HEDWIGE CHRÉTIEN (1859-1944)
Melodies
Piano Trio in C minor
for violin, cello & piano

CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
Beau soir
for voice & piano

MEL BONIS (1858-1937)
Elève-toi mon âme
for voice, cello & piano
Soir op. 76
for violin, cello & piano

A granddaughter of violinist Jules Ternizien, Hedwige Chrétien was born in Compiègne in 1859. For nearly fifteen years, she studied piano, organ, harmony, counterpoint and fugue at the Paris Conservatoire. Described as a “perfect musician” by its director, Théodore Dubois, she was a brilliant student, winning numerous prizes, including first prize for fugue and counterpoint in 1887. That same year, she married flutist Paolo Gennaro. The couple had two children, Marcel and Cécile, before divorcing in 1894. After a few years spent teaching music theory at the Conservatoire, where she earned a reputation as a demanding and severe teacher, she decided to devote herself entirely to composition. She tried her hand at all styles: symphonic music, melodies, operetta, piano pieces and chamber music. Some of her melodies were met with great success and even recorded with orchestra. A passionate musician, when she entered a retirement home in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1940, she brought her own piano with her. She died there four years later in 1944, leaving behind a catalog of over 200 works.

ÉLISABETH JACQUET DE LA GUERRE
(1665-1729)
Céphale et Procris (excerpts)
Trio sonata n°1 in G minor
for two violins & continuo
Cantates françaises sur des sujets tirés de l’écriture, Livre 2 : Le Temple rebâti

ANTONIA BEMBO (vers 1643-1715)
Produzione Armoniche (excerpts)

The daughter of an organist, Elisabeth Jacquet was born in Paris in 1765, into a family of musicians. At the age of five, she was introduced to Louis XIV, who, impressed by her talent at the keyboard, welcomed her to his court and offered her an invaluable support. As a harpsichordist, she gave concerts and lessons in Paris, gaining a solid reputation. She began composing dramatic works at an early age, but was first published in 1687 (Premier livre de pièces pour clavecin). She went on to publish other Pièces de clavecin, Sonates pour le violon et pour le clavecin, Sonates en trio, several Cantates – all borrowing from the Italian style, but always dedicated to Louis XIV – and, of course, her lyric tragedy Céphale et Procris. A renowned musician, her success was such that in 1691 the Mercure Galant published an imaginary letter from Lully – long dead by then – describing her as “the world’s leading musician”. Her last work is said to be a Te Deum, performed at court in 1721, but unfortunately it seems to be lost…

ÉDITH CANAT DE CHIZY (1950-)
Sailing
for piano
En bleu et or
for viola & piano
Prélude au silence
for piano
Cinq Miniatures
for violin & piano
Formes du vent
for solo cello
Tiempo
for string trio

MAURICE OHANA (1913-1992)
Étude n°5
for piano

GEORGES ENESCO (1881-1955)
Konzertstück
for viola & piano

Academician Edith Canat de Chizy has established herself as one of the leading figures on the French music scene, tackling every genre from chamber music to major symphonic works. With a catalog of more than 120 works, her mastery of writing and orchestration places her in the great tradition of French music. Trained at the CNSMDP, GRM and IRCAM, her experience with electronics has had a major impact on her writing. Her work has been crowned with numerous distinctions, including the SACEM Grand Prix in 2004 and in 2016 the Grand Prix du Président de la République de l’Académie Charles Cros for her entire work. She taught composition at the Paris CRR until 2017. She is a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, Officier de l’Ordre du Mérite and Commandeur des Arts et Lettres. Along with Debussy and Ohana, who was her teacher, this portrait concert reveals the sources of Edith Canat de Chizy’s singular universe. Her works for strings are numerous, and this program bears witness to their diversity.

CLÉMENCE DE GRANDVAL (1828-1907)
Sonata op. 8
for violin & piano
Deux pièces
for violin & piano
Melodies

CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921)
Violons dans le soir
melody with violin & piano

FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN (1810-1849)
Nocturnes op. 9 n° 1 & 2

Born into an aristocratic family in 1828, Clémence de Reiset grew up in her mother’s salon, which welcomed the greatest artists of her time. She enjoyed a privileged education, learning piano with Chopin, singing with Laure Cinti-Damoreau and composition with Friedrich von Flotow. Writing her first pieces at the age of ten, she was soon recognized by her peers. After her marriage to the Viscount de Grandval, she continued her composition studies with Camille Saint-Saëns, and dedicated her entire life to music. From chamber music to sacred music and opera, her works were often performed at the Société Nationale de Musique. Some of her works, such as her opera Piccolino, were immensely successful, and her music was even awarded the Prix Rossini and the Prix Chartier. Saint-Saëns would say of her works that they would have been on every music stand had Clémence de Grandval “not had the irredeemable fault of being a woman”. Indeed, she was to suffer throughout her life from the way her music was regarded, as a woman on the one hand, and a viscountess on the other, a rank which immediately placed her, in the eyes of many, among the dilettantes.

NADIA BOULANGER (1887-1979)
Melodies
Trois pièces
for cello & piano

GABRIEL FAURÉ (1845-1924)
Élégie
for cello & piano
Melodies

LILI BOULANGER (1893-1918)
D’un soir triste
in Nadia Boulanger’s transcription for cello & piano
Melodies

YVES BALMER (1978-)
Soleils couchants
Melody – world premiere

Nadia Boulanger was born in Paris in 1887 into a family of musicians: her father was a composer and her mother a singer, and their salon welcomed famous artists such as Gabriel Fauré. She soon showed a talent for composition, graduating from the Paris Conservatoire with first prizes in organ, accompaniment and composition. She even apllied for the Grand Prix de Rome and won a Second Prix. She composed numerous melodies – notably her great cycle Les Heures claires, in collaboration with Raoul Pugno – chamber music and even a few symphonic and concertante works. But she stopped composing shortly after the tragic death of her sister Lili, at the age of twenty-four. From the 1920s onwards, she devoted herself to conducting, becoming the first woman to lead the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and defending her own music and that of her sister on the podium. An immense teacher, she trained many of the great composers of the 20th century, from Aaron Copland to Quincy Jones, in her apartment on rue Ballu and at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau.

CONCERT-LECTURE
GERMAINE TAILLEFERRE (1892-1983)
Quatuor à cordes

Germaine Tailleferre entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of twelve, despite her father’s disapproval, who felt that “going to the Conservatoire or standing on the sidewalk on boulevard Saint-Michel is the same thing”. She studied composition with Charles-Marie Widor and received advice from Maurice Ravel. She was the only woman in the Groupe des Six, which brought together young composers such as Poulenc, Milhaud and Honegger around the tutelary figure of Erik Satie, and took part in the group’s collective work, Les Mariés de la tour Eiffel, in 1920. Suffering from financial difficulties all her life, she travelled for a time to the United States in the hope of improving her situation, and had the opportunity to meet Charlie Chaplin, with whom she felt an immediate complicity. On her return to France, she continued to compose, including film music, but also gave lessons to survive. Her three successive marriages, all unhappy, even violent, did not prevent her from composing more than 170 varied works, from chamber music to concertante pieces.

Liza Lehmann, Rebecca Clarke, Ethel Barns and Ethel Smyth will be reunited by mezzo-soprano Lucile Richardot and pianist Anne de Fornel with their contemporaries, the English women composers of the turn of the 20th century. All members of the Society of Women Musicians, a self-help organization dedicated to combating the lack of opportunities granted to women at the turn of the century, these four musicians and composers led brilliant careers, both as composers and as concert performers. Ethel Barns, violinist, performed at the Crystal Palace and her works were played by the greatest violinists of her time. Liza Lehmann enjoyed great success as a singer, and her cycle In a Persian Garden was described by the Sunday Times as a “revelation”. Rebecca Clarke is a renowned orchestral violist and founder of her own all-female ensemble; she has also won several composition competitions and scholarships. As for Ethel Smyth, she decided early on to devote herself entirely to composition, and became the first woman to have an opera performed at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House… If this period was the golden age of “art songs”, the English equivalent of melodies – a genre particularly exploited by Liza Lehmann, who wrote over three hundred of them – it was also that of the exploration of folk sources, of which Rebecca Clarke was fond, and to whom we owe in particular astonishing melodies for violin and voice, for which Lucile Richardot will be joined by Sarah Nemtanu.

Born in 1871, Jane Vieu studied singing with Carvalho and composition with Jules Massenet. Her catalog of some one hundred and fifty works is particularly well known for her operettas, performed in major Parisian theaters as well as in London and Brussels. First performed in 1902 at the Théâtre des Mathurins, Jane Vieu’s La Belle au bois dormant is a “sung fairy tale” composed to a libretto by Lucien Métivet. The libretto places the action in the 20th century: a prince on a bicycle awakens a sleeping Belle, who is horrified to discover that carriages have given way to automobiles, and that battleships now sail instead of sailing boats. Disgusted by the discovery of this new world, she prefers to return to her magical forest and go back to sleep… Performed many times at the Théâtre des Mathurins, Lucien Métivet and Jane Vieu’s Aladin, conceived in 15 shadow puppet tableaux, is closer to the original tale. Both tales were printed in two magnificent books/partitions illustrated by Lucien Métivet and published by Flammarion. Their illustrations inspired the artist Nadja, whose drawings will be projected live during the concert.