Marie Vespermann was a quintuple threat: a pianist, singer, composer, poet, and dramatist, who showed prodigious musical gifts as a child. Born into an artistic Munich family—her father was an actor and her mother was a famous singer—she published songs throughout her life. Her earliest songs appeared under her maiden name Vespermann, and later songs were published under the names Maria Görres or Maria Arndts. (She married the Catholic historian Guido Görres in 1844 and set some of his poems to music; he died in 1852, and she remarried in 1860.) Aside from the two songs featured on this site, none of her songs have been professionally recorded, and none have received scholarly attention.

Additional Resources

Very little has been written about Marie Vespermann, aside from one Wikipedia entry (under her maiden name), another entry (under the name Maria Arndts), and a short entry (under the name Marie Görres) in the International Encyclopedia of Women Composers: Classical and Serious Music, ed. Aaron I. Cohen (Bowker, 1981).