Marianne von Martínez

Marianne von Martínez (Vienna, 1744 – Vienna, 1812) was an Austrian composer of Spanish descent who spent much of her career in the musical world of the court and the Viennese salons of the late eighteenth century. The daughter of a Neapolitan who had come to Vienna as a gentleman of the papal nuncio, she grew up in a household shared with Metastasio, a friend of the family, and with other musicians who lived there.

Her training was provided by Porpora and Haydn, who lived in the same building, and by Giuseppe Bonno; according to some accounts, she may also have been a pupil of J. A. Hasse. From childhood she attracted attention at court for her voice and her manner of playing the keyboard, and in 1761 a Mass of hers was performed in the palace chapel. In 1773 she was named an honorary member of the Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna, and she herself acknowledged Hasse, Jommelli and Galuppi as her principal models.

Her vocal music moves within the Italian style: it is dominated by imitative counterpoint and fugue, she writes texts in the manner of the Baroque, and she shows a clear predilection for coloratura passages, wide leaps and trills, which suggests that she was a notable singer. Burney praised her singing in 1772 for the qualities typical of the Italian school and for its moving expression. Her instrumental output, written in the Italian style characteristic of the early Viennese classicism, shows the influence of C. P. E. Bach in her harpsichord writing; at times she built a multi-movement composition from a single idea, as in the Harpsichord Concerto in G (1772). Her frequent development of motifs, ornamentation and rapid scales also reveal an interest in virtuoso brilliance, in keeping with the taste of the Viennese salons.

After Metastasio's death in 1782, the Martínez family inherited his estate, and Marianne received 20,000 florins, the poet's harpsichord and his musical library. This allowed her to maintain a distinguished household, at whose musical evenings figures such as Haydn and Mozart were guests. Michael Kelly heard her play one of Mozart's sonatas for piano duet and described her still with the cheerfulness of a young girl. In the 1790s she opened a singing school in her home, from which several outstanding singers emerged.

Her legacy survives above all in her masses, motets and psalms, in the oratorio Isacco, figura del Redentore, and in her cantatas and keyboard sonatas. Today she is remembered as a representative figure of women's musical life in Vienna in her time, although much of her catalogue remains little published.