Laura Netzel

Laura Constance Netzel ( Pistolekors; pseudonym, N Lago; 1 March 1839 — 10 February 1927) was a Finnish-born Swedish composer, pianist, conductor and concert organizer who sometimes used the pseudonym N. Lago. She was born in Rantasalmi, Finland, and was proud of her Finnish heritage throughout her life, even though she was just one year old when she moved permanently to Stockholm. Netzel studied piano with Mauritz Gisiko and Anton Door, voice with Julius Günther and composition with Wilhelm Heinze in Stockholm and Charles-Marie Widor in France.

Netzel was active in social causes, including support for poor women, children and workers. In 1866 she married professor Wilhelm Netzel of the Karolinska Institute. She died in Stockholm.

Life Laura Pistolekors was born in 1839. In her childhood home, as was customary at the time, frequent music salons were organized; at one of these events the organist Elfrida Andrée premiered her first “Tritet for piano” (1860). Laura performed the piano part with two musicians from the court orchestra on violin and cello.

Netzel's opportunities to perform in public diminished after her marriage, and it was then that she turned her creativity to composition. Her debut as a composer is thought to have been when The New Harmony Company of Stockholm performed some of her works for female voices in concert (1874). Her works were first performed under the pseudonym “N Lago”; An intense, high-Romantic, Lisztian work with a currency of grand rhetorical gestures and occasional moments of searching lyricism, it was reconstructed by the pianist Peter Friis Johansson who has since recorded it on the BIS label.