Maria Theresia von Paradis Sicilienne
You may have heard it at 2018’s Royal Wedding, played on a cello; here Bridget Mermikides interprets this beautiful piece for solo nylon-string guitar.
Maria Theresia von Paradis (17591824) was an extraordinary musician growing up at an equally extraordinary time in cultural history. Despite receiving care from the legendary physician Franz Mesmer (from whom the word ‘mesmerise’ was coined), Paradis succumbed to blindness from a very young age, but continued her education in music theory, composition, singing and piano from tutors such as Antonio Salieri (a pivotal musical figure and peer of Mozart, rather unfairly depicted for dramatic effect in the movie Amadeus).
Paradis quickly demonstrated pianistic and singing mastery, as well as uncanny listening and memory skills, memorising dozens and dozens solo piano and concerto works, and performing them internationally to much critical acclaim. She commissioned new works from Salieri, Mozart and Haydn, and herself composed five operas, three cantatas as well as several instrumental works of exceptional skill, and it seems sadly many more lost. She was also a dedicated teacher, and helped establish the first school for the blind in 1785 – which Louis Braille attended some years later.
The most famous work attributed to her is the enchanting Sicilienne in E-flat major – which you may recognise as played by Sheku Kanneh-Mason at the 2018 Royal Wedding ceremony. In fact whether she or perhaps Carl Maria von Weber or Samuel Dushkin composed the work is contested. I’ve kept the conventional attribution to Paradis here, and whether hers or not this does not detract from Paradis’ exceptional talent.
The Sicilienne is a simple but beautiful work in AABB form (bars 1-10, 11-20, 21-33, 34-46 respectively) with a short recapitulation at the end (bars 47-52). I’ve transposed the original key down a semitone to D major using drop D tuning (you can play this arrangement with a capo on the first fret if you want to match the original key).
I’m very pleased with how the melody and harmony sit on the guitar, and for a solo classical arrangement of an established work this is relatively straightforward. Still there are some technical challenges in maintaining tempo and fluency addressed in the tab captions, and there is no end to the expression that you can bring to this wonderful work.
a dedicated teacher she helped est ablish the first school for the blind, which braille later att ended