A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Paradis, Marie Therese von

by Carl Ferdinand Pohl

PARADIS, Marie Therese von, daughter of Joseph Anton, an Imperial Councillor, born in Vienna May 15, 1759. She was a highly-esteemed pianist, and Mozart wrote a concerto for her (in B♭, Köchel 456). She also attained to considerable skill on the organ, in singing, and in composition, and this in spite of her being blind from early childhood. The piano she studied with Richter (of Holland), and afterwards with Kozeluch, whose concertos were her favourite pieces; singing with Salieri and Righini; and composition with Friberth, and the Abbé Vogler. The Empress her godmother took a great interest in her, and made her a yearly allowance. In 1784 she went to Paris, where she remained 6 months, playing before the court, and at the Concerts spirituels, with great applause. In November she went to London. Here she stayed five months, played before the King, Queen, and Prince of Wales, whom she accompanied in a cello sonata, at the then recently-founded Professional Concerts (Hanover Square Rooms, Feb. 16, 1785), and finally at a concert of her own, conducted by Salomon, in Willis's Rooms on March 8. A notice of her appeared in the St. James's Chronicle for Feb. 19. She next visited Brussels, and the more important courts of Germany, attracting all hearers by her playing and her intellectual accomplishments. After her return to Vienna she played twice at the concerts of the Tonkünstler-Societät, and took up composition with great ardour, using a system of notation^[1] invented for her by a friend of the family named Riedinger. Of her works, the following were produced: 'Ariadne und Bacchus,' a melodrama, played first at Laxenburg before the Emperor Leopold (1791), and then at the national court-theatre; 'Der Schulcandidat' a pastoral Singspiel (Leopoldstadt theatre, 1792); 'Deutsches Monument,' a Trauer-cantate for the anniversary of the death Louis XVI (small Redoutensaal Jan. 21, 1794, repeated in the Kärnthnerthor theatre); and 'Rinaldo und Algina' a magic opera (Prague). She also printed a Clavier-trio, sonatas, variations (dedicated to Vogler); 12 Lieder; Bürger's 'Leonore,' etc. Towards the close of her life she devoted herself exclusively to teaching singing and the pianoforte, and with great success. She died Feb. 1, 1824.

[ C. F. P. ]

1. Described in detail in the Leipzig Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, 1810, No. 57.