Maria Margherita Grimani (1680 – c.1720) was an Italian composer who, at some points in her life, was active in Vienna. Among her compositions was the first opera by a woman to be performed at the Vienna court theater. She may have lived at the

noble court A royal court, often called simply a court when the royal context is clear, is an extended royal household in a monarchy, including all those who regularly attend on a monarch, or another central figure. Hence, the word "court" may also be appl ...

for periods between 1713 and 1718; however, she was not employed at the court as a musician. She may also have been one of a number of women composers at the Viennese court who were canonesses, a type of Augustinian nun; others included Caterina Benedicta Grazianini,

Maria de Raschenau Maria Anna de Raschenau (''fl.'' 18th century) was an Austrian composer and canoness (a type of Augustinian nun). She was active in Vienna, but was not a member or servant of the noble court.Cusick She was the choirmaster at the convent of St Jako ...

, and

Camilla de Rossi Camilla de Rossi ( fl. 1670–1710) was an Italian composer known for composing oratorios in Vienna during the early 1700s. Although several women are known to have composed music in Northern Italy and Austria during this period, there is little ...

.Klein She was born Maria Margherita Vitalini, and married Giovanni Andrea Grimani (1672 - 1723), Doctor of Law, lawyer and lecturer at the University of Bologna from 1696 until his death. He wrote several legal works as well as some poetry and a wedding song for the marriage of senator Piriteo Malvezzi, Marquis of Castel Guelfo, and the Marquise Artemisia Magnani in 1696. Maria Margherita Grimani's known works include an opera, specifically a ''componimento dramatico'' or ''opus dramaticum'', which may or may not have been staged, ''Pallade e Marte'', dedicated in Bologna on April 5, 1713, and first performed at the imperial theater on the nameday of Emperor Charles VI on November 4, 1713, at the imperial theater. It was scored for two voices, oboe and string orchestra.Cusick Her oratorios were also performed at the imperial theater: ''La visitazione di Elisabetta'', performed in 1713 and again in 1718, and ''La decollazione di S Giovanni Battista'', performed in 1715. The librettists are unknown. Both celebrate Charles's military success against the "infidels". All of Grimani's works use small forces—two singers, a couple of obbligato instruments, and a continuo group, including cello and theorbo. Their form follows the standards of the time, as exemplified in

Alessandro Scarlatti Pietro Alessandro Gaspare Scarlatti (2 May 1660 – 22 October 1725) was an Italian Baroque composer, known especially for his operas and chamber cantatas. He is considered the most important representative of the Neapolitan school of opera. ...

's works. This included a number of da capo arias with

ritornelli A ritornello (Italian; "little return") is a recurring passage (music), passage in Baroque music for orchestra or choir, chorus. Early history The earliest use of the term "ritornello" in music referred to the final lines of a fourteenth-century ...

and recitative secco.Jackson

References

* * ''The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers'', edited by Julie Anne Sadie and Rhian Samuel. "Maria Margherita Grimani"

Suzanne G. Cusick Suzanne G. Cusick (born 1954) is a music historian and musicologist living in and working in New York City, where she is a Professor of Music at the Faculty of Arts and Science at the New York University. Her specialties are the music of seventeen ...

and Rudolf Klein, pg. 198, Norton and Company, New York and London, 1995. * ''New Historical Anthology of Music by Women'' edited by James R. Briscoe. "Maria Margherita Grimani" by Barbara Garvey Jackson, pp 99–100. Indiana University Press, Bloomington IN, 2004.

Notes

18th-century Italian composers Italian women classical composers Classical composers of church music Italian Roman Catholics Italian opera composers Oratorio composers Augustinian nuns Italian Baroque composers 18th-century Austrian musicians 18th-century Italian women Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Women opera composers 18th-century women composers {{italy-composer-stub