La regina dell'arco. La vita, il genio e la libertà di Maddalena Lombardini Syrmen, virtuosa d'Europa

On Sunday, March 8, 2026, from 5:30 PM, the Museo della Musica in Bologna hosts the concert La regina dell'arco. La vita, il genio e la libertà di Maddalena Lombardini Syrmen, virtuosa d'Europa (The Queen of the Bow. The Life, Genius and Freedom of Maddalena Lombardini Syrmen, Virtuosa of Europe).

For “INSOLITA – the music you don’t expect”, a concert by Delirium Amoris: Karla Bocaz Muñoz and Stefano Gérard, violins; Federico Immesi, cello; Anna Corsini, harpsichord.

Acclaimed as a violin virtuosa and beyond, praised by Leopold Mozart and Charles Burney, Maddalena Laura Lombardini Syrmen played a key role in projecting Tartini’s musical language toward the emerging Classical style, soon to spread throughout Europe.

This concert pays tribute to a great performer and composer who is still not sufficiently recognized.
After her Tartinian training—achieved not without difficulty—and her marriage to Ludovico Syrmen, Maddalena arrived in London in 1770. Shortly thereafter, in 1773, her first printed publication appeared: the “String Trios, Op. 1”.

Together with her husband, she conquered Venice, London, Paris, Dresden, and Saint Petersburg. Works such as her “Trios, Op. 1”—whose manuscripts are preserved by the museum—reveal a remarkable expressive freedom, with the cello finally emancipated from the basso continuo, engaging in dialogue with the innovations of Luigi Boccherini, and achieving immediate success across Europe.
In London at that time, musical life was among the most vibrant in Europe, and sooner or later almost everyone passed through the home of Carl Friedrich Abel, who together with Johann Christian Bach—eleventh son of Johann Sebastian—founded the celebrated Bach-Abel concerts, the first to adopt a subscription format. Maddalena had the opportunity to meet both composers and to take part in some of these evenings as both violinist and keyboardist. After years of travel and great success throughout Europe, her artistic career concluded in 1785 with a violin performance at the Concert Spirituel in Paris, before her definitive return to Venice. In the Serenissima that same year, following the death of Baldassare Galuppi, Ferdinando Bertoni—one of Maddalena’s early teachers—became Maestro di Cappella at St Mark’s, symbolically marking her return to her roots. Thus ended the extraordinary career of a woman who won public acclaim, amassed considerable wealth and fame (even overshadowing her husband), and eventually returned, later in life, to her beloved Venice.

The concert is preceded by a “¼ hour academic prelude”: museum experts will present the unique items connected to the concert program.