Not enough warmth in her playing

We cordially invite you to the lecture from the cycle Dialogo della musica, which will be given by Sigrid Nieberle (Dortmund) on the topic of Not enough warmth in her playing. The beginning of a musical career in Prague 1857/58.

The lecture will take place on Tuesday, September 23, 2025 at 5 pm in the Musicological library IAH, Puškinovo nám. 9, Prague 6.

In November 1857, two women from Prague, Gabriele Tomassek de Stradova and her goddaughter, the young violinist Gabriele Hoffmann von Wendheim, set off on a concert tour of Europe. The letters from this trip describe concerts in Prague, Dresden, Hanover, London and Paris, as well as the cities they visited, their inhabitants and culture. The lecture presents the latest insights from the Prague archives on this caring relationship between godmother and goddaughter. It will also discuss both the difficult conditions for developing from a talented violin student into a professional musician and the unusual ways in which the concert tour letters have been preserved.

Sigrid Nieberle studied Modern German Literature, Theatre Studies and Musicology in Munich and Vienna. She holds a professorship for of Modern and Contemporary German Literature and acts as Executive Director of the Institute for Diversity Studies at TU Dortmund University. Visiting professorships took her to Oxford (2008), Lawrence, Kansas (2013) and Chicago (2019). Her research focuses on gender and diversity studies and the intermediality of literature, especially in film and music.