Recommended Sheet Music,
Introducing Mathilde de Rothschild with Charlotte de Rothschild
Watch the video below to hear Charlotte de Rothschild talk about Mathilde de Rothschild.
**Please note, the collection of songs featured in the video was a special edition which is no longer available. However, all of the songs from the book are available individually here**
The publication of a double album devoted to Mathilde de Rothschild’s music constitutes a further important step in the reassessment of nineteenth-century women composers.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV
About Charlotte de Rothschild
Charlotte de Rothschild’s career has taken her all over the world. With her wide knowledge of the song repertoire, from different eras, countries and genres, she has created some wonderful themed programmes; the best known being the "Family Connections" programme which traces the musical history of her forebears with music by, and anecdotes about, the composers who were friends, teachers or ancestors of the Rothschild family during the 19th and 20th Centuries. After performing in Japan for over twenty years, she recorded a CD of classical Japanese songs called "A Japanese Journey". She was the first foreigner to have recorded this music in the native tongue and she has promoted the beauty of these songs all over the world, accompanied by the harp, piano or orchestra
About Mathilde de Rothschild
Hannah Mathilde von Rothschild was born in Frankfurt on the 5th of March 1832. Known to her family as ‘Matty’, she showed her musical talent early, being an excellent pianist and composer. Mathilde spent her childhood between Vienna and Frankfurt where the family lived just outside the city. Chopin taught various Rothschild ladies, including Mathilde who would have taken lessons from him during one of her frequent visits to her cousins. Chopin was so impressed that even during his last illness, when he took few pupils, he found time for ‘the Rothschild girl’.
During the first 12 years of her marriage, Willy (husband) and Mathilde divided their time between Naples and Frankfurt, but in 1861, they moved permanently to Frankfurt. Rothschild’s international lifestyle results in a rich and varied collection of songs; her exposure to the culture of mid-nineteenth century Paris is evident in her French songs while her German settings are testimony to her life in Frankfurt with her husband. Her gift for languages, however, results in far more than simply a multi-cultural body of work. The genre of song provided the ideal vehicle for Rothschild’s thorough understanding of languages with sympathetic yet astute settings of French, German and English texts.
Mathilde’s work was published by the major houses of the day under her own name as ‘La Baronne Willy de Rothschild’ or ‘Freifrau Willy von Rothschild’. She was asked by many leading singers to compose for them, including Christine Nillson, Selma Kurz and Adelina Patti. Her most famous song, was written for her friend Adelina Patti, who often sang this as an encore and made a recording of it in 1905.
Ellena Taylor - Sheet Music and Books Manager
