Dagmar Schlingmann.
For the performance 10 students from the piano class of Prof. Ewa Kupiec from the Hanover University of Music and Performing Arts (HMTMH) were selected. More infos

The sheet music edition is published by Furore Verlag.

Marie Awadis Armenia/Lebanon/Germany
Emanuela Ballio Italy
Marina Baranova Ukraine/Germany
Victoria Bond USA
Carmen Maria Cârneci Romania
Daria Cheikh-Sarraf Germany/Poland/Iran
Michaela Dietl Germany
Violeta Dinescu Romania/Germany
Asia Dojnikowski Poland
Siegrid Ernst Germany
Carlotta Ferrari Italy
Susanne Hardt Germany
Jessi Harvey USA
Dorothea Hofmann Germany
Sophia Jani Germany
Justina Jaruševičiūtė …

Viera Janárčeková, the E.T.A. Hoffmann Prize winner of the city of Bamberg, died on May 14 2023 at the age of 81 in Großbottwar (Ludwigsburg district).

Viera Janárceková studied music in Bratislava and Prague. Shortly after the suppression of the “Prague Spring” she emigrated to the then FRG. She lived for a long time near Kassel together with the writer Ulrich Holbein, first in Remsfeld, then in Homberg-Allmuthshausen. Since 1981 she was active as a freelance composer. She spent the last years of her life in Bamberg.
From initially traditionally oriented pieces, she gradually developed an experimental idiosyncratic style, along with appropriate writing styles. Commissioned works, prizes, radio broadcasts and publications testify to the growing interest in and recognition of Janárceková’s music.
Viera Janárceková’s works range from vocal and chamber music to large-scale orchestral pieces. “She understood experimentation as an indispensable part of her creative work, exploring new sounds and playing techniques. Again and again, her music was described as electrifying and magical,” Georg Pepl said in the HNA. She found her own musical path through listening. For new pieces, she always had various instruments handy at her desk to try out different sounds. Wolfgang Rihm wrote in …

Maria Teresa Agnesi Pinottini (* October 17, 1720 in Milan; † January 19, 1795 ibid.) was an Italian composer and harpsichordist.

She sent a collection of arias to the Electress Maria Antonia Walpurgis, who was herself musically active as a composer and performer.
Furore Verlag has published three arias from this collection, edited by Michael Goldbach. It is documented that even the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa personally performed arias by Maria Teresa Agnesis. The twelve arias prove her ability to mirror the affects of a dramatic situation through harmony, vocal writing, and instrumentation.

New at Furore: An anthology of works for guitar resulting from a concert project with Stefan Barcsay Throw your fear into the air featuring works by:

Dorothea Hofmann: “Still …” (2021) for guitar solo and “Noch” (2021) for voice and guitar (text: Rose Ausländer)
Barbara Mayer: Discurso Poético (2022) (inspired by a northern Brazilian “Martelo agalopado”)
Florentine Mulsant: Poème pour guitare op. 113 (2022)
Vivienne Olive: …your dreams fall into nowhere… (2022) (Barafostus’ Dream)
Larisa Vrhunc Na Vetru (2022) (In the wind)

Some years ago Stefan Barcsay discovered a book of poems by Rose Ausländer with the poem NOCH BIST DU DA (You Are Still There), which fitted in perfectly with a concert trip to Ukraine to Lviv and Chernowitz that he was planning at the time. This had to be cancelled and instead the tour began in Suceava, in the Romanian part of Bukovina. Since then, many compositions for the project WIRF DEINE ANGST IN DIE LUFT (a line from the poem “Noch bist du da” by Rose Ausländer) have been written and premiered by Stefan Barcsay.

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 …