Anna Magdalena Bach – Piccola cronaca di un grande sogno

Abstract

Known mainly through an apocryphal chronicle published in 1925, Anna Magdalena Wilcke-Bach (1701–1760) has only recently become the subject of scholarly research. A collection of documents relating to her biography appeared in 2004, accompanying an exhibition held in Leipzig on the 300th anniversary of her birth. It was not until 2024 that one of the great musicological reference works dedicated an entry to this woman, focusing as far as possible on her artistic activity.
Drawing on the findings of these and other studies, this contribution offers a brief historical introduction and the text of a theatrical monologue with an explicit educational purpose: a recited lesson entrusted to an actress-cellist who, acting as both narrator and character, as well as performer, places the figure of Anna Magdalena in relation to seven other women whose lives, like hers, were subject to deprivation and restriction, but who nevertheless managed to leave a tangible mark of their presence in the context in which they lived and worked.