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drplaceboIt's Forgotten Masterpiece Friday!
Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983) was the only female composer among Les Six, a loosely organized group of composers active in France in the 1920s whose best-known members were Darius Milhaud and Francis Poulenc. She studied under Ravel, but absorbed surprisingly little stylistic influence from him; Les Six in fact coalesced not around any particular style but as a reaction against the impressionism of Debussy and Ravel.
Born Marcelle Germaine Taillefesse, she was forbidden by her father from studying music and was secretly taught to play the piano by her mother, then attended the Paris Conservatory secretly under the name Germaine Tailleferre, which she later made her legal name. Disowned by her father, she eked out a living performing and teaching, never achieving any financial security; she worked as a piano accompanist well into her 80s and composed until a few weeks before her death. Reviews of her music often showed openly sexist condescension -- when one of her pieces was premiered by the Boston Symphony, the Boston Globe's critic had more to say about the novelty of "a pretty girl" taking a bow as composer than about the music itself. Nevertheless, she persisted.
In 1917, with most concert halls closed for the duration of the First World War, Tailleferre and a group of other young composers began holding concerts of their chamber music in an art gallery in the Paris district of Montparnasse, and soon became known as Les Six. Their individual styles varied greatly ("Les Six" was perhaps more about marketing than it was an artistic movement), but they were all influenced by the modernist painters whose work surrounded them, and all pursued a more straightforward, cleaner aesthetic than the impressionists that came before them. The concerts ceased after the war, but Les Six continued to meet regularly at the celebrated Paris jazz club Le Boeuf sur le Toit. It was with Les Six that Tailleferre built her reputation. Her association with Les Six brought regular commissions, and made the 1920s and 1930s her most prolific years; her ballet Le Marchand d'Oiseaux was the most-performed ballet in France in the 1920s. Many of Tailleferre's scores from that era unfortunately disappeared for a number of years: when Nazi Germany invaded France, she departed for the United States, leaving all but a few of her scores behind; while they were eventually recovered, many were unpublished until after her death. After the Second World War, Tailleferre returned to France and resumed her career as primarily a film and television composer, but without the same level of notoriety she had enjoyed before the war.
Tailleferre's Piano Trio represents both the beginning and end of her career. The first and third movements were composed in 1916-17 and performed as a two-movement piece in the art gallery where Les Six first organized their concerts. The second and fourth movements were added in 1978, yet fit in surprisingly seamlessly, and similarly bring to mind the Picasso, Matisse, and Modigliani paintings that surrounded the original trio's premiere in 1917.
Movements:
I. Allegro animato
II. Allegro vivace (4:05)
III. Moderato (7:24)
IV. Trés animé (10:56)
Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983) was the only female composer among Les Six, a loosely organized group of composers active in France in the 1920s whose best-known members were Darius Milhaud and Francis Poulenc. She studied under Ravel, but absorbed surprisingly little stylistic influence from him; Les Six in fact coalesced not around any particular style but as a reaction against the impressionism of Debussy and Ravel.
Born Marcelle Germaine Taillefesse, she was forbidden by her father from studying music and was secretly taught to play the piano by her mother, then attended the Paris Conservatory secretly under the name Germaine Tailleferre, which she later made her legal name. Disowned by her father, she eked out a living performing and teaching, never achieving any financial security; she worked as a piano accompanist well into her 80s and composed until a few weeks before her death. Reviews of her music often showed openly sexist condescension -- when one of her pieces was premiered by the Boston Symphony, the Boston Globe's critic had more to say about the novelty of "a pretty girl" taking a bow as composer than about the music itself. Nevertheless, she persisted.
In 1917, with most concert halls closed for the duration of the First World War, Tailleferre and a group of other young composers began holding concerts of their chamber music in an art gallery in the Paris district of Montparnasse, and soon became known as Les Six. Their individual styles varied greatly ("Les Six" was perhaps more about marketing than it was an artistic movement), but they were all influenced by the modernist painters whose work surrounded them, and all pursued a more straightforward, cleaner aesthetic than the impressionists that came before them. The concerts ceased after the war, but Les Six continued to meet regularly at the celebrated Paris jazz club Le Boeuf sur le Toit. It was with Les Six that Tailleferre built her reputation. Her association with Les Six brought regular commissions, and made the 1920s and 1930s her most prolific years; her ballet Le Marchand d'Oiseaux was the most-performed ballet in France in the 1920s. Many of Tailleferre's scores from that era unfortunately disappeared for a number of years: when Nazi Germany invaded France, she departed for the United States, leaving all but a few of her scores behind; while they were eventually recovered, many were unpublished until after her death. After the Second World War, Tailleferre returned to France and resumed her career as primarily a film and television composer, but without the same level of notoriety she had enjoyed before the war.
Tailleferre's Piano Trio represents both the beginning and end of her career. The first and third movements were composed in 1916-17 and performed as a two-movement piece in the art gallery where Les Six first organized their concerts. The second and fourth movements were added in 1978, yet fit in surprisingly seamlessly, and similarly bring to mind the Picasso, Matisse, and Modigliani paintings that surrounded the original trio's premiere in 1917.
Movements:
I. Allegro animato
II. Allegro vivace (4:05)
III. Moderato (7:24)
IV. Trés animé (10:56)