MARCUS, BRENTGEN:
By: Isidore Singer, Max Cohen
First Jewish court singer in Germany; flourished toward the end of the seventeenth century. She lived with her father, Isaac Marcus, in the town of Wesel in Brandenburg, where, in 1690, Frederick of Brandenburg, afterward King Frederick I. of Prussia, heard her sing. Admiring her voice, and desiring to secure for her a musical education, he sent her and her father to Berlin. On July 16 of that year he wrote to the Prince of Anhalt and the council notifying them of his discovery and his wishes concerning Brentgen, and commended her to the attention of his wife, the princess Sophie Charlotte, who, however, was not at Berlin when the singer arrived. On July 25 the Prince of Anhalt wrote to the crown prince that he and others had heard and admired her unusually fine voice, and that provision would be made for her in accordance with his wishes.
- Isaak Münz, Eine Jüdische Hofsängerin vor 200 Jahren, in Der Israelit, xxv., No. 54, Supplement.
