Maddalena Laura Lombardini [Sirmen] (1745-1818)
- Concerto di Violino con' Diversi Istrumenti Obbligati (c.1772)
Performers: Angélica Gámez (violin); Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia; Lina González Granados (dirección)
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Italian composer, violinist and singer. Unusually for a woman composer
at that time, there appear to have been no other musicians in her family
and she became famous entirely through her own efforts. In 1753 she was
admitted to the Ospedale dei Mendicanti in Venice, not as an orphan but
as a musician who would be an asset to their all-female choir and
orchestra. She must have been an outstanding violinist since in 1760 she
was allowed to go to Padua to study with Tartini; as the lessons were
delayed, Tartini wrote her a long letter explaining his violin playing
methods and the best way to practise. It was copied in Padua before it
was sent and by 1770 it was in print in Italy, shortly followed by
translations into English (by Charles Burney), German and French. Sirmen
was probably taught composition by the maestro di coro at the Ospedale,
Ferdinando Bertoni, and probably also by Tartini. The dates of her
compositions are unknown, but as most of them were in print before 1774
they may have been composed while she was still at the Ospedale. In
1766, after 13 years at the Ospedale, she wanted to leave. Tartini tried
unsuccessfully to find her a husband, but in the next year she married
the violinist and composer Lodovico Sirmen (1738-1812). In 1768 the
couple started a highly successful European tour, playing in Turin and
several times at the Concert Spirituel in Paris, where six of her string
quartets were published in 1769. Although the title page says ‘Composta
Da Lodovico, E Madelena Laura Syrmen’, stylistic evidence indicates
that they are entirely her own work.
In January 1771 Lodovico was settled in Ravenna with their daughter and
Maddalena was in London, advertised as ‘the celebrated Mrs Lombardini
Sirmen’. She had two very successful seasons there as a violinist,
playing in various concert series (including the Bach-Abel concerts) and
at the theatres, followed by a third when she became a singer. Her six
violin concertos were published in 1772-73, followed in 1773 by keyboard
arrangements of them by Tommaso Giordani. After London she played or
sang in various Italian cities, in Paris, Dresden and as principal woman
singing at St Petersburg (1783). In 1785 she appeared again at the
Concert Spirituel, playing her own violin concertos, but was criticized
for her old-fashioned manner. She then settled in Venice and Ravenna,
where she spent the rest of her life. Sirmen's music was widely known
during her lifetime. A violin concerto was played in Stockholm in 1774,
and in a letter from Salzburg of 12 April 1778, to his wife and son
Wolfgang, Leopold Mozart said: ‘After the symphony Count Czernin played a
beautifully written concerto by Sirmen’. The string quartets, mostly in
two movements, are notable for their interesting inner parts. The first
movements of the violin concertos are generally in an embryonic sonata
form, the slow movements in binary and the finales in rondo form. Her
music was widely published and frequently reprinted by several different
publishers in Paris, the Low Countries, Germany and London.
