Maria Margherita Grimani

Maria Margherita Grimani was an Italian composer of the early eighteenth century whose activity unfolded, to a large extent, within the Habsburg dominions. Her significance lies in the fact that her works were performed at the Viennese court theatre at a time when very few women composed music for the stage, although the biographical details surrounding her remain scarce and in part uncertain.

According to Köchel, between 1713 and 1718 she may have resided at the Viennese court, at least intermittently. Three of her works, now held in the Austrian National Library, were performed in the court theatre. The first, Pallade e Marte, a componimento dramatico dedicated from Bologna on 5 April 1713, was premiered on 4 November of that year to mark the name day of Charles VI, and was the first stage work by a female composer to be heard there. Her two oratorios also resounded at the imperial court: La visitazione di Elisabetta, which was given after Pallade e Marte in 1713 and repeated in 1718, and La decollazione di S Giovanni Battista, dating from 1715. The librettists of these pieces are unknown; Köchel's attribution of the text of La decollazione to Domenico Fillipeschi seems to stem from a confusion with an oratorio of the same name by A. M. Bononcini, dating from 1709.

Grimani was the last in a line of women who wrote oratorios for the Viennese court, alongside Maria di Raschenau, C. B. Grazianini and Camilla de Rossi, although Wellesz considered that all of them may have been regular canonesses. She is presumed to have belonged to the Venetian patrician family of the Grimani, a family devoted to the arts, but genealogical research has not been able to confirm her kinship with the known members of the lineage.

Her legacy rests chiefly on three works that follow the model of Alessandro Scarlatti: da capo arias predominate, almost always accompanied by basso continuo alone, with a marked descriptive simplicity. Schering praised her command of expression, although they hardly employ the counterpoint that characterises Fux and Caldara, and their recitatives, almost all secco, are schematic.