The Palazzetto Bru Zane publishes an eight-CD set entitled Composers. The explicit English subtitle speaks of a “new light” shone on female romantic composers. This is all the more true as the publication allows us to get to know unknown female composers.
With this publication, the Palazzetto Bru Zane espouses the trend of the hour, that of equity and diversity, but no one can claim that the Center for French Romantic Music is acting out of opportunism. Things are done his way, that is to say with depth and a sum of revelations.
Anteriority
Before apprehending the box Composers, it is important to take a look back, before this recent movement which leads us to look especially for works by female composers. The first name of a female composer that any young French student hears about is that of Germaine Tailleferre, because the music teacher tells her about the “Group of six” and it is necessary to list the three names beyond Francis Poulenc, Arthur Honegger and Darius Milhaud. Few people have heard the music of Tailleferre, but each time it happens, we are enchanted, whether by the music for piano four hands or the Small suite for orchestrarecently performed by the Orchester Métropolitain.
From the same period, we know that Nadia Boulanger had a sister, Lili, who died at the age of 24, in 1918. An EMI disc directed by Igor Markevitch and including his psalm From the bottom of the abyss brought to light his genius. Recently, several records have been dedicated to him: Melodiesby Cyrille Dubois, published by the Palazzetto, and The clear hoursat Harmonia Mundi.
The work that has emerged over the past 20 years is that of Louise Farrenc, notably her symphonies. A complete by Laurence Equilbey has just been published by Warner. Her 3e Symphony is here conducted by David Reiland, carried by a less emaciated sound and an elegantly relaxed tone, close to very post-Mendelssohn Germanic models. THE 2e Trio with piano is one of the great chamber works of the set.
Among the “notorious” musicians not concerned by this set, we can cite the Baroque pioneer Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729) and contemporary women such as Betsy Jolas or Édith Canat de Chizy, the latter being too little known.
The desire to dig deeper, accentuated recently, is not new. Thus, to the names of Cécile Chaminade and Mel Bonis have been added in the last five years those of Marie Jaëll and Hélène de Montgeroult. All four are among the 21 female composers gathered here.
Confirmations
Hélène de Montgeroult (1764-1836), rediscovered and recorded before by Edna Stern, but who owes a lot to the latter, stands out because she belongs to the classical period, even if several of her works anticipate Schubert. There Piano Sonata Op. 5 noh 2used here, is more of Haydn.
Overall, the box covers the romantic period with new recordings reserved for the project, made between 2019 and 2022. If the Palazzetto had previously devoted a discographic monograph to Marie Jaëll, the portrait is enriched here with voice of springpleasant cycle for piano four hands, Ossianaan eloquent ten-minute dramatic orchestral scene for soprano (Anaïs Constans), and two melodies sung by Cyrille Dubois.
The great discovery of 2022, as we revealed to you last January, was Charlotte Sohy (1887-1955). Confirmation through three Faurean melodies from the cycle The meditationsa piano sonata of 1910 and, above all, a Symphony in C sharp minor of 1917 to be placed among the works marked by the trauma of the Great War. This quite remarkable opus is conducted by Debora Waldman, who is at the head of the Orchesternational de France. And to think that Charlotte Durey, wife of Marcel Labey, hid behind her grandfather’s surname, Charles Sohy, by signing her scores “Charles” or “Ch.”…
Forbidden lands
It is rare to see female composers tackling the symphonic genre. The Germanic sphere clearly shows us the social weight associated with it, when we follow the careers of Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn. Not only was it improper, in the nineteenthe century, for a woman to compose, but when she ventured to do so, she was asked to remain in a “domestic” setting, hence the predominance of melodies and chamber music, especially piano music and piano four hands.
The two “big names”, Mel Bonis (1858-1937) and Cecile Chaminade (1857-1944), very present (too much for the first) over the box, are represented mainly by such works.
Bonis however opens the box with Cleopatra’s dream, Ophelia And Salome, three short orchestral poems. And that’s only fair. So many regrets in the face of social pressure bullying the composers. Because Ophelia is the very successful orchestration of a piece for piano that we find in the box and it is the most beautiful imitation-Debussy a few years later Pelleas.
From Chaminade, Callirhoean 18-minute ballet suite composed in 1887, opens on 4e CD. “The thoughts have a feminine side to it, a delicious contrast to the writing, with a sure masculine hand” is the kind of misogynistic stupidity that one could read at the time. In clear terms, Callirhoe is well worth what Delibes, Chabrier (an echo in the finale) and Saint-Saëns composed. THE concertino for flute heard in Montreal in October is also present.
Very personal voice: that of Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979), with the very dramatic cantata Mermaid(1908) for soprano, mezzo, tenor and orchestra composed for the Prix de Rome 1908 (2e price) and describing the tragedy of a sailor torn from the love of his fiancée, precipitated to death by a mermaid. Nadia Boulanger also stands out in the production for cello and piano with three short masterful pieces.
Another composer represented by two orchestral works: Augusta Holmès (1847-1903). Andromeda And Ludus pro patria are part of a César Franck-Richard Wagner sphere. To frame the subject and the level, what we are talking about here is not “good in the circumstances”. Everything, for example Andromedais more significantly more eloquent than theheroic opening by Johanna Müller-Hermann played by Rafael Payare during the recent concert A hero’s life and which, precisely, one had the impression that it owed its presence only because it had been composed by a woman.
The unknowns
In eight CDs, ten hours of music, the Palazzetto also unveils the work of unknown composers: Hedwige Chrétien, Marie-Foscarine Damaschino, Jeanne Danglas (love awakenslike Parisian Johann Strauss), Clémence de Grandval, Madeleine Jaeger, Madeleine Lemariey, Rita Strohl…
In the world of instrumental music, harp specialist Henriette Renié surprises with a franckist and cyclical Sonata for cello and piano (1896). The piano celebrates salon music with the Six romantic pieces for 4 hands by Chaminade. Also stand out the much more tormented romanticism Eight melodic studies (1857) by Virginie Morel and the gently faurean, then playful, Sonatina for violin and piano by Pauline Viardot.
In the space of the melody defended perfectly, in particular by the tenor Cyrille Dubois (pronunciation, style), the revelations are linked in cascade from CD 1 with six irresistibly delicate Little poems on the edge some water by Hedwige Chrétien, followed by Jaëll, Sohy and the no less relevant Rita Strohl (whose superb setting of Bilitis is relayed elsewhere by a singular “Grande Fantaisie Quintette”). THE Melodies de Bonis sung by Yann Beuron give way to those of Augusta Holmès and Jeanne Danglas (CD 7), these prelude to twelve melodies by six unknown composers, in which Clémence de Grandval, Marie-Foscarine Damaschino and Madeleine Lemariey emerge.
The discs are arranged in such a way as to alternate musical genres, a bit like a field of flowers where the listener would be a bee foraging here and there, an orchestral work generally opening the program. If you have to find a “flaw”, CD 5 is relatively the least interesting, because it is redundant. Indeed, for Bonis, the piano works of CD 6 were more than enough and the melodist inspiration of Viardot is illustrated in a more original way in CD 8 by the Russian cycle of 1866.