Trouvez les compositrices !

Women have always composed, they just weren't usually able to present their music in public. And if they did, such as in the Baroque era, they were immediately forgotten after their death. However, their sheet music still exists, provided it has been handed over to music archives, where it lies dormant. Anyone who searches for them will find them. And music publishers such as Furore-Verlag are systematically editing these scores.

Trouvez les femmes! is also the title of a larger-scale CD project by flutist Miriam Terragni and pianist Catherine Sarasin. Their aim is to expand the flute music repertoire with unknown pieces by female composers. The first CD is dedicated to the Romantic period, featuring Emilie Mayer (1812-1883) and Laura Netzel (1839-1927). Emilie Mayer was a highly acclaimed artist in Berlin and her works, including symphonies and concert overtures, were performed throughout Europe. Barbara Beuys recently published an illuminating book on this interesting composer.

Now Terragni and Sarasin present Mayer's Violin Sonata in D major, which they have subtly arranged for flute. This sonata is a jewel and also sounds good with flute. Terragni masters the most virtuoso passages in the passionate Agitato con passione and in the witty Scherzo with technical bravura and a soft tone. The imaginative three-movement Suite for flute and piano op. 33 by Laura Netzel also makes you prick up your ears; the whirling Allegretto non troppo vivo is played with ease and precision by the long-standing Terragni-Sarasin duo.

The young pianist Kathrin Schmidlin is also on the lookout for clues, having already made a name for herself with her debut CD Women's voices attracts attention (SMZ 4/2021). In collaboration with the music researcher Walter Labhart, she has now released a CD with piano pieces by eight female composers who are largely unknown even to connoisseurs of the scene. And she concentrates on their Opus 1, i.e. the first works of these highly talented musicians.

With her subtle touch and alert mind, Schmidlin knows how to play out the many short pieces vividly. Under her fingers, the Goblins in the fabulous Nine small pieces by Hilda Kocher-Klein (1894-1975). She brilliantly brings out the impressionistic colors in Cécile Chaminade's (1857-1944) famous Étude printanière to shine, only to then show off mightily in the weighty five-part Opus 1 by Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915-1940). You can hear Schmidlin's delight in these pianistic discoveries.

Opus 1 feminine. Works by Alicia Terzian, Hilda Kocher-Klein, Cécile Chaminade, Mathilde Berendsen-Nathan, Luise Adolpha Le Beau, Clara Schumann-Wieck, Maria Parczewska-Mackiewicz, Vítězslava Kaprálová. Kathrin Schmidlin, piano. Claves CD 3051

Trouvez les femmes! Vol 1. female composers of the romantic era. Miriam Terragni, flute, Catherine Sarasin, piano. Coviello Classics COV 92208