Season 26

Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944)
Piano Trio No. 1, Op. 11 in G Minor (1881) 
— Yanagitani, Sant’Ambrogio, Rapier
 
Cécile Chaminade was one of the most successful female composers of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, ultimately becoming the first female composer to be awarded France’s prestigious Légion d’Honneur in 1913. She began her piano study with her mother and displayed great talent. Though she wanted to attend the Paris Conservatoire, her father felt that such an environment was not appropriate for a young woman of Cécile’s breeding; however, he allowed her to study piano, violin, and composition privately with teachers from the Conservatoire. Despite the setbacks caused by her father, Chaminade gave her first concert when she was 18 and soon began concert tours of France, England, and even the United States.  

As was typical for a woman composing during the Victorian period, Chaminade was expected to compose short salon pieces and she was very successful writing over 135 songs and 200 character pieces for piano. Her two major compositions that have remained in print and in high demand to this day are: her Flute Concertino in D, Op. 107 from 1902, a staple of the flute concert repertoire and well-loved by audiences around the world for over a century; and, her Konzertstücke, Op. 40 for piano and orchestra written in 1888, which she herself championed across Europe. Almost all her compositions were popular, and almost all were published. I can’t overemphasize how unusual this was. Women composers had to struggle at every stage of the compositional process, but at no stage was it more difficult than the final stage of finding a publisher. Chaminade was published by such respected firms as Durand in France, Schott in Germany, the Anglo-Canadian Music Publishing Association, and multiple publishers in London.

Chaminade wrote three piano trios. The first of these, the Piano Trio in G Minor, Op. 11, is her most popular chamber music piece. It was written in 1881, one year after Fauré’s great Piano Quartet in C Minor. Chaminade was only 24, but the writing is confident and the artistic voice is clear. Though it is written in a minor key, the work leans toward nostalgia and melancholy rather than turmoil or drama. The work was premiered on February 8, 1881, at the Salle Érard, with Chaminade playing the glittering piano part. The critic for Le Ménestrel, Auguste Morel, wrote that the work showed “an already firm and confident hand, revealing profound and abundant knowledge… It almost sounded like a fantasia for piano rather than a chamber music piece.” The critic for Gil Blas, Denis Magnus, wrote that “the scherzo especially is notable for its original shape; it is deliberately personal, quite square-cut, and moreover exudes a freshness of ideas typical of a young lady.” I would agree with Magnus that the scherzo is the most original and charming movement, though I’m not so sure of what he meant by “square-cut” or “typical of a young lady.” All in all, Chaminade’s first piano trio is a sparkling divertissement that everyone can enjoy.

Vincent d’Indy (1851-1931)

String Sextet in B-flat Major, Op. 92 for two violins, two violas & two cellos (1927)
— dePasquale, Sant’Ambrogio, Sorgi, Bryla-Weiss, Ross, Rapier
 
Vincent d’Indy, though hardly remembered today, was a major figure in the Parisian music scene in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. His musical talent was encouraged by his grandmother, who sent him to take piano lessons with Louis Diémer, one of the major teachers at the Paris Conservatoire. The young d’Indy showed a piano quartet he had written to the great composer César Franck; Franck was impressed and encouraged d’Indy in his pursuit of composition. While attending the Paris Conservatoire, d’Indy became an ardent disciple of Franck and shared with Franck a love of Germanic music, especially Wagner. This was quite unusual for the time; the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 had left nationalist feelings running hot, and most French composers were trying to turn away from Germanic influences. D’Indy even attended the first production of Wagner’s Ring cycle in Bayreuth.

In 1894 d’Indy founded the Schola Cantorum of Paris together with Alexandre Guilmant and Charles Bordes. They intended their school to be a conservative counterbalance to the Paris Conservatoire, creating a program of study focused on Gregorian chant, Renaissance polyphony, and late Baroque music. (It gives you a good idea of d’Indy’s character to realize he created a school more conservative than a conservatory!) D’Indy took over the leadership of the Schola in 1904 and taught there until his death. He had many famous students, including Albert Magnard, Albert Roussel, Joseph Canteloube, Joaquin Turina, John Jacob Niles, Erik Satie (for a short period), and even Cole Porter for a few months! (Who wouldn’t want to be a fly on the wall for those lessons?) It is primarily as a teacher that d’Indy is remembered today.

D'Indy retired from Paris to the south of France, and there he found a new freedom and ease in his writing. The String Sextet in B-flat Major, Op. 92, was written in 1927 when the composer was 76 years old. It clearly shows the freshness of the countryside and is free from the academic stiffness that mars many of his earlier works. The sextet is in three movements, more like a classical divertimento than like the heavy-hitting sextets of Brahms and Tchaikovsky. The first movement is an Entrée en Sonate, welcoming us to the sound world he has created. The second is a scherzo-like Divertissement. And the third movement is a Franckian tripartite movement, Theme, Variations, and Finale. All in all, it is a beautiful work well worth adding to the repertoire.

Young Artist Program [YAP] Sneak Peek
Louis Cahuzac (1890-1960)
Cantilène for clarinet & piano

 — Allyson Sudduth, clarinet; Henry Guo, piano

Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979)

Three Pieces for cello & piano (1914)
— Ross, Yanagitani

Nadia Boulanger was the most famous and sought-after composition teacher of the 20^th century. She taught an extraordinarily wide range of pupils, including Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, Quincy Jones, Astor Piazzolla, and Burt Bacharach—composers who could never be mistaken for one another. She clearly had a gift for helping her students find their individual compositional voices. Perhaps she learned that skill from her own composition teacher at the Paris Conservatoire, Gabriel Fauré, who was similarly adept at helping students find their voices. She also honed her teaching skills at home by helping her younger sister Lili develop her extraordinary compositional talents. Spurred on by Nadia, Lili was the first woman to receive the Paris Conservatoire’s coveted Prix de Rome. When Lili died in 1918 at age 24, Nadia was heartbroken. She turned away from her own composing, believing her talent was far inferior to that of her sister, and devoted the rest of her life to conducting, teaching young composers, and promoting Lili’s works. She started teaching at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau in 1921, and it was there that generations of composers would seek her guidance.

Before Lili’s death, Nadia was an eager composer. In 1911 she wrote Three Pieces for Organ, but she was unhappy with her setting. In 1914 she arranged the second and third of these pieces for cello and piano; they ultimately became the first two of her Three Pieces for cello and piano. It is in this form that the work is most widely known today.  The first movement has an impressionistic quality with the cello muted and the piano using the soft pedal throughout. The second movement, a canon between cello and piano, has the quality of a sad modal folksong. And the third movement, the only movement originally written for cello and piano, is a rough-and-tumble grotesque dance, a style of writing that is reminiscent of her wonderful song “Elle a vendu mon coeur.” The quality of the music makes one wish that Nadia Boulanger had continued composing!