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Article Excerpt
Madalena Lombardini-Syrmen. Six String Quartets, op. 3, I-III. Sally Didrickson, editor. Bryn Mawr, PA: Hildegard Publishing Company (T. Presser), c2002. [Introd., 1 p.; editor's notes, 1 p.; score, 29 p.; and 4 parts. Pub. no. 494026640. $55.]
Madalena Lombardini-Syrmen. Six String Quartets, op. 3, IV-VI. Sally Didrickson, editor. Bryn Mawr, PA: Hildegard Publishing Company (T. Presser), c2003. [Introd., 1 p.; editor's notes, 1 p.; score, 27 p.; and 4 parts. Pub. no. 494-02i670. $55.]
Maddalena Laura Lombardini Sirmen. Konzert fur Violine und Orchester, op. 3 Nr. 6 C-Dur (1772/73). Edited by Barbara Gabler. Kassel: Furore Verlag, c2003. [Pref. in Ger., Eng., 3 p.; score, p. 1-28; ISMN M-50012-461-0; Furore-Edition 2544. [euro]15.]
While Maddalena Laura Sirmen (nee Lombardini, 1745-1818) is well enough known for her eminence as a performer--she was just about the only professional female violinist of her time, and a highly successful one, before embarking upon a less illustrious career as an opera singer--her compositions are certainly less familiar. In fact, the string quartets that appear here in two volumes edited by Sally Didrickson have not been published in the modern era. Like Sirmen's other works, they were written relatively early in her life. Published by Madame Berault, the quartets appeared in Paris in 1769 (and subsequently in London in 1773 by William Napier), under the joint authorship of Maddalena (as Madelena Laura Syrmen) and her husband Lodovico. There are differing views on this apparent collaboration: for Elsie Arnold, stylistic evidence points to the quartets being Maddalena's work alone ("Sirmen, Maddalena Laura," Grove Music Online, http://www.grovemusic.com [accessed 22 February 2006]), while Ian Woodfield has recently suggested that the balance might have been the other way around, with Maddalena's name being added to the publication to boost sales through name recognition (review of Maddalena Lombardini Sirmen: Eighteenth-Century Composer, Violinist, and Businesswoman by Elsie Arnold and Jane Baldauf-Berdes [Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2002], in Eighteenth-Century Music 1, no. 1 [March 2004]: 92).
While the question of the quartets' authorship raises some fascinating issues, one should signal here the still stronger fascination provided by "Sirmen's" music (complete recordings are available by the Allegri String Quartet, Cala CACD1019 [1994], CD; and the Accademia della Magnifica Comunita, Tactus TC 731201 [1999], CD). The predominant topic, one that accounts for many of the music's stylistic and textural characteristics, is the serenade;...
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