Lombardini Sirmen: String Quartets Nos. 1-6

Forgotten as a composer in spite of her remarkable skills and obvious appreciation of her contemporaries – including Amadeus Mozart and JC Bach – Maddalena Lombardini was grown in Venice in a small bourgeois family, and given her exceptional musical talent, at only seven she was admitted at at the school of the Hospital of the Mendicanti (one of the four major music education schools for girls who then served during the political and religious ceremonies of the city).
At fourteen Maddalena is sent to study with the greatest master of her time, Giuseppe Tartini, who will remain a point of reference in her entire life: in fact it seems that on his advice Maddalena will marry another of his pupil, Ludovico Sirmen. She will then leave her work at the Mendicanti Hospital and started a lavish concert career in London, Dresden, Petersburg, and Paris, where she will perform and publish the six quartets included in this edition.
The execution is entrusted to the splendor of the “Accademia della Magnifica Comunità”, under the guidance of Enrico Casazza.