De musica disserenda

Foreword

Ivana Maričič — 2025-11-13

„Nur dort wo ich nicht bin, dort ist das Glück“: Marie Pachler (1794–1855) im Dialog mit ihren Verwandten aus der Untersteiermark und Krain

Ingeborg Harer — 2025-11-13

Lower Styria and Carniola, in today’s Slovenia, define the origins of the Graz pianist Marie Pachler née Koschak and, at the same time, also appear as reference points throughout her life. For this reason, attention will be drawn to this aspect for the first time. New sources show that Pachler remained a searcher throughout her life and expressed her thoughts in letters addressed to her female relatives from these regions. The correspondence reveals numerous gen- der-specific aspects as well as socio-cultural details typical of the time.

Marie Baumayer (1851–1931): auf dem Weg zur professionellen Pianistin

Gudrun Rottensteiner — 2025-11-13

Born in Celje (Cilli), raised in Leoben, educated in Graz and Vienna, Marie Baumayer became a professional concert pianist at the end of the nineteenth century. But how did the first piano lessons begin for a girl from a bourgeois family whose musical environment was not particularly strong? The example of Marie Baumayer’s artistic career shows the steps open to a woman’s education in the pursuit of a career as a professional musician.

Transcending Traditional Roles: Female Instrumentalists in Ljubljana’s Public Musical Life Between 1790 and 1848

Maruša Zupančič — 2025-11-13

The article examines the rise of female instrumentalists, particularly dilettante pianists, within Ljubljana’s public music sphere between 1790 and 1848. It explores their transition from private salons to semi-public and public performances, the repertoire they presented and the social challenges they faced during this era.

A National Musical Heroine at the Margins of Concert Life: The Case of Dora Pejačević

Nataša Maričić — 2025-11-13

This article explores the political context that has been overlooked in the reception of Dora Pejačević’s oeuvre. It argues that the historical and contemporary marginalization of her work reflects broader patterns in Croatian musical historiography that have excluded women’s musical production from concert stages and scholarly discourse.

Crossing Boundaries: The Case of the Pianist Lucilla Tolomei Podgornik

Sara Zupančič — 2025-11-13

The article centres on the pianist Lucilla Tolomei Podgornik (1854–1937), who resided and worked in Trieste during the late nineteenth century, a time marked by nationalistic tensions that hindered cultural activity. The essay chronicles her performances and teaching endeavours from 1881 to 1903, emphasizing her noteworthy impact on the city’s musical landscape, which she enhanced despite the challenging political climate.

Gegenstände der Erinnerung: Varianten der Objektivation von Professionalität in den Nachlässen von Musikerinnen

Michaela Krucsay — 2025-11-13

Using selected examples from the material legacies of two female musicians from different generations, Luise Adolpha Le Beau and Hedi Gigler-Dongas, the article explores the potential of objects, materially handed down as well as narrated, for the discursive production and consolidation of their professional identity. After a discussion of the theoretical framework, first, the relation of Le Beau’s text “Erinnerungen eines alten Flügels” to her own autobiography and, second, objects from the realm of fashion represented in selected life writings by Gigler-Dongas are discussed to illustrate the cross-referencing semiotic power of objects exploited for strategies of negotiating female musical professionalism from Romanticism to the twenty-first century.

Music and the Gendered Image in Handel’s La Bellezza ravveduta nel trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (1707), Its Later Reworkings and Contemporary Stagings

Ivan Ćurković — 2025-11-13

George Frideric Handel’s oratorio La Bellezza ravveduta (1707) and its two later reworkings, Il trionfo del Tempo e della Verità (1737) and The Triumph of Time and Truth (1757), differ in musical content and in how the allegorical characters are coded in terms of gender. A comparative analysis showcases their wide interpretative range in selected twenty-first-century stagings.