Germaine Tailleferre

Classical Music / Composers Datebook: April 19 

French composer Germaine (Marcelle) Tailleferre (April 19, 1892 – November 7, 1983) was the only female member of ‘Les Six’, a group of French composers influenced by Erie Satie and by Jean Cocteau’s anti-Romantic aesthetic. She wrote operas, ballets, instrumental music and film scores.

Tailleferre was born in Parc-Sait-Maur near Paris. Despite her father’s opposition, she entered Paris Conservatoire in 1904. She studied with Maurice Ravel and Charles Koechlin. Her former tutor was Sautereau-Meyer.

Aside from being a composer, she was a piano prodigy who began to compose at age 5. She had an amazing memory and won numerous prizes.Her numerous works include the opera Il etait un petit navire (1951), and the ballet Le marchand d'oiseaux (1923).



Here's Germaine Tailleferre's Ballade for piano and orchestra (1920). Uploaded: Wellesz Theatre. Accessed April 19, 2020. 




Suggested Listening:

Germaine Tailleferre's Romance for Pianoforte. Uploaded by the WelleszCompany. Accessed March 8, 2019. 

Suggested Reading:

Germaine Tailleferre. Music Sales Classical. Accessed March 7, 2019.  

Image Credit:

Germaine Tailleferre. Women of Note.  oboeclassics.com. Accessed April 20, 2016



(c) April 19, 2016. Updated April 19, 2020. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.

The Schumanns - Robert and Clara

Robert and Clara Schumann - A Love Story

(c) By Agnes Selby, Guest Writer-Friend

Clara Schumann, nee Wieck, was a composer whose work has only recently become appreciated by audiences the world over. She was a dutiful daughter, a mother of eight children, a loyal friend and a loving wife. But first and foremost she was a concert pianist - 1,299 programs are preserved in the Robert Schumann house in Zwickau which encompass the years from the time of her debut at the age of nine to her last concert in Frankfurt when she was 71 years old.

Born on September 13th, 1819, to Friedrich Wieck and his wife Marianne, she was destined at birth by her father’s will to become a “Wunderkind.” By the age of five she could already perform ‘dances’ and spent hours practicing exercises. At about this time, Clara’s mother, tired of Wieck’s relentless daily sarcastic criticism, chose to leave Wieck and return to her own parent’s home thereby leaving Clara and her three brothers in the care of their father. The trauma resulting from this abandonment by her mother caused Clara to quite literally lose her faculty of speech, which she did not regain until she was reunited with her mother during the summer of 1825.

Nadia Boulanger

Classical Music / Great Music Teachers

French Teacher, Conductor, Composer

 
Brief biography of Nadia Boulanger, her life and career. One of the most influential women inall of music history, considered the greatest music teacher of the 20^th century. Many of her students became prominent composers.


Nadia Juliette Boulanger (1887-1979), was one of the most influential figures in music during the twentieth century. A distinguished teacher of prominent composers, she was also a conductor and a composer. Although she initially became known as a composer and conductor of major orchestras, her role as music teacher is what she's most famous for.

French poet, playwright and film director Jean Cocteau said of her: “… It is rare that a young musician intrigues us, or that his work at least partially opens a door, without his disclosing that he is a pupil of Nadia Boulanger.”

Boulanger was born in Paris on September 16, 1887, coming from a musical family, with her father, Ernest Boulanger, like his father before him, taught singing at the Paris Conservatoire. Her mother Raissa, a Russian-born princess, was a pupil of her father. She was her first teacher.

At 5 years old, Boulanger could read music. She enrolled at the conservatory at 10 and completed training at 17, by this time, already winning awards for composing. She won second place in France's prestigious Prix de Rome for her cantata, "La Sirene."