Biography
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Born
9 December 1745
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Born In
Venezia, Venezia, Veneto, Italy
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Died
18 May 1818 (aged 72)
Maddalena Laura Sirmen (1745-1818) was an Italian composer and violinist.
She was born Maddalena Laura Lombardini on 9th December 1745 in Venice, Italy to an impoverished noble family. At the age of seven she began her studies at an orphanage in Venice that also taught music. In her fourteen years of study at the orphanage, Lombardini was occasionally given permission to leave and study with the virtuoso violinist and composer Giuseppe Tartini, in the hope that she would develop technical and emotional capacity. Hoping to see her play the violin professionally in a European classical scene almost entirely dominated by men, Tartini paid for her tuition for musical lessons at the orphanage.
At the age of twenty-one, Lombardini received her maestro's license at the orphanage, and was given permission to pursue a musical career outside Venice. She soon married renowned violinist Ludovico Sirmen in 1767. The two began touring together that same year. Although little is documented about their relationship, it appears he encouraged Maddalena’s career, respecting her compositions and relishing her successful solo career. She soon established her reputation as one of the finest and most famous violinists and composers ever taught in a Venetian orphanage.
She was perhaps an even more successful composer. The newlyweds performed in Paris on the 15th August 1768, performing a double violin concerto which they had co-written, and which received glowing reviews. In 1771 Maddalena Sirmen gave the first performance of her “Concerto on the Violin” in London, met by rave reviews and lavish support. Her compositions displayed the violin in all its virtuosic brilliance in the dynamic yet restrained early Classical tradition.
Sirmen visited London for a final time in 1772, performing as a vocalist and failing at that. Although her career withered and faded in its final years, she is remembered as a dynamic inventor and brilliant performer in eighteenth-century classical music. She died on 18th May 1818.
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