Emilie Mayer

[1] Although Emilie Mayer began her serious compositional study relatively late in life, she was a very prolific composer, eventually producing some 8 symphonies and at least 15 concert overtures, as well as numerous chamber works and lieder.

According to one of her surviving personal statements, “After a few lessons … I composed variations, dances, little rondos, etc.”[5] Seemingly destined for domestic life, in 1840 at the age of 28, her circumstances changed when her father committed suicide - 26 years to the day after her mother was buried - leaving Mayer with a large inheritance.

[10][5] Once in Berlin, she studied fugue and double counterpoint with Adolf Bernhard Marx,[10] and instrumentation with Wilhelm Friedrich Wieprecht.

She traveled to attend performances of her works, including to the Königliches Schauspielhaus,[12] and cities such as Cologne, Munich, Lyon, Brussels and Vienna.

Mayer died on 10 April 1883 from pneumonia[14] in Berlin and was buried at the Dreifaltigkeitsfriedhof I at the Holy Trinity Church not far from Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn.

[16] One defining characteristic of Mayer's music is a tendency to set up a tonal centre with a dominant seventh, but not resolving to the tonic immediately; sometimes, resolution is skipped altogether.

[4] Mayer's chamber music output was extensive, including lieder and choral settings, many works for piano and seven string quartets.