Score
Performance material for hire
Description
Il Primo Amore
for soprano solo and chamber orchestra (1778)
(2 Flöten/flutes, 2 Oboen/oboes, 2 Hörner/horns, Streicher/strings)
hrsg. von/ed. by Michael Goldbach
Erstveröffentlichung/First publication
Preface
Marianna Martines was born on 5.4.1744 in Vienna, where she also died on 13.12.1812. „She was a
composer, harpsichordist / pianist, singer and educator. […] Of greatest importance for the young
girl‘s musical education was above all P. Metastasio, who lived in the same household at „Michaelerhaus“
Kohlmarkt 11 and was closely connected to the family. […] Marianna mastered several languages
[…]. Her teachers N. Porpora (singing) and J. Haydn (harpsichord) also lived in the Michaelerhaus.
According to her own account (autobiographical sketch), she received lessons in counterpoint
from Giuseppe Bonno. […] As a composer she already appeared in 1761. […] Stylistically, her compositions
can be classified in the style typical of the Viennese early classical period. According to her
own statements, she oriented herself compositionally towards Hasse, Jommelli and Galuppi. […] As
a composer, musician and pedagogue, Martines, who as an unmarried and financially independent
woman was able to devote herself to art virtually ‚unhindered‘, played a decisive role in shaping the
Viennese musical life of her time.“
On the occasion of a visit to Metastasio, the music writer Charles Burney met Marianna Martines
and reported: „After the great praise which the Abate Taruffi bestowed on the talents of this woman,
I was very curious to speak to her and listen to her play; and Metastasio was obliging enough to
suggest that she sit down at the piano, which she immediately did, without allowing herself to be
coerced for long or to boast with false modesty. She really surpassed the expectations I had had of
her. She sang two arias of her own composition, on words by Metastasio, accompanying herself on
the grand piano, in a well-understood masterly manner […] After these two arias, she played a difficult
hand piece on the grand piano of her own composition, with great skill and very purely.“
