Maddalena Lombardini Sirmen has
remained in the history books mainly
as a pupil of the violinist Tartini
to whom he wrote an important letter
detailing her practice regime and his
views on violin technique. This book
is an important attempt to expand our
knowledge of Maddalena Lombardini Sirmen,
but it is not a true biography. The
materials simply do not exist; apart
from her wills we have no significant
personal documents of hers. Instead
the authors have produced a documentary
biography, filling in the gaps with
some excellent background material (Charles
Burney features quite highly) and ending
up with a discussion of Maddalena’s
music.
Born in 1745, Maddalena
Laura Lombardini (Sirmen was her married
name) in 1753 she gained a place at
the Ospedale dei Mendicanti. Technically
the Ospedale was a combination of hospital
for the sick and elderly, home for the
poor and orphanage. But, like the Ospedale
della Pieta where Vivaldi worked), the
young women in the Mendicanti received
a good musical training and made an
income for the Ospedale by performing.
So the Mendicanti actively solicited
talented young women and Maddalena was
one of these. And she obviously was
talented as she was permitted to leave
the Ospedale for periods to have lessons
with Tartini.
She finally left the
Ospedale in 1767 when she married another
musician, Lodovico Sirmen. They immediately
left on a concert tour, performing together.
Though they had some success, Lodovico
eventually returned to his job in Ravenna
and consoled himself with the Countess
Zerletti. Maddalena, for her part, took
her cicisbeo or cavaliere servente on
her honeymoon tour with her. This gentleman,
the priest Dom Giuseppe Terzi would
be her companion on all her travels
and they would die within 9 days of
each other. Unfortunately we know only
the bare facts and can only speculate
on what the participants in this little
comedy actually felt.
Maddalena had a successful
career as a concert artist until the
late 1780’s. She spent a number of years
in London, first as a violinist and
then as a singer. Again we have no knowledge
of why she changed from violinist to
singer but Elsie Arnold makes some very
sensible educated guesses. In addition
to London Maddalena’s concert career
took her to Paris and even Russia. But,
at her final concerts in Paris in 1785
her technique was beginning to look
rather old-fashioned. Giovanni Battista
Viotti, with the help of a new style
bow, had revolutionised violin technique
and Maddalena does not seem to have
modernised her own technique.
She seems to have retired
to Venice. Throughout her career she
had managed her own career and her financial
affairs; investing money and even sending
money back to her husband (who frittered
it away on Countess Zerletti). By 1798
she seems to have been a rich woman,
but the invasion of Venice by Austria
had a disastrous effect on the Venetian
currency and Maddalena died in 1818,
evidently rather poor.
We only have fragments
of Maddalena’s life and Elsie Arnold
has made an excellent job of piecing
them together. Jane Baldauf-Berdes provides
an excellent pair of chapters on Maddalena’s
not inconsiderable music, mainly Violin
concertos, sonatas and string quartets.
Most of the research
for the book was done by Jane Baldauf-Berdes
who had done her doctoral thesis on
the Musical Life at the Four Ospedali
Garandi of Venice. She did her doctorate
under Denis Arnold, at Oxford. Arnold
died before Baldauf-Berdes gained her
doctorate, so when Baldauf-Berdes unfortunately
succumbed to cancer it was to Denis
Arnold’s widow, Elsie that the family
asked to turn Baldauf-Berdes’s notes
into this excellent book.
Robert Hugill
