(1812-1883)
By the mid 19th century, Emilie Mayer had firmly established herself as a professional composer, enjoying both critical and popular success. She created some eight symphonies for full orchestra and at least fifteen concert overtures, plus a large number of string quintets and quartets, piano quartets and trios, and violin sonatas. Composer Carl Lowe is quoted as saying that “such a God-given talent as hers had not been bestowed upon any other person that he knew.” Hermann Zopff, founder of the Berlin Opera Academy, acknowledged Mayer’s Violin Sonata in A Minor as a “magnificent example of the genre, such as we would hardly have expected from a woman.”
The 2012 Mayer: Violin Sonatas release from Feminae Records marks the premiere of three previously‑unrecorded sonatas by Emilie Mayer: Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Minor, opus 18, Sonata for Violin and Piano in E Minor, opus 19, and the then‑unpublished Sonata for Violin and Piano in E-flat Major. Since that release, Aleksandra Maslovaric has collaborated with publisher Furore Verlag to edit and release a modern publication of Emilie Mayer’s Sonata in E-flat Major.