Four Centuries of Great Music November 30, 2024 Women Composers from Paris

FCGM- 11-24-24 Women Composers of Paris

Today on Four Four Centuries of Great Music we are exploring the music of women composers from Paris.  This episode was in part inspired by a Savannah Voice Festival concert “A Trip to Paris” that is coming up next month on December 5th.

Lets begin this exploration of the music of women from Paris with Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre
Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre was born into a family of master instrument builders and musicians in 1665.  A prodigy, she played the harpsichord and sang at the court of Louis XIV at the age of five. She became one of the court musicians.

She married the organist Marin de La Guerre in 1684 and left the gilded world of Versailles for Paris. She gave lessons and concerts for which she was soon renowned throughout the city.  One description of her as a performer “marvellous facility for playing preludes and fantasies off the cuff. Sometimes she improvises one or another for a whole half hour with tunes and harmonies of great variety and in quite the best possible taste, quite charming her listeners.”

As a composer,  Élisabeth published her “First book of harpsichord pieces” at the age of twenty-two and she soon became a leading composer in France.  

Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre was the first woman in France to compose an opera., but her tragédie lyrique Céphale et Procris, staged at the Académie Royale de Musique was met with disapproval. She abandoned any other dramatic projects and focused on composing sonatas, a new and highly popular emerging genre at the time.

Her sonatas “are conspicuous for their variety, rhythmic vigour and expressive harmony, as well as for certain innovative features in the violin writing.” Inspired by Corelli, her sonatas alternate between Italian and French idioms. “The former is present in the expressive opening movements, the incisive rhythms and the fugal sections of the fast movements. The composer remains true to the French aesthetic in the dances featured in some of the sonatas, the use of the viol as a solo instrument, and the melodic vein of the arias.”

However she is also know for her vocal music.  Among her vocal music is her cantata “Judith”.  This work is in 10 movements:

Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre:  Judith – Simphonie
Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre:  Judith – Recitative
Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre:  Judith – Air
Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre:  Judith – Recitative
Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre:  Judith – Sommeil
Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre:  Judith – Recitative
Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre:  Judith – Accompagnement
Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre:  Judith – Air
Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre:  Judith – Recitative
Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre:  Judith – Accompagnement

Here is a performance of Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre cantata  Judith by Cecelia’s Circle from the album Thy Hand Has Done All This    Centaur Records

Next on this episode of Four Four Centuries of Great Music on which we are exploring the music of women composers from Paris is Louise Farrenc

Farrenc was a piano prodigy who showed early talent and studied piano with several prominent pianists including Johann Hummel.  She developed a successful career as a concert pianist .  However she also received early composition lessons with Anton Reicha, a close friend of Beethoven’s, which opened other doors. In particular, he taught her to write for wind instruments, which were often seen as masculine at the time.  In addition to her extensive concertizing and composing, she became the first female professor at the Paris Conservatory and became known for her excellence as a teacher.   

Most known for her piano and chamber music she also wrote 3 symphonies   Best known is her third symphony in G Minor, Op. 36.

It is in 4 movements: I. Adagio – Allegro; II. Adagio cantabile; III. Scherzo. Vivace; IV. Finale. Allegro

The intensity of the symphony is palpable from the start. After an oboe ushers in a slow introduction, tinged with dark melancholy, the ensemble delves into a swirling triple meter for a robust statement of the main theme in unison strings. The movement develops energetically, picking up the pace even more with a final burst of energy in the coda.

In contrast, the second movement Adagio opens with a smooth, lyrical clarinet melody, supported by horns, bassoon, and timpani. This movement provides a simple and elegant interlude, building gradually but overall remaining serene and unruffled.

The third movement Scherzo begins with quiet tiptoeing in the strings but has a forward momentum and excitement constantly bubbling below the surface, paused only during the central woodwind trio.

The decisive unison strings that open the final movement signal a return to a darker, bold energy. The ensemble pursues the twists and turns of thematic development with a vigor worthy of this Romantic-inflected symphony, ending with three triumphant final chords.

Louise Farrenc: Symphony No. 3 in G Minor, Op. 36: I. Adagio – Allegro
Louise Farrenc: Symphony No. 3 in G Minor, Op. 36: II. Adagio cantabile
Louise Farrenc: Symphony No. 3 in G Minor, Op. 36: III. Scherzo. Vivace
Louise Farrenc: Symphony No. 3 in G Minor, Op. 36: IV. Finale. Allegro

Orchestre national de Metz Grand Est conducted by David Reiland
Compositrices: New Light on French Romantic Women Composers
Palazzetto Bru Zane

I would like to open this second hour of this episode of Four Four Centuries of Great Music we are exploring the music of women composers from Paris with some vocal music by Pauline Viardot.

Pauline Viardot was born in Paris in 1821 to parents who were both Spanish opera singers.  She showed early talent on piano and singing.  As a youngster she travelled the world with her parents and older sister who was also an operatic diva.  By the age of six she was fluent in Spanish, French, English, and Italian. And it was said that later in her career she sang Russian arias so well, she was mistaken as a native Russian speaker.

Although she showed great talent as a pianist and wanted to become a concert pianist, her mother forced her to give up the piano and concentrate on voice.  However, she remained an outstanding pianist all her life, and often played duets with her friend Frédéric Chopin, who approved of her arranging some of his mazurkas as songs, and even assisted her in this. She had developed skills in composing from Anton Reicha, the close friend of Beethoven who was also Louise Farrenc’s principal composition teacher.

However her life was one of a very successful opera singer.  In 1837, the 16-year-old Pauline gave her first concert performance in Brussels. She made her opera debut as Desdemona in Rossini’s Otello two years later in London.  From there her career continued to grow.  She was close friends with Frédéric Chopin, Hector Berlioz, Camille Saint-Saëns (who dedicated Samson and Delilah to her) and Giacomo Meyerbeer.  She sang in the performance of Mozart’s Requiem at the funeral of Frédéric Chopin.

Until her retirement from touring, she had not devote much time to composition, but after retirement from the stage she began teaching at the Paris Conservatory and presided over a music salon in the Boulevard Saint-Germain.  She started writing pieces for her students to sing, but also composed other chamber music.  I want to close this first hour with some of her songs.

Pauline Viardot: Serenata fiorentina, Canti popolari toscani
Pauline Viardot: E che t’ho fatto, Canti popolari toscani    eh kay toh fah toh
Pauline Viardot: Non vi maravigliate, Canti popolari toscani    nohn-vee mara-vee-ah-tah
Pauline Viardot: Dimmelo, caro ben, Canti popolari toscani        deemolo
Pauline Viardot: Non mi chiamate più, Canti popolari toscani            pew

Pauline Viardot: Son disperato, Italian arias of the 18th century
Pauline Viardot: Fingo per mio diletto, Italian arias of the 18th century

Pauline Viardot: Aimez-moi, Songs of the 15th century
Pauline Viardot: Canción de la infanta, Songs of the 15th century

Anna Chierichetti, Stefano Giannini, Riccardo Botta
Pauline Viardot – C’era una volta (Canzoni popolari toscane e altre composizioni)
Dase Sound Lab

I am going to close this episode of Four Centuries of Great Music with the music of Melaine Helene Bonis, better known as Mel Bonis.  Bonis was born in 1858 to a Parisian lower-middle-class family and was educated according to the strict norms of Catholic morality. Endowed with great talent and musical sensitivity, she taught herself to play the piano. Initially, her parents did not encourage her music, but when she was twelve they were persuaded by a professor at the Paris Conservatoire to allow her to receive formal music lessons.   In 1874, at the age of sixteen, she began her studies at the Paris Conservatoire, and attended classes in accompaniment, harmony, and composition, where she was classmates with Claude Debussy and Gabriel Pierné.  One of her teachers, César Franck was so impressed by her work, he paid for her tuition.

When she demonstrated romantic interest in a classmate, her parents withdrew her from the Conservatoire and married her off in 1883 to a much older man who did not like music.  She was reintroduced to several French music publishers in the 1890s who like her music which reinvigorated her career as a composer.    She was a very prolific composer with over 300 compositions.  But in the 1920s her music fell into obscurity.  Let’s listen to three of her orchestral compositions grouped together under the title of  Three Women of Legend:  Salome, from her Op. 100; Ophelia, from her Op. 165; and The Dream of Cleopatra, from her Op. 180.

Here is a performance by Orchestre national de Metz Grand Est conducted by David Reiland from the album  Poetesses Symphoniques        La Prima Volta

Let’s close with Mel Bonis’ Piece for Flute and Piano Op. 189 as performed by Tatjana Ruhland, flute & Florian Wiek, piano from the album Mel Bonis: La Joueuse de Flute