at Turin. She was not yet seven years old when she made her first public appearance at Turin and other towns of Piedmont. But the pecuniary results of these concerts being quite insufficient to extract the family from the state of absolute poverty they were living in, the father was advised to emigrate to France. Accordingly he set out with his wife and two children, Teresa, then seven years old, and Maria, an infant in arms, and after having crossed the Alps on foot, the little caravan made its first halt at Marseilles. Here Teresa played three or four times with much success, and then went to Paris, furnished with an introduction to Lafont, who took much interest in her talent and instructed her for some time. After having appeared with much success at Paris, she travelled for some time with Lafont in Belgium and Holland. She next came to England, appeared in London and the provinces and on a tour through Wales, played within less than a month in forty concerts with Bochsa, the harpist, who however, according to Fétis, absconded with the whole of the proceeds. Meanwhile Teresa had begun for some time to instruct her younger sister Maria, who shewed a talent hardly inferior to her own, and who began to play in public at the age of six. Henceforth the two sisters invariably appeared together, and on their journeys through France, Germany, and Italy were received everywhere with the greatest enthusiasm. Their performances shewed all the best peculiarities of the Franco-Belgian school of violin-playing—great neatness of execution of the left hand, facility of bowing, gracefulness and piquancy of style. Teresa's playing appears to have been distinguished by much warmth of feeling, while Maria, the younger, had remarkable vigour and boldness of execution. These qualities, combined with the charm of their personal appearance, never failed to enlist the sympathies of the public. At Vienna especially, where the sisters gave within a few months not less than 25 concerts, their success was almost unprecedented. They visited England once more in 1845, and played at the Philharmonic on June 9. Their reception in England appears hardly to have been in accordance with their enormous continental reputation, and the critics of the day severely condemn the exaggerated style and incomplete technique of the sisters—with what right it is difficult to say. In 1848 [App. p.719 "Oct. 21"] Maria, the younger, died suddenly of rapid consumption at Paris, and was buried at Père la Chaise. Teresa after some time resumed her life of travel, but since her marriage with M. Parmentier, an eminent French military engineer, has retired into private life.
MILDER-HAUPTMANN, Pauline Anna, a celebrated German singer and tragic actress, the daughter of Milder, a courier in the Austrian service, was born at Constantinople in 1785. She lived afterwards at Vienna, where, having lost her father, she was compelled to enter the service of a lady of rank as lady's-maid. Her fine voice and handsome person attracted the notice of Schikaneder, the well-known Viennese manager, who urged her to enter the profession, offering to be responsible for her musical education and to superintend her début on the stage. The offer was accepted, and she became the pupil of an Italian singing-master named Tomascelli, and subsequently of Salieri. She made her first public appearance on April 9, 1803, as Juno, in Süssmayer's opera 'Der Spiegel von Arkadien.' As an artist, she seems to have profited but little by instruction. With the kind of Oriental indolence that always distinguished her, she was content to rely for success on her splendid natural gifts, which were such as to procure for her, almost at once, an engagement at the Imperial Court theatre. That the part of 'Fidelio' should have been written for her is sufficient testimony to the capabilities of the organ which caused old Haydn to say to her 'Dear child, you have a voice like a house!'
Her fame spread rapidly, and in 1808 she made a brilliantly successful professional tour, obtaining, on her return to Vienna, a fresh engagement at Court as prima donna assoluta. In 1810 Anna Milder married a rich jeweller named Hauptmann. Her greatest series of triumphs was achieved at Berlin, where she appeared in Gluck's 'Iphigenia in Tauris,' in 1812. After singing with equal éclat in other great German towns, she contracted, in 1816, a permanent engagement with the royal theatre of Berlin, where for twelve years she reigned supreme. She played in all the principal rôles in the repertoire, but her great parts were those of the classical heroines of Gluck—Iphigenia, Alcestis, Armida—for which she was pre-eminently fitted, both by her imposing presence, and by her magnificent soprano voice, full, rich, and flawless, which both in amount and quality seems to have left nothing to desire. It was, however, unwieldy, and this natural inflexibility so little overcome by art as to be incapable of the simplest trill or other florid embellishment. At times, especially in her later years, she attempted some lighter parts, such as Mozart's Donna Elvira, and Susanna, but her lack of execution prevented her from succeeding in these as she did in Weigl's opera 'Die schweizer Familie' (made celebrated by her impersonation of Emmeline), or in the broad declamatory style of Gluck. Although 'Fidelio' became one of her principal rôles, her performance in this opera was never either vocally or dramatically irreproachable. Thayer (Life of Beethoven, ii. 290) relates a conversation with her, in 1836, when she told him what 'hard fights' she used to have with the master about some passages in the Adagio of the great scena in E major, described by her as 'ugly,' 'unvocal,' and 'inimical (widerstrebend) to her organ.' All was in vain, however, until in 1814 she declared herself resolved never again to appear in the part, if she had to sing this ungrateful air as it stood—a threat which proved effective.
Her manner in society is described as cold and apathetic, and her degree of musical culture so
