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Maria Theresia von Paradis (May 15, 1759 – February 1, 1824) was an Austrian musician and composer who lost her sight at an early age, and for whom her close friend Mozart may have written his Piano Concerto No. 18 in B-flat major. She was also in contact with Salieri, Haydn, and Gluck.

For the mountaineer, see Maria Paradis.

Portrait drawing of Paradis
Portrait drawing of Paradis

Early life


Maria Theresia von Paradis was the daughter of Joseph Anton von Paradis, Imperial Secretary of Commerce and Court Councilor to the Empress Maria Theresa, for whom she was named. The Empress, however, was not her godmother, as was often believed. Between the ages of 2 and 5 she lost her eyesight.[1]

She received a broad education in the musical arts from:

By all accounts, Paradis had an excellent memory and exceptionally accurate hearing, as she was widely reported to have learned over sixty concertos by heart, as well as a large repertoire of solo and religious works.

In 1773 she was commissioned to perform an organ concerto by Antonio Salieri which survives but without its second movement.

By 1775, Paradis was performing as a singer and pianist in various Viennese salons and concerts.

Paradis was treated from late 1776 until the middle of 1777 by the famous Franz Anton Mesmer, who was able to improve on her blindness temporarily until she was removed from his care, amid concerns on the one hand of possible scandal, on the other hand at the potential loss of her disability pension.[1][2] In any case, on her departure from Dr. Mesmer the blindness came back permanently.


Touring Europe


Paradis did not stay confined to Vienna. In 1783, she set out on an extended tour towards Paris and London, accompanied by her mother and librettist Johann Riedinger who invented a composition board for her. In August of that year they visited the Mozarts in Salzburg, though Nannerl's diary seems to place this meeting in September. She played in Frankfurt and other German cities, then Switzerland. Paradis finally reached Paris in March 1784.[3] Her first concert there was given in April at the Concert Spirituel; the review in the Journal de Paris for it remarked: "…one must have heard her to form an idea of the touch, the precision, the fluency and vividness of her playing." In all she made a total of 14 appearances in Paris, to excellent reviews and acclaim. She also assisted in helping Valentin Haüy ("the father and apostle of the blind") establish the first school for the blind, which opened in 1785.

Paradis performed a piano concerto by Joseph Haydn (HXVIII: 4), which may have premiered in Paris also in 1784, but it appears to have been composed in the 1770s, and the original manuscript is now lost.

Also in 1784 Paradis performed a piano concerto (probably No. 18, K.456) by Mozart. While K.456 is believed to be the concerto intended for Paradis, there are continuing doubts concerning this. Ruth Halliwell comments:

It is not certain which concerto this was. Leopold [in a letter from Vienna] simply described it to Nannerl as a ‘glorious concerto’ and said it had been written for Maria Theresia von Paradis ‘for Paris.’ His description suggests that neither he nor Nannerl knew it already; if this is so, it must have been a later one than K.453, which seems to have been the newest they had in Salzburg at this date.[4]

Paradis traveled to Westminster in late 1784 and performed over the next few months at court, Carlton House (the town house of the Prince of Wales), and in the Professional Concerts at Hanover Square, Westminster, among other places. She played Handel fugues to George III and later accompanied the Prince of Wales, a cellist. However, her concerts were less well received and attended in England than in Paris. She continued to tour in Western Europe (including Hamburg where she met Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach), and after passing through Berlin and Prague, ended up back in Vienna in 1786. Further plans were made for her to give concerts in the Italian states and Russia, but nothing came of these. She returned to Prague in 1797 for the production of her opera Rinaldo und Alcina.


Compositions and later life


During her tour of Europe, Paradis began composing solo music for piano as well as pieces for voice and keyboard. The earliest music attributed to her is often cited as a set of four piano sonatas from about 1777, but these are really by Pietro Domenico Paradisi, to whom much of her music is often mistakenly attributed. Her earliest major work in existence is the collection Zwölf Lieder auf ihrer Reise in Musik gesetzt, composed between 1784 and 1786.

By the year 1789, Paradis was spending more time with composition than performance, as shown by the fact that from 1789 to 1797 she composed five operas and three cantatas. After the failure of the opera Rinaldo und Alcina from 1797, she shifted her energy more and more to teaching. In 1808, she founded her own music school in Vienna, where she taught singing, piano and theory to young girls. A Sunday concert series at this school featured the work of her outstanding pupils. She continued to teach up until her death in 1824.

When composing, she used a composition board invented by Riedinger, her partner and librettist, and for correspondence the hand-printing machine invented by Wolfgang von Kempelen. Her songs are mostly representative of the operatic style, which displays coloratura and trills. Salieri's influence may be seen in the dramatically composed scenes. Much of the stage work is modeled on the Viennese Singspiel style, while her piano works show a great influence by her teacher Leopold Kozeluch.


Sicilienne


The most famous composition ascribed to Paradis, the Sicilienne in E-flat major for violin and piano (played at Prince Harry's and Meghan Markle's wedding) is a musical hoax by a 20th Century violinist Samuel Dushkin.[5] The Sicilienne is based on the Larghetto movement from Carl Maria von Weber's Violin Sonata in F major, Op. 10, No.1.[6]


List of works by Maria Theresa Paradis


Stage works

Cantatas

Instrumental works


Scores



Cultural references



Novels and short stories



Play


Video documentation, script, musical sketches and performance history, available in the Claudia Stevens papers, Special Collections, Earl Gregg Swem Library, College of William and Mary. http://scdb.swem.wm.edu/?p=collections/controlcard&id=8096 A musically self-accompanied solo play in two acts, text and music by Claudia Stevens, concerns Maria Theresia's relation to Mesmer, and blindness as metaphor.


Films


Paradis is mentioned in a scene during which Antonio Salieri reports Emperor Joseph II Paradis's claim that she was molested by Mozart during a lesson. This claim, in the film's context, is ultimately portrayed as a ruse by Salieri to hinder Mozart's appointment to a court position as teacher to the Emperor's young niece.


See also



References


  1. Pattie, Frank (1994). Mesmer and Animal Magnetism: A Chapter in the History of Medicine. Hamilton, NY: Edmonston Publishing, Inc. pp. 57–63.
  2. Thomas Szasz, The Myth of Psychotherapy (Anchor Press/Doubleday 1978), pages 54–58
  3. Journal de Paris, April 24, 1784, pp. 504–505.
  4. Ruth Halliwell, The Mozart Family: Four Lives in a Social Context
  5. Sicilienne in E-flat major (Paradis, Maria Theresia von, IMSLP, retrieved September 20, 2019
  6. "A gentle rebuke of artistic fraudsters".



Bibliography


Schleifer, Martha Furman, and Sylvia Glickman. Women Composers: Music through the Ages. Score Anthology. New York: G. K. Hall, 1996–.


На других языках

[de] Maria Theresia von Paradis

Maria Theresia Paradis, trotz ihrer bürgerlichen Herkunft oft von Paradis genannt[1] (* 15. Mai 1759 in Wien; † 1. Februar 1824 in Wien), war eine österreichische Pianistin, Sängerin (Sopran), Komponistin und Musikpädagogin. Sie war seit ihrer frühen Kindheit blind. Im Wiener Musikleben war sie sehr prominent und mit vielen bedeutenden Vertretern der Wiener Klassik wie Joseph Haydn und Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart bekannt. Auf einer Europatournee von 1783 bis 1786 spielte sie vor zahlreichen hochgestellten Persönlichkeiten, darunter dem französischen Königspaar Ludwig XVI. und Marie-Antoinette sowie dem englischen König Georg III. und seiner Gemahlin Charlotte. Valentin Haüy wurde bei einem Konzert 1784 von ihr derart fasziniert, dass er sich für die Ausbildung von Blinden einzusetzen begann.
- [en] Maria Theresia von Paradis

[es] Maria Theresia von Paradis

Maria Theresia von Paradis (Viena, 15 de mayo de 1759 - ídem, 1 de febrero de 1824) fue una pianista y compositora austriaca. A pesar de que desde los tres años perdiera por completo la vista, esto no fue impedimento para que la producción y obra de esta gran pianista, cantante y compositora no dejara de destacar. Sus aportes fueron fundamentales para la educación musical de su época, especialmente para los invidentes. Causó gran interés en los compositores de renombre de su época, entre ellos Mofart y Haydn. Actualmente es un referente importante en la historia de la música clásica sobre su ejecución e interpretación musical, fuentes como el "Journal de Paris" refirieron como únicos su toque, interpretación y vivacidad.

[ru] Мария Терезия фон Парадис

Мария Терезия фон Парадис (нем. Maria Theresia von Paradis; 15 мая 1759 — 1 февраля 1824) — австрийский музыкант и композитор. В раннем возрасте потеряла зрение. Моцарт посвятил ей концерт для фортепиано с оркестром № 18 си-бемоль мажор.


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