Emilie Mayer New biography

[Alan Howe]

Just published in German:
https://www.velbrueck.de/Sachbuch/Emilie-Mayer.html

Can't find a list of contents, unfortunately. Wonder if it contains a full catalogue of her works...?

The subtitle 'Europe's greatest female composer' is, of course, contentious. I think Louise Farrenc would come into the reckoning, as would Ethel Smyth and Dora Pejačević - as well as any number of twentieth-century female composers.

The main problem is that we know only a fraction of Mayer's output. So how can we judge?

[Rainolf]

As every time when a once forgotten composer becomes object of a scientific study, this is good news. But the subtitle is chosen most unlucky.

It seems justified if we consider that Mayer may have been for some years in the middle of the 19th century the most well known female composer in Germany (I doubt if that could be said in an European context - Farrenc surely was more famous, seen from the French point of view). But to call her "the greatest" without any limitation of time and place does injustice against many fine female composers. (Apart from the problem how to compare Mayer with, e.g. Ethel Smyth, Philippine Schick, Vítezslava Kaprálová...)

[BerlinExpat]

Wonder if it contains a full catalogue of her works...?

Sadly, the biography doesn't include a list of works. On scanning through the book, works only seem to be listed when there's talk of performance planning, a performance or a publication. Works are generally referred to by their key signature and not by date of composition or opus number, so it's difficult, for me as an amateur, to attempt a chronology.

[Gareth Vaughan]

How disappointing! Surely any serious study of a composer ought to contain a list of works.

[Alan Howe]

Quite. A major omission.