Female Patronage and Agency in Musik between 1760 and 1840

FWF Elise-Richter-Projekt Nr. V 1013-G

Recently, in the holdings of the Dommusikverein und Mozarteum at the Archiv der Erzdiözese Salzburg (AES) and the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum (ISM), several music collections of important female patrons/collectors/musicians have come to light, containing a number of early copies of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart’s works: The collection of Josepha von Paumgarten (neè Lerchenfeld, 1762−1817, Munich), the collections of Anna (Nanette) Fröhlich (1793−1880, Vienna) and Marie von Podstatsky-Liechtenstein (1803−1864, Salzburg) and the collection of Josephine von Baroni-Cavalcabò (1787−1860, Vienna/Lwiw). To these may be added individual musical sources out of the collections of Caroline Christine Friederike von Waldstein-Wartenberg (1766−1844) in Joseph Graf von Daun’s collection and Fanny Arnstein (1758−1818) in the holdings of the “Mozart-Nachlass”.

Starting from researching how patronage is mirrored in the collections of female patrons/ musicians/ collectors, various documents and publications (letters, diaries, travel-logs, auto-biographies etc.) will be studied. The project aims at describing the various forms of female patronage in music between 1760 and 1840. Results are expected concerning the relationship of patrons and their clients, of female and male patrons, their networks and the development of patronage in the given period.

While extended research in archives and libraries will be necessary, the musical sources will be described in the RISM database. To analyze the findings, hermeneutical and philological methods as well as the methods of sociomusicology/gender studies will be employed. Music and textual analysis will be applied in exemplary cases to determine whether musical or textual references to patrons were made in commissioned works.

The planned project will enlarge our understanding of female (as well as male) patronage, agency and networking in the field of music. Cataloging the aforementioned collections will make numerous sources of the period available for research, among them hitherto unknown early copies of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart’s works. Important female figures will be researched and portrayed within their context, which will undoubtedly yield new music-historiographic insights into the period.

Team

Eva Neumayr (Head of Project) ist the head of the music collection at Archiv der Erzdiözese Salzburg and a research fellow at the International Mozarteum Foundation, where she currently is a FWF-Elise-Richter Fellow working on the project „Female Patronage and Agency in Music between 1760 and 1840“.  She studied musicology and English University of Salzburg and Music-Education as well as Voice at University Mozarteum in Salzburg and at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. In her Phd-theses she researched proper-composition by Johann Ernst Eberlins (Die Propriumsvertonungen Johann Ernst Eberlins (1702-1762): Studien zu Quellen, Entwicklung, Komposition und Aufführungspraxis und Alphabetisches Verzeichnis, Frankfurt etc.: Lang, 2007). She has published widely about the music history of Salzburg (e.g. with Lars Laubhold and Ernst Hintermaier, Musik am Dom zu Salzburg. Repertoire und Liturgisch Gebundene Praxis zwischen hochbarocker Repräsentation und Mozart-Kult, Wien: Hollitzer, 2018 (Schriftenreihe des Archivs der Erzdiözese Salzburg, 18), about the women of the Mozart-Family, Maria Anna und Anna Maria Mozart has catalogued the collection of Salzburg cathedral until 1841 und the collections of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart’s sons in the RISM-database, publishing also the printed catalogs.

She is a co-founder of the RISM-Salzburg working group, a member of the Academy for Mozart-Research and currently serves as vice-president of IAML-Austria. As founder and president of the Maria-Anna-Mozart-Society Salzburg she is responsible for programming the ongoing concert-series FRAUENSTIMMEN.

Publications

Erik Aren Schroeder (Student Assistant) is an Italian-American composer and violinist. He completed in 2023 a BA in baroque violin/viola, studying under Hiro Kurosaki, and in 2025 a BA in music theory, under Dr. Juliane Brandes, at the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg. He is currently pursuing graduate studies in music theory and historical performance practice under Dr. Juliane Brandes and Reinhard Goebel, respectively, likewise at the Universität Mozarteum.
(La Locandiera, 2022), an oratorio (The Passions, 2023),
His compositions include an opera (La Locandiera, 2022), an oratorio (The Passions. 2023), diverse chamber and orchestral works, and music for the Austrian pavilion at the 2025 World Expo in Osaka. He is active regularly and internationally as a violinist, performing with various period instrument ensembles and orchestras, and since 2024 has been employed in archival and musicological work at the Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg, where he is student assistant to Dr. Eva Neumayr on the FWF project “Female Patronage and Agency in Music 1760–1840”.

Results

Publications:

1. Eva Neumayr: „’A very valuable donation…’ Anna (Nanette) Fröhlich and her music collection, in: Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl, Birgit Lodes, Melanie Unseld (eds.): Women’s Agency in Schubert’s Vienna, Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2024 (Vienna Schubert Studies, 1), S. 371–390.
2. Eva Neumayr: “Ein schöner warmer Zug ächter Musik…” – Die Sängerin, Komponistin und Gesangslehrerin Clotilde Kainerstorfer (1833–1897), in: Andreas Lindner, Klaus Petermayr (Hg.): Bruckner-Symposium. Femmes Musicale – Frauen in der Musik des 19. Jahrhunderts. Brucknerhaus Linz. 6. und 7. Oktober 2023. Bericht, Graz, Wien, Berlin: Leykam Buchverlagsgesellschaft m.b.H. & Co. KG, 2025, S. 61–73 (Bruckner-Symposion Berichte).

Presentations:

1. “Josepha Countess Paumgarten and her collection” at the Conference of the International Association of Music Librarians Cambridge, 29 July ‒4 August 2023.
2. “Watermarks in the collections of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart’s Sons Franz Xaver Wolfgang and Carl Thomas Mozart in Salzburg” at the conference Watermarks in Digital Collections, Verona, 6. ‒ September 2023.
3. “Klotilde Kainerstorfer – Musikerin und Komponistin im Umfeld Anton Bruckners“, Femmes musicales – Frauen in der Musik des 19. Jahrhunderts. Wissenschaftliches Symposium in Kooperation mit dem Anton-Bruckner-Institut Linz und der Kunstuniversität Graz, Linz, 6. ‒ 7. October 2023.
4. „Josepha Gräfin Paumgarten und ihre Sammlung“ 10.1.2024 in der Gesellschaft für Salzburger Landeskunde, Salzburg.
5. „Gräfin Paumgarten und ihre Sammlung“, Club der Wiener Musikerinnen, 21.3.2024.
6. „Fakt und Fiktion: Anna Maria Mozart in den Biographien ihres Sohnes“, Öst. Gesellschaft für Musikwissenschaft, Wien, 20.6.2024.
7. 06.2024: “Matrons as Patrons”, bei der Konferenz der International Association of Music Librarians (IAML) 2024 in Stellenbosch, S-Afrika.
8. 6.2024: “The Mozarteum: A History of Musical Life in Salzburg” (mit Birgit Lechner und Barbara Schwarz-Raminger), Konferenz der International Association of Music Librarians (IAML) 2024 in Stellenbosch, S-Afrika.
9. 9.2024: „Die Sammlung „Paumgarten“‒ Zeitgenössische Italienische Opern und ihre Abschriften in München“ in der Konferenz L’importanza die copisti per la diffussione delle opere italienae nel Settecento, Krumau, 21.-22. Sept. 2024.
10. „Über Venedig nach Salzburg: Die venezianischen Notenpapiere aus dem Valle delle Cartiere“, 8.11.2024 in der Konferenz Erzbischof und Doge am 7. ‒10.2024 im Domquartier Salzburg.
11. „Musikalische Quellen und ihre Erschließung“ beim Studientag der Diözesanarchivare am 27.  Jänner 2025, Salzburg.
12. (mit Erik Schroeder): „Hedwig Gräfin Gatterburg and her Collection” (mit Erik Schroeder), 9. Juli 2025, Konferenz der International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centers, Salzburg.
13. (mit Erik Schroeder): “Hedwig von Gatterburg und ihre Musiksammlung”, 14.1.2026, Gesellschaft für Salzburger Landeskunde, Salbzurg.

Conference

Voices of Influence: Female Patronage and Agency in Music

Internationale Mozarteum Foundation, Villa Vicina, Schwarzstraße 30, Salzburg, 16.–18. April 2026

The conference aims at exploring the multifaceted roles women have played in shaping musical culture—not only as performers and composers, but as patrons, commissioners, curators, pedagogues, and cultural gatekeepers. From aristocratic patronage to bourgeois salons, women’s contributions to the musical world have often been powerful, yet have been inadequately recognized. The conference focuses on female agency and patronage in various contexts within the given period, examining how women have exercised authority and influence within—and beyond—traditional structures of musical production.

We invite papers that engage with questions such as:

• How did women use their social roles to support, shape, or control musical activity?
• In what ways did female patronage alter the course of musical careers, institutions, styles etc.?
• How is musical agency expressed in non-compositional or non-performative roles?
• How does the patronage-system change over time?

A publication is planned. A budget is available to subsidize travel and accommodation costs for scientists who are not affiliated with institutions.

Languages: German, English

Please send abstracts (300 words) to eva.neumayr@mozarteum.at until December 15th, 2025 (Call for papers closed)