Composed between the "heroic" Symphony and the monumental Fifth , Beethoven's Fourth Symphony (1807) was appreciated for its modest dimensions and joyful atmosphere. Schumann described it as "a slender daughter of Greece between two Nordic giants ." Emilie Mayer (1812-1883), sometimes called "the female Beethoven," was an accomplished composer, sculptor, and co-director of the Berlin Opera. She devoted her life to music, writing eight symphonies and seven remarkable overtures. This stream of Romantic music is completed by Mendelssohn's Second Concerto , in which the talented Russian violinist Alena Baeva would make her Liège debut.

EPSG:4326

Beethoven, Symphony No. 4

BOZAR

Philharmonic Hall of Liege

The good melodies are in line when the always well-intentioned Simon Gaudenz, who has a special flair for programming, together with the Odense Symphony Orchestra offers a selection of Schubert's best songs together with the Norwegian lyric tenor Petter Moen, who is visiting Odense again. We let the orchestra's many timbres magnify the beautiful songs, which were originally written with piano accompaniment, before we are enchanted after the break by Felix Mendelssohn's last composed and probably most popular symphony, The Scottish Symphony .

Schubert & Mendelssohn

Odense Concert Hall

The devil loves music—especially when a violin is involved. Some even whisper that he invented it himself! Tartini's Devil's Trill Sonata, Paganini's lightning-fast Caprices, Schnittke's ghostly A Paganini —that doesn't sound like a human hand... or does it? In this concert, there's plucking, bowing, trickery, and seduction—until even the devil is amazed.

3.  Children's concert Devilishly good music

Theater Lübeck

Meet the orchestra, which consists of musicians from the master's program in symphonic orchestral performance at the University of Music and Drama!

University of Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra

Göteborgs Symfoniker

In February, the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra (ERSO) will welcome British conductor Jonathan Bloxham for a performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, Eroica—a revolutionary work that marked a turning point in orchestral music, echoing the ideals of the French Revolution. ERSO’s principal clarinetist Soo-Young Lee will join acclaimed German violist Nils Mönkemeyer to perform Max Bruch’s Concerto for Clarinet, Viola and Orchestra. The concert opens with the Faust Overture by 19th-century German composer Emilie Mayer.

Beethoven’s “Eroica”

Estonia Concert Hall

The award-winning Simply Quartet made its debut at Konserthuset Stockholm in 2022 as one of the ECHO Rising Stars of the 2021/22 season. Founded in Shanghai in 2008, the quartet is now primarily based in Europe, with performances at venues such as Wigmore Hall in London, the Musikverein in Vienna, and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.

Simply Quartet

Stockholm Concert Hall

Nottingham’s famous Kanneh-Mason family are our Patrons, but this performance of Beethoven’s ‘Triple Concerto’ is the first time that three of them will have appeared together with Sinfonia Viva. Written around the time of the Eroica Symphony it’s an adventurous musical hybrid, playfully combining elements of the piano trio with the concerto and presenting the soloists as a collective force against the grandeur of the orchestra.

The rest of the programme is a feast of Germanic and British orchestral and choral music. Mozart’s Magic Flute Overture launches the concert with both the Masonic solemnity and the comedic high spirits of his opera, whilst the pioneering Emilie Mayer’s Overture in D Minor is an example of her taut and dramatic writing at its best. The two choral items form a fascinating contrast: Brahms’s dramatic cantata Schicksalslied (‘Song of Fate’) was inspired by Friedrich Hölderlin’s poem concerning the Greek mythical titan Hyperion, and the contrast it makes between the blissful lives of the Immortals and the restless existence of human beings, buffeted by fate.

Sinfonia Viva with Braimah, Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason

Royal Concert Hall Nottingham

Members of Nottingham’s famous Kanneh-Mason family have appeared several times in previous Nottingham Classics seasons but this performance of Beethoven’s ‘Triple Concerto’ is the first time that three of them will have appeared together on our stage. Written around the time of the Eroica Symphony it’s an adventurous musical hybrid, playfully combining elements of the piano trio with the concerto and presenting the soloists as a collective force against the grandeur of the orchestra.

Sinfonia Viva

Tonight's programme brings together three masterpieces, each with its own unique style. The first is solemn and intense, the next playful and elegant, and the last dramatic and virtuosic. The contrast between Mayer's mournful Overture , Schubert's charmingly youthful Symphony No. 3 and Brahms's emotionally profound  Violin Concerto makes for a dynamic and compelling evening. Each piece plays with shifts in dynamics and moods, and each is both intimate and powerful.

Schubert & Brahms

Amare

Written in just two weeks, this lyrical work reaches straight to the heart. The cello sings, sighs, and soars, in this intimate conversation with the orchestra.

Natalie Clein plays Schumann

Smith Square Hall

Celebrate the brilliance of women composers across three centuries. This program honors the bold voices that profoundly shaped musical history.

Women in Classical Music

First United Methodist Church Ventura

Chamber music concert with works by Dora Pejačević, Emilie Mayer and Rebecca Clarke as well as world premieres by the winners of the inter-university composition competition “Spiegelungen”: Tim Lugstein, Lluís Gual i Gasull and Hao Lin.

Reflections

Mozarteum University Salzburg

Beethoven’s revolutionary spirit reshaped classical music, leaving an enduring influence on generations of composers. This program explores that legacy, beginning with his Leonore Overture No. 3, a powerful work that embodies his mastery of drama and transformation. Timo Andres’ The Blind Banister, a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Music, draws inspiration from Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, reimagining its gestures in a strikingly modern voice. The program concludes with Emilie Mayer’s Symphony No. 7 in F Minor, a testament to Beethoven’s influence, echoing his bold harmonies and structural innovations while showcasing Mayer’s own compelling musical vision.

Forged by Beethoven

The Maryland Theatre

The rebellious son of the gods Prometheus, who brought fire to mankind and was cruelly punished for it, inspired Beethoven to write the ballet “The Creatures of Prometheus”. The Promethean spark in the piece marks Beethoven’s first stage success in Vienna in 1801, and the stormy overture contributed significantly to this.

More Than Beethoven!

Zeughaus Neuss

Historical instruments, gut strings and old bows are not everything. For the British Consone Quartet, founded in 2015 at the Royal College of Music in London, the name says it all: the Latin word "consone" means unison. Harmony is the goal, even for the rarity of the evening, Emilie Mayer's G major quartet. How the harmony will sound when Kristian Bezuidenhout stirs it up on the fortepiano will be shown in Mozart arrangements. First you can hear the C major piano concerto in pocket format, then the quintet KV 452, which was actually composed for piano and wind instruments. Mozart himself considered this piece "the best thing I have ever written in my life." Violins, viola and cello will implement the then new wind instrument sounds with their means - up to the Larghetto, in which Mozart echoes the register aria from his later Don Giovanni . Compared to the conquest of the many women on the womanizer's list, success with the Schwetzingen audience should be easy.

Kristian Bezuidenhout & Consone Quartet

Rococo Theater

Yu-Shin Lee performs a recital of works by Bach, Mayer and Wieniawski

Student Degree Recital: Yu-Shin Lee B.M. Violin Senior Recital

University of Maryland

Two symphonies that are nicknamed "great" - Mozart's 40th in G minor and Schubert's eighth in C major - plus a large orchestral work by the composer who has been nicknamed the "female Beethoven". All that's missing is a large orchestra. But that's not the case here. Instead, four great musicians play arrangements of great music. So we'll hear: Schubert in what Schumann calls the "heavenly length" of just under an hour, "like a thick novel in four volumes by Jean Paul, for example, which can never end." Plus Mozart's penultimate symphony, a piece of which there are probably as many different interpretations as there are exegetes. And finally: Faust! When we talk about seduction, Goethe's hero as a central figure in literary history cannot be left out, and so we also hear an arrangement of the Faust Overture , which Emilie Mayer wrote in 1879 and which was one of the few works by the highly talented composer to be published during her lifetime.

Raphaela Gromes · Daniel Dodds · Duo Tal & Groethuysen

Schwetzingen Palace

In 1807, Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his play overture to the drama "Coriolanus" by Heinrich Joseph von Collin. The music deals with a completely antithetical hero. Outwardly heroic and determined, the young general Coriolanus is inwardly driven by self-doubt, anger and insecurity. Banished from his homeland of Rome, he swears revenge and tries to regain his rights by force. Ultimately, only his mother's pleas are able to stop him from going to war against Rome. Beethoven processes all of these different character traits in his overture and forms an overall picture of this tragic heroic story.

5th Academic Concert 2024/25

Gewandhaus

8th Symphony Concert

Nikolaisaal

Anastasia Kobekina seems to be the cellist of the moment. Her debut album "Venice", which has just been released by Sony - a sensitive and profound examination of her favorite city, Venice - is being acclaimed by critics. "The Tagesspiegel", "Le Figaro" and the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" are currently outdoing each other with hymns of praise. And the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival has awarded Anastasia Kobekina its 2024 Leonard Bernstein Award, which honors internationally outstanding young musicians. Her meteoric international career has taken the musician, who has been playing the cello since she was four, to the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the National Orchestra d'Ile de France and artists such as Krzysztov Penderecki, Jakub Hrusa and Paavo Järvi. The Tchaikovsky Prize winner plays a cello by Antonio Stradivari from 1698, which was provided to her by the Stradivari Foundation Habisreutinger. With the BSOF she interprets one of the most charming and moving works in cello literature: Robert Schumann's Cello Concerto in A minor.

8th Philharmonic Concert

Konzerthalle Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

Hidden Gems: Unveiling German Female Composers of the Romantic Period.

Student Degree Recital: Yoonhee Eunice Kim D.M.A. collaborative piano recital

The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center

For a long time, women composers had a hard time; they were mostly ignored in their time and throughout history. But women have composed with strength and talent at many times. In this concert, you can experience some of them, with their rich music and their creative work. You may still know Clara Schumann, Lili Boulanger and Rebecca Clark, but it is a different story with Isabella Leonarda, an Italian nun from the 17th century who was one of the most productive composers of her era, or Marie Jaëll, a French pianist and composer from the 19th century. The Frenchwoman Mélanie Bonis, whose works were mostly published in the 19th century under the pseudonym Mel Bonis, is also hardly known in this country, as is the Austrian pianist, singer and composer Maria Theresia von Paradis, who was blind since childhood and was also very prominent in the musical life of her time, the Viennese Classical period. In this concert you can get to know them all, as well as Emilie Mayer, a German composer of the 19th century who was also highly celebrated during her lifetime and was widely regarded as the "female Beethoven".

Women Power

Bertramstraße 8

Yannick Nézet-Séguin interprets Schubert’s Symphony No. 9, “The Great,” an imposing yet deeply personal work. Christian Blackshaw, a contemporary Mozart masters, delivers a crystal clear rendition of the composer’s work. With Piano Concerto No. 24, our artist-in-residence highlights Mozart’s ability to convey the depth of human emotion through music.

Soulful Greats

Cégep Marie Victorin

Place des Arts

Église Sainte-Claire

Female composers have had a hard time for a long time, and have been largely ignored by history. This year's chamber concert by the hr Symphony Orchestra in Erbach will feature some of them, with their rich music and creative work. Clara Schumann, Lili Boulanger and Rebecca Clark will be familiar, but Isabella Leonarda, an Italian nun from the 17th century who was one of the most productive composers of her era, or Marie Jaëll, a French pianist and composer from the 19th century, is not. The Frenchwoman Mélanie Bonis, whose works were mostly published under the pseudonym Mel Bonis in the 19th century, is also hardly known in this country, as is the Austrian Maria Theresia von Paradis, who was blind since childhood and was very prominent in the musical life of her time, the Viennese Classical period, as a pianist, singer and composer. In this concert you can get to know them all, as well as Emilie Mayer, a 19th-century German composer who was celebrated during her lifetime as the "female Beethoven".

Werner-Borchers-Halle

Female composers have long faced challenges, largely ignored by history. This year's chamber concert by the hr-Symphony Orchestra in Erbach offers the opportunity to experience several of them, showcasing their rich music and creative output. Clara Schumann, Lili Boulanger, and Rebecca Clarke are still familiar figures, but the same cannot be said for Isabella Leonarda, a 17th-century Italian nun who was among the most prolific composers of her era, or Marie Jaëll, a 19th-century French pianist and composer. The French composer Mélanie Bonis, whose works were mostly published under the pseudonym Mel Bonis in the 19th century, is also largely unknown in Germany, as is the Austrian Maria Theresia von Paradis, who was blind from childhood and a prominent figure in the Viennese Classical music scene as a pianist, singer, and composer. In this concert you can get to know them all, including Emilie Mayer, a 19th-century German composer who was celebrated during her lifetime as the "female Beethoven".

Haydn’s Drum Roll Symphony with Richard Egarr

Ordway Center for the Performing Arts

Do we even need to talk about it anymore? About the role of women in society,
at work and in music? Of course! Equality between men and
women may be the law, but it is not yet a reality everywhere. There is hardly a better
opportunity to talk about it than on International Women's Day.
It has been celebrated since 1911 and has been officially recognised by the UN for 50 years. Reason enough for the
Bremen Philharmonic to devote itself to this topic - in words and music.

gala concert for International Women's Day

Laeiszhalle Hamburg

‘I have spent my life trying to create a kind of cathedral of sound’. The words of Sofia Gubaidulina, one of the most significant living composers in the world. Her music, deeply spiritual and dramatic, forms the backbone of tonight’s celebration of International Women’s Day.

In this programme, Anja Bihlmaier makes her Manchester debut as the orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor and explores this kaleidoscopic programme. There’s the UK premiere of Dreydl by the genre-defying Olga Neuwirth, alongside music from American Sarah Gibson – beyond the beyond is a BBC commission, written as Sarah’s joy at becoming a mother was tempered by a progressive and terminal illness. This performance will see the posthumous premiere of the work.

A Celebration of International Women’s Day

The Bridgewater Hall

"Ömmer jet Nöits" - we give this phrase special meaning in this symphony concert. Firstly with the powerful, poetic Overture No. 2 by the composer Emilie Mayer, who is still rarely heard today. Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 is one of the composer's most frequently played works and,
thanks to its virtuoso passages and lyrical structure, continues to enjoy great popularity to this day. The main work of the concert offers a true novelty, as announced in the title: the world premiere of the "approximate sonata" by the Aachen composer Philipp Maintz.

4th Symphony Concert

Parkhotel Quellenhof Aachen - Premiumhotel Aachen

Courageous

The Church of St. John the Divine

Explore Romantic music with The Syracuse Orchestra! We’ll feature Noemi Miloradovic and Spencer Phillips playing Bottesini’s Concerto for Violin and Double Bass, and the Orchestra will perform Symphony No. 1 by Mayer and Pelléas et Mélisande by Fauré.

A Romantic Afternoon

St. Paul's Syracuse, the Downtown Episcopal Church

There’s no limit to the stories that can be told by a string quartet. The Equilibrium Quartet, four members of the Orchestra who aim to re-balance inequality in music, present a chamber concert with a fascinating difference. They'll perform works from the first lady of Polish music, Grażyna Bacewicz, Panamanian folk, and the beautiful yet largely undiscovered music of Emilie Mayer, before easing gently into the Christmas season with Rebecca Clarke’s Combined Carols.

Equilibrium Advent

The Music Room

Jessica Meyer will be our guest as Composer-In-Residence as we give the Western US Premiere of a newly-commissioned work that brims with impassioned flare and fire. IFS Concertmaster Emma Rubinstein dazzles with the exotic music of Ravel, and the Symphony delivers a forgotten gem by the 19th century German composer, Emelie Mayer: her dramatic and evocative Fifth Symphony.

Her Song in 3 Voices

Idaho Falls High School

2024-2025 Season Concert 1

St. John's Episcopal Church Barrington

Isabelle Faust returns to Berwaldhallen with Alban Berg's violin concerto – written in memory of a young girl. Principal conductor Daniel Harding also leads the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in the overture to Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser , an opera about the struggle between virtuous and sensual love. In addition, the German Romantic composer Emilie Mayer's Seventh Symphony.

Isabelle Faust In Bergs Violin Concert

SR Berwaldhallen

The season opens with a flourish in a program celebrating the work of inspiring women in classical music. Sixth Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman is described by composer Joan Tower as “a tribute to women who take risks and are adventurous.” The captivating, Grammy-nominated Kara Huber will treat you to a dazzling performance of Mozart Piano Concerto K. 466. The evening concludes with Symphony No. 2 in E minor by Emilie Mayer, a Romantic composer beloved in her lifetime whose works are being celebrated in concert halls once again. 

The Uncommon Woman

River Lodge Conference Center

Romantic Era Masterpieces

Orpheum Theatre, Galesburg

Since the beginning of her career, Norwegian trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth has championed the trumpet repertoire amongst audiences on all six continents, meriting the highest critical praise for her soulful, lyrical sound and collaborative approach to music-making. An artist who challenges the boundaries of genre with an intensely creative, open-minded philosophy, Tine’s ever-expanding repertoire ranges from the classical period to contemporary works and new commissions.

Beethoven’s 5th!

Miller Symphony Hall

Two women composers of the Romantic era hold the spotlight in this imaginative concert of 19th-century music. The ‘fantastic’ (The Guardian) Kammerorchester Basel performs under the direction of Julia Schröder.

Kammerorchester Basel

Usher Hall

Two wonderful women composers of the Romantic era hold the spotlight in this imaginative concert of 19th-century music. The ‘fantastic’ (The Guardian) Kammerorchester Basel performs under the direction Julia Schröder.

Colors From The Newer Era

Christ Lutheran Church in Allentown

Musical ideas, like memories, evolve over time. In both Liszt’s symphonic poem and Mayer’s symphony, melodies and rhythms return over and over, transforming with each iteration until they have become something wholly new and triumphant. While a new work by Yaz Lancaster explores when, how, and why we return to childhood memories in our adult lives.

Throughlines

St. Catherine University

Frank Peter Zimmermann, one of the greatest violinists of our time, performs Brahms’ quasi-symphonic Violin Concerto, in which the orchestra and the soloist engage in dialogue as equal partners. Here, the violin, with its high-energy gusto, spurs the orchestra to a playful, Romani-inspired finale. A contemporary of Brahms, Emilie Mayer, a composer well worth discovering, expresses her fascinating musical personality in her Symphony no. 7, a highly original work replete with surges of passion.

Zimmermann and Brahms’ Masterful Violin Concerto

South African soprano Golda Schultz has been gracing the stage of the world’s greatest opera houses—from the Metropolitan Opera to the Vienna State Opera. Equally at home in leading operatic roles as she is as a soloist with the world’s foremost orchestras and in the most venerated recital halls, she has quickly become a leading voice in a new generation of star singers. For her Princeton University Concerts debut, she brings the extraordinary warmth of her voice to a program hailed as “a love-letter to women in music” exploring themes of love, nature, folklore and belief from a distinctly female perspective. Discussing the program’s curation, she shares: “Emilie Mayer, whose music was never recorded, was a genius on the level with Beethoven, but she was forgotten the day after she died in 1883. Nadia Boulanger became one of the greatest pedagogues with a touch that defined American culture. Even when we forget these women, what they’ve done still remains.”  

Golda Schultz, Soprano Jonathan Ware, Piano

Alexander Hall

Rediscovering Women Composers

Hanger Farm Arts Centre

As always, we celebrate the voices of female composers, and over the course of the season we present composers whose backgrounds and influences are as diverse as the music they have composed. The companion pieces to our featured work serve to bind the program into a cohesive whole, offering our listeners a varied musical experience and some exposure to less known composers and works.

CWO 23/24 Concert 2

First Presbyterian Church of Oakland

Conductor Mei-Ann Chen, praised for her passionate conducting style, leads the Orchestra in the Florida premiere of the new concerto for piano and orchestra, Shades of Unbroken Dreams, by Orlando favorite James Lee III. Bookending the Concerto is Emilie Mayer’s Overture, whose Romantic vocabulary explores Faust’s searching, questing soul and leads into the beautiful conclusion of our concert, Brahms’s Third, often called his most personal symphony. “Like a rainbow after a thunderstorm,” as the composer’s biographer Karl Geiringer describes it, with an emotional palette that paints in colors of yearning, reflection, and serene acceptance.

Brahms Third Symphony

Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts

Ob Emilie Mayer und Ludvig van Beethoven persönlich auf einer Wellenlänge gelegen hätten, ist schwer zu beantworten. Dass sich der „weibliche Beethoven“, wie Emilie Mayer gern bezeichnet wird, hinter dem „echten“ nicht zu verstecken braucht, wird beim Hören der 7. Symphonie in f-Moll deutlich. Die zeitlebens unverheiratet und kinderlos gebliebene Komponistin entfesselt einen musikalischen Sturm, der, wie auch die anderen Werke Emilie Mayers, nach ihrem Tod zu Unrecht in Vergessenheit geraten ist. Dieser derzeit noch selten gespielten Wiederentdeckung steht mit Beethovens Violinkonzert in D-Dur ein fester Bestandteil des klassischen Kernrepertoires gegenüber. Aus der Retrospektive steht dieses Meisterwerk den Komponisten der Romantik und damit vielleicht auch Emilie Mayer näher als der Wiener Klassik.

Wellenlänge

Kongresshaus Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Emilie Meyer, a prolific composer in her own right, recalls something of Mozart’s style. English composer Gerald Finzi writes dramatically for both the DSO strings and Principal Clarinet Ralph Skiano, while Elgar’s Serenade puts the former entirely in focus. One of Mozart’s last symphonies takes us all on a ridiculously fun ride.

Elgar & Mozart

Kirk in the Hills

Our Lady Star of the Sea

First United Methodist Church

The Berman Center for the Performing Arts

Robin Wallington unearths a handful of lesser-heard gems spanning the 19th and 20th century. Today, we’ll introduce you to a few composers you may not have heard of, but whose work you’ll soon be seeking out.

Tranquillity and Discovery with the BBC Philharmonic

MediaCityUK

Fanny & Emilie

Villa Marigola

A stormy opening from the 19th century prolific German composer Emilie Mayer – think drama, boldness and romance. Meanwhile, Brahms’s Symphony No.2 is music of bittersweet contrasts. It begins quietly with horns and woodwind, starting a lyrical journey that ends in a jubilant orchestral whirlwind of breathlessness and flourish.

Brahms: Symphony No. 2

A linear trajectory between two stars who continue to shine brightly in the highest musical firmament, the ideal setting for a captivating encounter between Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Orchestre Métropolitain, and the magnificent violinist Veronika Eberle, returning to the Festival de Lanaudière.

Emilie Mayer

Events

Upcoming events

7 - 8 May, 2026

Beethoven, Symphony No. 4 · Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège

May 13, 2026

Brahms: Symphony No. 2 · BBC Philharmonic

Jul 26, 2026

Nézet-Séguin and Eberle: Romantic Ecstasy · Orchestre Métropolitain

Past events

7 - 8 May, 2026

Beethoven, Symphony No. 4 · Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège

Apr 16, 2026

Schubert & Mendelssohn · Odense Symphony Orchestra

About

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