ABSTRACT
The names of these three women surface in some music-historical writings: Wilhelmine Tomaschek, Juliane Glaser, and Elisabeth Hansgirg. They are sisters; more precisely they are daughters of the Landesadvokat, Bohemian Fürstenberg resident and Hofrat Michael Ebert (1768–1829). Their brother, Carl Egon Ebert (1801–1882) was a well-known poet. The most well known of these sisters was Juliane (1806–1890, also Julia), who, in 1836, married Rudolf Glaser (1801–1868). Rudolf Glaser founded and edited the journal Ost und West, and was a librarian at the University Library in Prague. Julia Glaser was an excellent singer. Not only did she perform at the domestic concerts organised by her brother-in-law, Wenzel Johann Tomaschek (1774–1850), but she also gave public concerts at the Sophienakademie in Prague. She published some of her own poems and also translated Czech poetry into German. Julia’s sister Wilhelmine Ebert (1797–1836) married Tomaschek in 1824. She, too, was an outstanding singer and was well known as good concert host in their home. Very little is known about the third of the three sisters, Elisabeth Ebert (1800–1879). She married the Kreiskomissar Joseph Hansgirg in 1821. Wenzel Johann Tomaschek dedicated a composition to her, Das Gebet des Herrn in Liedern Op. 76. When, during the 1830s and 40s, her husband worked as a Hauptmann in Jičín (in Eastern Bohemia), the Hansgirgs welcomed to their home a group of distinguished guests on a weekly basis. Overall, it seems that Wilhelmine Tomaschek and Elisabeth Hansgirg were by and large housewives and it is unclear whether they also had higher intellectual and artistic ambitions. Nevertheless, these three sisters had an impact on both their husbands and their wider socio-cultural circles (as performers, hosts of musical events, or as inspiration). Using the Ebert sisters as an example, and based on a wide range of primary sources, this chapter foregrounds female protagonists of the first half of the nineteenth century whose creative and/or administrative contributions to musical life have been overshadowed by those of their well-known male family members. The chapter argues that this gendered division was not always as clear-cut in its own time, especially with a view to private and non-institutionalised networks and musical practices. In so doing, it also demonstrates how, in terms of historical records, researching women’s cultural contributions in the private sphere may reveal methodological boundaries and factual uncertainties.
