Women Composers

Several years back I discovered a recording of a beautiful concerto written by the French pianist and  composer, Marie Jäell. I immediately fell in love with it’s infectious melodies and knew I wanted to be  able to play the piece. I discovered it was unpublished but the manuscripts were housed in the  Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire de Strasbourg. A friend helped me obtain them so that I could  prepare a score for cello and piano.   The Jäell concerto is the first known cello concerto written by a woman. Marie Jäell wrote the  concerto in 1882 and dedicated the concerto to the cellist Jules Desart who performed the premier.  One may assume that he helped her understand cello technique as the work is in a very comfortable  key for cello [...]