Ceremonial act by Mayer, Emilie, Farrenc, L., Holmès, Augusta, Smyth, Ó (2023/2023), Seoltóir Glass Marcano, Brucknerhaus, Linz, Austria

All fathers and mothers should think twice or three times before they take the highly responsible decision to educate their daughters as artists or even as music teachers. The question on the answer to which everything depends here, that of talent, is usually not even considered. Cooks, seamstresses, saleswomen are incomparably more useful and happier members of human society than those pitiable creatures [...]." The influential music critic Otto Gumprecht, who published these lines in the Berlin National-Zeitung in 1882, was certainly not the only one to hold this view at the end of the 19th century. In spite of this, more than a few female composers defied the reactionary patriarchy and, as the musical program of the ceremony shows, even ventured into the hard-fought terrain of representative orchestral music. Together with the up-and-coming Venezuelan conductor Glass Marcano, the Upper Austrian Youth Symphony Orchestra performs masterful music with works by Emilie Mayer, Louise Farrenc, Augusta Holmès and Ethel Smyth, revealing that many a critic should perhaps have tried his luck as a cook, seamstress or salesman