Carpe Diem #1101 Emilie Mayer's Symphony No. 4 in B minor

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

What a joy it was to do the Tanka Kukai "winter love" it was an experiment to do this tanka kukai, but I think it has become a nice kukai and it is my pleasure to announce our first winner of this Tanka Kukai:

The winner is: Xenia Tran with the following tanka:

a warm path

weaves her way through winter
from eye to heart
soft glow of the low sun
blows a silent kiss

© Xenia Tran

Congratulations Xenia. With being the winner of this first Tanka Kukai, you will be featured in a new special feature here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai ... Tanka Splendor, which I will publish later this week.

Okay back to our episode of today. Today I love to introduce Emilie Mayer, a female composer who has written wonderful pieces of music. Let me first tell you a little bit more about Emilie Mayer.

Emilie Mayer (1812-1883) 

Emilie Mayer:

Emilie Luise Friderica Mayer (1812 – 1883) was a German composer of Romantic music. Emilie Mayer began her serious compositional study relatively late in life, yet she was a very prolific composer, producing some 8 symphonies and at least 15 concert overtures, plus numerous chamber works and lieder.

Emilie Mayer was the third child and eldest daughter of a well-to-do pharmacist, Johann August Friedrich Mayer and Henrietta Carolina. She received musical education at an early age, and even in her first years as a piano student, the young Emilie apparently had an eating disorder, which caused many issues in her compositions.
On August 28, 1840, her life took a sudden turn: Emilie Mayer's father fatally shot himself, 26 years to the day after he buried Emilie's mother.
In 1841, she moved to the regional capital city of Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland), and sought to study composition with Carl Loewe, a central figure of the musical life of the city. Author Marie Silling, writes concerning this: "The death of her father caused her first deep sorrow; in order to numb this pain, she buried herself in work. She went to Szczecin and became Loewe‘s student. After a challenging test he said in his crafty manner: "You actually know nothing and everything at the same time! I shall be the gardener who helps the talent that is still a bud resting within your chest to unfold and become the most beautiful flower!" Emilie always considered it important to be thrifty in her own life but was continually giving to the needs of others. When, for these reasons, she asked Löwe whether she could share the composition lessons with other female pupils, he answered: "such a God-given talent as hers had not been bestowed upon any other person he knew." This statement filled her with the greatest thankfulness throughout her whole life and obliged her to work extremely hard."
In 1847, after the premiere of her first two symphonies (C minor and E minor) by the Stettin Instrumental Society, she moved to Berlin to continue her compositional studies. Once in Berlin, she studied fugue and double counterpoint with Adolph Bernhard Marx, and instrumentation with Wilhelm Wieprecht.
She began publishing her works (e.g. lieder and chants, op. 5-7 in 1848) and performing in private concerts. Then on April 21, 1850, Wieprecht led his "Euterpe" orchestra in a concert at the Royal Theater exclusively presenting compositions by Emilie Mayer. With critical and popular acclaim, she continued composing works for public performance. She traveled to attend performances of her works, including to Cologne, Munich, Lyon, Brussels and Vienna.

Emilie Mayer has composed a lot of music and she was (in my opinion) one of the best female composers of the 19th century. I hope I can inspire you with the following Symphony;

I hope you did like this piece of music and I hope it did inspire you to create haiku or tanka. I wasn't inspired to create a haiku or tanka in response on this magnificent Symphony by Emilie Mayer.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until December 24th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, Symphony No. 4 Op. 50 by Johanna Senfter, later on.