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d piano-playing. Her sight-reading abilities were something phenomenal, and she could play from full instrumental scores with ease. Her home became the centre of a brilliant circle, including Weber, Hummel, Lindpaintner, and poets as well as musicians. She was much prized as a teacher of piano and singing, and a personal favourite in her native city. Of her compositions, the most ambitious is an overture to the play "Die Geister Insel." She wrote also several piano pieces, among them three polonaises. But according to German authority,[7] it is her songs that have made her memory honoured. Her originality and her skill in metrical treatment have won her high praise, and many of the songs achieved wide popularity. Leopoldine Blahetka, the Austrian pianist, was one of the most prolific of women composers. Born near Vienna in 1811, she made such rapid progress under her mother's tuition that by Beethoven's advice she was placed under Czerny in her fifth year. She pursued composition as well as piano, and when twelve years old was able to appear in Vienna and play a set of variations with her own orchestral accompaniment. Among her later teachers were Moscheles, Kalkbrenner, and Sechter. She made frequent tours, and met with universal success. The criticisms of her work include an extremely favourable notice by Schumann. In 1840 she settled in Boulogne, where she became renowned as a teacher, and led a successful career until her death in 1887. Of her many works, the most ambitious are a piano concerto, the "Souvenir d'Angleterre" for piano and orchestra, and two sets of piano variations with orchestral accompaniment. Among her numerous examples of chamber music are found variations for string quartette and piano, two piano quartettes, a piano trio, several violin sonatas, a polonaise, and sets of variations for 'cello, violin, and flute with piano. She has composed a grand duet and a number of solos for piano, also numerous vocal duets and songs. Her operetta, "Die Raeuber und die Saenger," was successfully produced at Vienna. One of Germany's greatest women composers was Emilie Mayer. Hers was a fortunate position, for she was always well provided for, and could exercise her powers without the need to think of the financial result. She was born in Friedland in 1812, her father being "Apotheker," a position of far more importance in German towns than that held by our pharmacists. Emilie showed the usual signs of music
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