Maddalena Lombardini Sirmen, Eighteenth-Century Composer, Violinist, and Businesswoman.(Book review)

Women & Music, January, 2006 by Metzelaar, Helen H.

Maddalena Lombardini Sirmen, Eighteenth-Century Composer, Violinist, and Businesswoman. By Elsie Arnold and Jane Baldauf-Berdes. Lanham MD: Scarecrow Press, 2002

Nigel Kennedy, Ida Haendel, Yehudi Menuhin, and Niccolo Paganini--these legendary violinists impressed the world with their musicality and brilliant performances. Another famed violinist, Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770), attracted students from all over Europe to his home in Padua; his was "the first instrumental school of such fame." (1) One of his last pupils was the Venetian Maddalena Lombardini (1745-1818), who studied with him in the 1760s. She capitalized on Tartini's renown by adding on the frontispiece of a later publication of her six string trios "Eleve du celebre Tartini de Padoue" (110)....