The Salon of Anna Amalia

Arpeggione has started rehearsing for our next program, “The Salon of Anna Amalia”. We can’t wait to share this program with you on March 26 at the First Religious Society in Newburyport. Sylvia Berry’s fortepiano will transform the way you hear late 18th century music. Anna Griffis, viola and Ben Swartz, cello will be joining us for this program of chamber music for not-quite-your-usual instrument combinations.

At Arpeggione, we try to program concerts that create opportunities to learn and explore as we prepare and perform (with the audience being an essential component of this process of discovery). I think that is especially true with this program featuring works of Anna Amalia, Princess-Abbess of Quedlinburg. We’ve paired works by Anna Amalia with a piece by C.P.E. Bach from her library and a piece by Mozart directly influenced by her compositions.

We’re looking forward to discovering many more connections between her music and the music of those influenced by her ingenuity and generosity. In this intimate concert, we’ll discover what makes the music written for a salon unique, and what people would have heard and understood in that context. We’re hoping to uncover subtle ways in which Anna Amalia’s compositions, tastes, and music library influenced later composers.

In our first rehearsal we also noticed how all three composers in the program, Anna Amalia, C.P.E. Bach, and Mozart, broke free from the influence of their fathers in different ways. Anna Amalia did so in the strongest, most dramatic way possible, first defying her father’s wishes by playing and composing music, then secretly marrying and having a child (or twins?) with an officer in her brother’s army. She was  sent away to the abbey of Quedlinburg where she eventually rose to the very influential position of Abbess, a position which ironically provided her with more freedom to compose, host salons featuring music that suited her discriminating tastes, and further nurture her own intellectual and musical pursuits.

With this program, we will have the chance to explore the theme of transmission. All three composers play an important part in the story of the transmission of J.S. Bach’s music, and Anna Amalia’s role is least widely acknowledged yet essential. Furthermore, there is the issue of the transmission of Anna Amalia’s own music—she was known to destroy her own music out of self-doubt and perfectionism. We’re excited to see and hear all the discoveries and connections future generations of performers and scholars will make as Anna Amalia’s contributions are increasingly recognized and acknowledged.