The Sophies of Hanover and Royal Prussian Music

The history of royal Prussian music was shaped not only by its kings, but also by its queens. Although there were famously patterns of crisis and prosperity in the kingdom's eighteenth-century history, strands of continuity provided by Prussia's early Hanoverian queens often go unobserved and therefore undescribed. The first Prussian queen, Sophie Charlotte of Hanover, set a precedent for sophisticated music cultivation, which is apparent in Corelli's dedication to her of the Op. 5 violin sonatas—a collection of chamber pieces. Her legacy—and that of her homeland, Hanover—lived on through the private efforts of her daughter-in-law and successor, Sophie Dorothea, whose own legacy is evident in the musical activities of her children.