Regina Strinasacchi

Regina Strinasacchi was an Italian violinist, singer, composer, and guitarist born (in Ostiglia, near Mantua, Italy) in 1764.  Her date of birth has been obscured since the day she was born, perhaps because she was illegitimately born.  Most sources give the year of her birth as 1764.  Three sources give it as February 28, 1761.  We only know of her today because she once played a violin sonata written for her for a recital she played for the Austrian Emperor (Joseph II) and other aristocrats on April 29, 1784.  Mozart was her accompanist.  Articles about her are often linked to those dealing with Maddalena Lombardini because both grew up in similar circumstances.  The sonata Mozart wrote for Strinasacchi was his number 15 for the instrument, K454.  He wrote 18 violin sonatas in all, although these are only the ones composed as a mature artist – he composed 18 more as a child.  Strinasacchi was educated at the Ospedale della Pieta (an orphanage for girls) in Venice, where Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) had twice been the music director.  From around 1780, she toured as a soloist in Italy, France, and Germany.  She was 16 years old (if the 1764 year of her birth is correct), a very young age at which to be touring.  It has not been unusual for performers to present themselves as being younger than they really are, so an earlier year of birth is quite possible.  She finally got to Vienna in 1784, playing one concert in March then again that fateful day in April.  Mozart was very impressed with her playing – documented in a letter to his father - and the recital they presented was very successful.  Nonetheless, since the sonata was only completed the day before the recital – allowing Strinasacchi exactly one day to learn it - Mozart was obliged to play his part from memory because he did not have time to write the piano part.  For him, that would not have been a problem at all.  In 1785, Strinasacchi married Johann Konrad Schlick, a very fine cellist, composer, and director of the orchestra at the court in Gotha.  At least one source guesses that Strinasacchi actually played regularly in her husband’s orchestra, perhaps becoming the first female orchestral player in history.  However, there is no proof that she either played in or conducted the orchestra.  In 1786, the couple had a daughter (Caroline), a pianist who later became an actress.  In 1801, they had a son (Johann) who became a cellist and a luthier.  That same year, Louis Spohr was appointed concertmaster of the Gotha orchestra.  Whether the Schlick family was still there or remained there is unknown.  That is very likely the case.  Strinasacchi’s husband died in 1818 – one source says 1825.  She subsequently moved from Gotha to Dresden with her son.  Most sources state that her final performance took place in Rome in 1809.  She would have then apparently been 45 years old.  However, in the only letter of hers which has been found, dated 1824, she tells a friend that she is still making music.  Whether it refers to private playing or public is anyone’s guess.  It is known that the 1718 Stradivarius she played was sold to Louis Spohr in 1822.  It quickly became his favorite violin.  That violin eventually ended up with Miriam Fried, though it passed through at least ten others before getting to her, including August Kompel, Paul Stassevitch, and the notorious W.E. Hill violin dealer.  Strinasacchi died in Dresden on June 11, 1839, at (perhaps) age 75.  Mozart had been dead for 47 years. 

Maddalena Lombardini

Maddalena Lombardini (Maddalena Laura Lombardini Sirmen) was an Italian violinist, harpsichordist, singer, and composer born (in Venice) on December 9, 1745 (Bach was 60 years old and would live an additional five.)  Today, she is remembered thanks to a well-known (and lengthy) letter which her teacher, Giuseppe Tartini wrote to her on March 5, 1760, outlining several details of violin technique.  The letter is often quoted in music journals and Tartini biographies.  From age seven (1753), she was trained in one of the four hospitality homes (orphanages or Ospedale) in Venice.  This one was called the Ospedale dei Mendicante – Home for the Indigent.  (The orphanage where Antonio Vivaldi usually taught was called the Ospedale della Pieta.)  These institutions, begun in the sixteenth century, were combination orphanages and churches.  They not only took in orphans, but the elderly, poor, and infirm as well.  Music instruction for girls was important to these institutions for both its educational value, and for the income from public attendance of church services at which excellent music performances were featured.  The student body consisted of between sixty and eighty girls.  Although Lombardini was not an orphan – she was the daughter of impoverished aristocrats - she was admitted to the music school of the Ospedale based on her musical talent, as were a few other children who were not orphans.  Her teachers at the orphanage were Antonio Vivaldi, Baldassare Galuppi, and Nicola Porpora.  While at the Ospedale, Lombardini was occasionally allowed to leave the orphanage to study both violin and composition with Tartini in Padua (about twenty five miles west of Venice.)  It has been said she was his favorite pupil.  Lombardini could have become a nun but, in 1767, she chose to marry a violinist-composer by the name of Ludivico Sirmen.  She was 22 years old.  They took off on a tour together and were well-received everywhere.  However, she also concertized by herself to great public acclaim.  Lombardini and Sirmen eventually separated and from that day forward, her constant travel companion was a priest - Don Giuseppe Terzi; according to one source, they died within nine days of each other.  Sirmen established a personal relationship with someone else, too - a now-forgotten Countess.  Lombardini and Terzi's travels took them to London, Paris, and St Petersburg (Russia), among other places.  She first played in London on January 9, 1771 and was highly praised.  Curiously, on April 15 of that year, instead of playing a violin concerto, she played a harpsichord concerto at a benefit concert.  By the time she was 28, she had turned her attention to singing (for reasons known only to herself) but was not able to duplicate her earlier violinistic successes.  In London, she played in the Italian opera orchestra and sang leading opera roles as well.  Nine years later, she was appointed concert singer to the Court of Saxony (Dresden, Germany, 1782.)  In 1785, she appeared at a Concert Spirituel in Paris for the last time. She was 40 years old and her star power had dimmed.  However, at least one source states that by then, she was already a wealthy woman - she had been since 1798.  Her compositions - most of them works which included the violin - were well-regarded by her contemporaries.  Interestingly, most of her pieces were published (in England, France, the Netherlands, Austria, and Germany) before 1774.  There is speculation that some of them may have been written while she was still a student at the Ospedale.  In any case, she was not yet thirty years old at the time of publication.  Even Leopold Mozart praised her writing after hearing one of her concertos played in Salzburg in April of 1778.  Her string quartets have been compared to Joseph Haydn's.  YouTube has several examples of her music - violin concertos and string quartets - here, here, and here.  Recordings of her music are not hard to find on the internet.  Lombardini, who had once been compared to the great Pietro Nardini, apparently died in obscurity (in Venice) on May 18, 1818, at age 72.  Nonetheless, her compositions (and Tartini's letter) have made her immortal.