Maria Theresa von Paradis

Maria Theresia Paradis (also von Paradies) (May 15, 1759 – February 1, 1824), was an Austrian musician and composer who lost her sight at an early age, and for whom Mozart may have written his Piano Concerto No. 18 in B flat major.

Maria Theresia Paradis was the daughter of Joseph Anton Paradis, Imperial Secretary of Commerce and Court Councilor to the Empress Maria Theresa, for whom she was named. The Empress, however, was not her godmother, as was often believed. Between the ages of 2 and 5 she lost her eyesight. Paradis was treated from late 1776 until the middle of 1777 by the famous Franz Anton Mesmer, who was able to improve her condition temporarily until she was removed from his care, amid concerns on the one hand of possible scandal, on the other hand at the potential loss of her disability pension. In either case, on this departure from Dr. Mesmer the blindness came back permanently.

She received a broad education in the musical arts from:

By 1775, Paradis was performing as a singer and pianist in various Viennese salons and concerts. She commissioned various works to perform, most notably:

On K.456, while this concerto is believed to be the one intended for Paradis, there are continuing questions concerning this. From Ruth Halliwell's The Mozart Family: Four Lives in a Social Context, we read:

It is not certain which concerto this was. Leopold [in a letter from Vienna] simply described it to Nannerl as a ‘glorious concerto’ and said it had been written for Maria Theresia von Paradis ‘for Paris.’ His description suggests that neither he nor Nannerl knew it already; if this is so, it must have been a later one than K.453, which seems to have been the newest they had in Salzburg at this date.

In any event, Paradis had an excellent memory and exceptionally accurate hearing, as she was widely reported to have learned over 60 concertos by heart, as well as a large repertoire of solo and religious works.

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