91Èȱ¬

Soprano Ilona Domnich performs live with the 91Èȱ¬ Concert Orchestra and conductor Jane Glover on International Women's Day 2018.

Marianna Martines was an Austrian composer, singer and pianist from a noble Neapolitan family. The large family house in Vienna where she grew up was also home to artists including the librettist Pietro Metastasio and Joseph Haydn, then a struggling young composer.

Martines was a keyboard virtuoso and wrote extensively for her instrument, becoming a protégée of Metastasio and several visiting composers, and attracting illustrious musicians to her regular salons (Mozart reportedly performed at one). She certainly enjoyed fame throughout Europe in her lifetime, but has since had little recognition.

Professor Jeremy Llewellyn has been researching Martines’ life and music on behalf of the 91Èȱ¬/AHRC's Forgotten Women Composers project. He set about to reconstruct her oratorio on a text by Metastasio, Sant' Elena - a piece written by a woman composer about a woman saint, around the time of the death of a woman regent of imperial Austria who did much for the arts, Empress Maria Theresa.