Mozart's Blind Pianist

Programme:
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Cantata "Die Grazien" Wq 200/22
Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: Rondo in A minor for fortepiano solo KV 511
Leopold Kozeluh: Cantata on Maria Theresia Paradis (text: Pfeffel)
Maria Theresia Paradis: Fantasy in G major for fortepiano solo
Maria Theresia Paradis: selected songs
Joseph Haydn: Canzonetten

Whether Maria Theresia Paradis actually performed Mozart's Piano Concerto KV 456 in Paris, as the composer's father noted, remains uncertain. That the two knew each other well, however, is beyond doubt. Like Mozart, the young pianist embarked on a three-year tour of Europe - with her mother rather than her father. That alone is remarkable for a woman of the 18th century, but the admiration grows further when one learns that Maria Theresia had been blind since childhood. She must have been an exceptional figure: trained in piano and organ, singing and composition, with a phenomenal ear and memory. Driven by a strong pedagogical calling, she founded an institute for musical education in the centre of Vienna in 1808, where both blind and sighted girls could receive instruction in piano, singing and music theory. She knew - or was close friends with - every composer whose works appear in this concert: Kozeluh was her deeply admired composition teacher, she is said to have played all of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's piano concertos, and Haydn rehearsed his oratorio "Die Schöpfung" with her.

Dorothee Mields, soprano
Christine Schornsheim, fortepiano