Born: 5 July 1847, Germany
Died: 14 November 1925
Country most active: Germany, United Kingdom
Also known as: NA
The following is excerpted from A Dictionary of Music and Musicians, published in 1900 and edited by George Grove.
ZIMMERMANN, Agnes, pianist and composer, though born at Cologne, July 5, 1847, came to England very early, and at 9 became a student at the Royal Academy of Music, under Cipriani Potter and Steggall. Later she learnt from Pauer and Sir George Macfarren. Though occasionally playing outside the Academy, Miss Zimmermann did not relax her studies, and her works were often heard at the Royal Academy Students’ concerts. In 1860 and 62 she obtained the King’s Scholarship, and on Dec. 5, 1863, made her first public appearance at the Crystal Palace in two movements of Beethoven’s Eā Concerto. In 1864 she followed this up by playing at the Gewandhaus, Leipzig, and elsewhere in Germany. Though occasionally travelling abroad (as in 1879ā80 and 1882ā3), and always with success, she has made England her home, where her name is now a household word, and where its appearance in a concert-bill always betokens great execution and still greater taste and musicianship.
In playing she has always devoted herself to the classical school, once or twice in a very interesting manner. Thus it was she who performed (for the first and only time in England) Beethoven’s transcription of his Violin Concerto for the Pianoforte at the Crystal Palace, Dec. 7, 1872. Her compositions are also chiefly in the classical form and style, and include three sonatas for piano and violin (ops. 16, 21, and 23), a sonata for piano, violin, and cello (op. 19), a sonata for piano solo (op. 22), a mazurka (op. 11), and Presto alla Tarantella (op. 15), also several songs, duets, and 4-part songs, and various arrangements of instrumental works, etc.
She has also edited the sonatas of Mozart and Beethoven for Messrs. Novello, and has an edition of Schumann’s works in the press for the same firm.
IW note: Zimmermann moved in with feminist Lady Louisa Goldsmid after the 1878 death of Goldsmid’s husband, and was said to have given eighteen years of “devoted attention” to Goldsmid. Combined with the fact that Zimmermann never married, this has lead to speculation that she may have been a lesbian or otherwise non-heterosexual.