We feature below a contemporary account of Maria Theresia Paradis written within months of her arrival in England in 1784.

An Account of Mademoiselle THERESA PARADIS, of Vienna, the celebrated blind Performer on the Piano Forte.

This young person, equally distinguished by her talents and misfortunes, is the daughter of M. Paradis, secretary to his Imperial Majesty, in the Bohemian department, and god-daughter to the late Empress Queen.

At the age of two years and eight months she was suddenly deprived of sight, by a paralytic stroke, or palsy in the optic nerves.

At seven years old she began to listen with great attention to the music she heard in the church, which suggested to her parents the idea of having her taught to play on the piano forte, and, soon after, to sing.  In three or four years time she was able to accompany herself on the organ in the Stabat mater of Pergolesi, of which she sung the first soprano, or upper part, in the church of St. Augustin at Vienna, in the presence of the late Empress Queen, who was so touched with her performance and misfortune, that she settled a pension on her for life.

After learning of several masters at Vienna, she pursued her musical studies under the care of Kozeluch, who has composed many admirable lessons and concertos on purpose for her use, which she plays with the utmost neatness and expression.

At the age of thirteen she was placed under the care of the celebrated empiric Dr. Mesmer, who undertook to cure every species of disease by animal magnetism.  He called her disorder a perfect gutta serena, and pretended, after she had been placed in his house as a boarder for several months, that she was perfectly cured, yet refusing to let her parents take her away, or even visit her, after some time, till, by the advice of the Barons Stoërk and Wenzel, Dr. Ingenhousz, Professor Barth, the celebrated anatomist, and by the express order of her late Imperial Majesty, she was taken out of his hands by force ; when it was found that she could see no more than when she was first admitted as Mesmer’s patient.  However, he had the diabolical malignity to assert that she could see very well, and only pretended blindness to preserve the pension granted to her by the Empress Queen ; and since the decease of this princess, the pension of Mad. Paradis has been withdrawn, indiscriminately with all other pensions granted by her Imperial Majesty.

Last year, Mad. Paradis quitted Vienna, in order to travel, accompanied by her mother, who treats her with extreme tenderness, and is a very amiable and interesting character.  After visiting the principal courts and cities of Germany, where her talents and misfortunes procured her great attention and patronage, she arrived at Paris early last summer, and remained there five or six months, and likewise received every possible mark of approbation and regard in that capital, both for her musical abilities and innocent and engaging disposition.

When she arrived in England, the beginning of this winter, she brought letters from persons of the first rank to her Majesty, the Prince of Wales, the Imperial Minister Count Kageneck, Lord Stormont, and other powerful patrons, as well as to the principal musical professors in London.  Messieurs Cramer, Abel, Salomon, and other eminent German musicians, have interested themselves very much in her welfare, not only as their countrywoman bereaved of sight, but as an admirable performer.

She went to Windsor, to present her letters to the Queen, and had the honour of playing there to their Majesties, who were extremely satisfied with her performance, and treated her with that condescension and kindness which all who are so happy as to be admitted into the presence of our gracious Sovereigns, in moments of domestic privacy, experience, even when less entitled to it by merit and misfortunes than Mad. Paradis.  Her Majesty was not only graciously pleased to promise to patronize and hear her frequently again, in the course of the winter, but to afford her all the protection in her power, as did his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, to whom she has since performed, at a grand concert at Carleton House, to the entire satisfaction and wonder of all who heard her.

Besides her musical talents, which are indisputable for neatness, precision, and expression, particularly in the great variety of admirable pieces she executes of her master Kozeluch, Mad. Paradis has been extremely well educated, and is very ingenious, as she is able, with printing types, to express her thoughts on paper, almost as quick as if she could write.  She understands geography, by means of maps prepared for her use, in which she can find or point out any province or remarkable city in the world ;  and is likewise able, by means of tables formed in the manner of draught-boards, to calculate, with ease and rapidity, any sums or numbers in the first five rules of arithmetic.  She is likewise said to distinguish many colours and coins, by the touch ; plays at cards, when prepared for her by private marks, unknown by the company ; and in her musical studies her memory and quickness are wonderful, as she learns in general the most difficult pieces for keyed instruments, however full and complicated the parts, by hearing them played only on a violin: and since her arrival in this kingdom she has been enabled, in this manner, to learn to perform some of Handel’s most elaborate and difficult organ fugues and movements in his first book of Lessons, as well as his Coronation Anthem, and more popular compositions.

Since her arrival in England she has received a cantata, written for her, in the German language, by the celebrated professor of mathematics, M. Pfeffel, of Colmar, who is himself blind.  This cantata has been admirably set to music for her own voice and accompaniment on the piano forte, and she executes it in a truly pathetic and able manner.  Her voice is not so powerful as her hand, but it is touching in itself, and her knowledge of music and its circumstances render it doubly interesting.

The Gentleman’s Magazine, March 1785.