Maria teresa agnesi biography

Italian harpsichordist, singer, and librettist who was also one of the first female opera composers. Name variations: Maria Theresa. Born in Milan, Italy, on October 17, 1720; died in Milan on January 19, 1795; daughter of Pietro Agnesi (a wealthy merchant with ties to the University of Bologna) and Anna Fortunata Brivio; sister of Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718–1799, a mathematician); married Pier Antonio Pinottini on June 13, 1752.

Maria Teresa Agnesi, sister of Maria Gaetana Agnesi , was one of the first female opera composers. Her portrait hangs in the theater museum of La Scala, a testament to her contributions to the musical world. As a girl, she performed and sang her own compositions. In 1747, her first theatrical work, Il ristoro d'Arcadia, was successfully presented in Milan's ducal theater. Her next opera, Ciro in Armenia, produced in 1753, used her own libretto. She wrote Insubria consolata in 1766 to honor the engagement of Beatrice d'Este and the Archduke Ferdinand and it was performed that year. According to Simonetti, the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria-Hungary sang from a collection of arias Agnesi had given her. A composer, harpsichordist, singer, and librettist, whose collections of arias were widely known in Italy and German-speaking Europe, Maria Teresa Agnesi was a forerunner of the great Italian opera composers.

suggested reading:

Anzoletti. L. Maria Gaetana Agnese. Milan, 1900.

JohnHaag , Athens, Georgia

Let us imagine the Milan of the late eighteenth century: under the enlightened absolutism of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, the city is an animated and fertile cultural melting pot. It plays a key leadership role in the vast Italian Enlightenment movement, witnessing the presence of Verri, Beccaria, Parini and the political and cultural debate taking place in parlours, tea rooms and newspapers. In this city, was born, lived and worked one of the most interesting Italian composers of the century, Maria Teresa Agnesi. As many other women musicians of the past, her name remained forgotten for a very long time. So has her music, which was an important part of social events in the courts of the time, as we shall see. Born in October 1720, Maria Teresa received, together with her sister Gaetana (a famous mathematician), an extraordinarily liberal education, thorough and open, without the misgivings that usually characterized the education of young girls in that time. In fact, thanks to her open-minded father, she was able to satisfy her passion for music. She rapidly had the opportunity to demonstrate her talents on the occasion of cultural events organized in the family’s parlour, and which were attended by Italians and foreigners as well. She became a famous harpsichordist and the author of chamber music pieces and, at 27, her skills as a composer were also recognized. In fact, in 1747, her cantata Il ristoro d’Arcadia was dedicated to imperial delegate Gian Luca Pallavicini while her opera Sofonisba was dedicated to Emperor Francis I for the name day of his wife Maria Theresa.

In 1752, personal life and artistic life crossed: her father having passed away, Teresa married Pietro Antonio Pinottini and worked on a melodrama, Nitocris, on a libretto by Apostolo Zeno, and, in 1753, she produced Ciro in Armenia presented in the Royal Ducal Theatre in Milan, for Frederick Augustus of Saxe, King of Poland. On that occasion, Milanese hist

Italian composer

Maria Teresa Agnesi Pinottini (Italian pronunciation:[maˈriːateˈrɛːzaaɲˈɲeːzipinotˈtiːni,-ɲɛːz-]; née Agnesi; 17 October 1720 – 19 January 1795) was an Italian composer. Though she was most famous for her compositions, she was also an accomplished harpsichordist and singer, and the majority of her surviving compositions were written for keyboard, the voice, or both.

Life

Maria Teresa was born in Milan to Pietro Agnesi, an overbearing man in the lesser nobility. He provided early education for both Maria Teresa and her more famous older sister, Maria Gaetana, a mathematics and language prodigy who lectured and debated all over Europe while her sister performed. Maria Teresa was married to Pier Antonio Pinottini on 13 June 1752, and they settled in a district populated by intellects and artists, but eventually suffered severe financial ruin. Pinottini died not too long afterwards.

Maria Teresa died in Milan in 1795.

Career

Not much is known about Maria Teresa. Nothing is known of her education or teachers, and the dates of her compositions are largely unknown. Many of her compositions have been lost, although there are records of their existence. Her career was made possible by the Austrian Lombardy, which proved progressive and enlightened in women's rights. The movement was more prevalent in Vienna and Dresden rather than in her hometown of Milan, and Maria Teresa found more success and more appreciative audiences in these cities than in her birthplace.

Maria Teresa had several famous performances, perhaps the most famous on 16 July 1739, when famous French traveller Charles de Brosses was very impressed by her music. He was not the only one; Count Gerolamo Riccati wrote several letters praising her compositions and musical talent. Another very famous performance was her theatrical debut, the Cantata Pastorale Il Ristoro d'Arcadia, in Milan at the Teatro Regio Ducale in 1747 whe

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Biography

... belonged to a class intermediate between the patricians and the merely rich. Such a bourgeois could have a household fit for a lord, comport himself like a knight, mingle freely with some nobles, occupy himself with the finer things of life, be a patron of men of talent. [Pietro Agnesi] did just that...

... she delivered it from memory to an academic gathering arranged by her father in the garden...