Music and lyrics by women and men. It is only natural that the spirit of the Romantic era should embrace, envelop and encircle the male and female composers and lyricists on this album in their depiction of wistful longing – the omnipresent theme of the era. But this is not the only point of reference behind this concept. The deeper one delves into the life stories and works of these artists, the more complex and far-reaching the network of associations proves to be.

“In Relation” is an invitation to plunge into the associative field of 19th-century words and music and it shows that the connexions between the two arts and their male and female practitioners were more extensive than one might imagine.

The long overdue rediscovery of Emilie Mayer naturally earns her the near-universal label of “female Beethoven”, which she was called even by her contemporaries. On the one hand that is a great honor, for Mayer is indeed considered the most successful symphonist among the composing women of the Romantic era. She was thus not content with the “domestic” genres of Lieder, piano works and chamber music, which is all that her female colleagues were generally allowed,Conductor:on the contrary, she designed symphonies on the grand scale. On the other hand, that label shows that people are still thinking along gender-specific lines – even if they have happily escaped the 19th-century mindset that hampered Emilie Mayer’s own career. As late as 1878, the “Neue Berliner Musikzeitung” was describing her as a “rare phenomenon” and an “exception” to the rule that the “Production” of orchestral works was solely the “Domain of the creative male intellect”. By that date, Emilie Mayer had already presented eight symphonies. And in 1850, almost 30 years earlier, a critic had exclaimed in the same paper: “Hitherto woman’s fair hand has mastered the Lied at most (...). What female powers, powers of the second rank, can attain – that is what Emilie Mayer has achieved and reproduced.”

That's what happens when you let yourself be guided by prejudices: Emilie Mayer's contemporaries in the mid-19th century were unaware of the outstanding quality of her compositions because they only saw a woman rather than hearing the composer. You might think you missed something when you listen to the brand-new Super Audio album of the Mecklenburgische Staatskapelle: with chief conductor Mark Rohde on the podium, the musicians from Schwerin succeed in a salvation of honor that could not be more attractive.

Financially independent at an early age, Emilie Mayer was able to devote herself entirely to her passion for composing. Her misfortune: instead of salon music, thought of as the best women could hope to compose, she ventured into the grander forms. Eight symphonies alone came from her pen, as well as several overtures, of which only the "Faust" overture appeared in print during her lifetime. Interestingly, in her interpretation of Faust, Mayer places Gretchen at the center, the brooding seriousness receding in favor of Margareth's naivety and piety. In her earlier works, the composer orientates herself on classical models; the overtures No. 2 and 3 hint at memories of Haydn and Mozart. But she is also no stranger to the Romantic, and the D minor overture unfolds a world of sound reminiscent of Bruckner. The most extensive work of this commendable new publication is the "Sinfonie militair", whose genesis can perhaps be traced back to the influence of Mayer's teacher, the Prussian military musician Wieprecht. But here, too, Mayer finds a very individual approach: instead of triumphant sounds, an adagio of deep seriousness ends the half-hour opus - an ending that leaves room for far-reaching associations.

One of the New York Times' 5 Classical Albums to Hear Now!

“What if a woman wrote the song?” This question drives a recital of songs by female composers performed by soprano Golda Schultz and pianist Jonathan Ware. Opening with works by Clara Schumann and Emilie Mayer (including her setting of the ballad "Erlkönig"), this recital weaves stories of women’s experience with fantastic tales of powerful sirens like the Lorelei. The great American-British violist and composer Rebecca Clarke’s arresting William Blake settings offer a woman’s perspective on texts also set by Benjamin Britten. Devotional works from Nadia Boulanger reveal a compositional master in her own right, in addition to her legendary status as pedagogue to innumerable greats including Aaron Copland and Daniel Barenboim. This be Her Verse, a song cycle by poet-librettist Lila Palmer and composer Kathleen Tagg was directly commissioned by the artists to conclude the program and add an important contribution to the repertory: songs written by women, about women, highlighting the female experience.

The first true cross cultural fusion of Indian and western music was back in 1957 with John Mayer’s Raga Music for Solo Clarinet and through the sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties his musical output reflected his Indian roots. This release celebrates John Mayer’s orchestral work and sees the further development from his son Jonathan Mayer, including three premiere recordings and one first commercial release. Included in this album is John Mayer’s Second Violin Concerto, originally commissioned for the late Erich Gruenberg in 1978, is it played by Sasha Rozhdestvensky who has a long standing relationship with First Hand Records. Mayer’s Concerto for the Instruments of an Orchestra had its premiere performance in 1976 by The London Philharmonic Orchestra and Bernard Haitink. Jonathan Mayer’s Pranam for sitar, tabla and orchestra is inspired by the Indian dance form Kathak and was premiere in the Czech Republic in 2017, it features the composer on sitar and Shahbaz Hussian on tabla. His Second Sitar Concerto was premiered again in the Czech Republic in 2019 and all works are under the baton of the Indian conductor Debashish Chaudhuri.

“Miss E. Mayer is a rare phenomenon. [...] here we can see a female composer writing not merely for the pianoforte, but also solving the arduous task of orchestral composition, swarming with thousands of secrets. And how she solves it!” (Neue Berliner Musikzeitung 32, 1878) In the German-speaking area, it was Clara Schumann and Fanny Hensel that towered beyond the borders and, at the turn of the 20th century, it was Amy Beach in the USA and even more so Ethel Smyth in Great Britain that became icons of the women’s movement in music. Still hardly present is the music by the German Romantic composer Emilie Mayer. At the age of five, she began receiving piano lessons, and in the early 1840s none other than Carl Loewe in Stettin was her teacher. In her music, presented here, we encounter familiar classical form patterns, yet the focus is placed on the colorfulness of her music, which constantly holds new phrases and impulses, and with which she presents herself as one of the most important female representatives of Central European music in the 19th century.

REVIEW:

This is a very satisfying collection of works, most of which wouldn’t win any prizes for originality, but which nonetheless make for very enjoyable listening. I would judge the B-Minor Symphony, however, to be, if not a masterpiece, at least an important work and a significant contribution to the German Romantic symphonic literature. Strongly recommended.

–Fanfare