Having started my YouTube channel ‘Squishy Keys’ (self-recordings on the piano), I am going to devote a blog each month to a specific composition / composer. This month, Cécile Chaminade.
Born in 1857 Paris to a wealthy family, Cécile’s musical talents were recognised from a very young age, as said by Charles Bizet to her father: “She has the gift… If you give her every opportunity she cannot fail.”[i] Despite her father’s objection against attending the Paris Conservatoire, Cécile was enrolled for lessons, with Félix Le Couppey, A. F. Marmontel, MGA Savard and Benjamin Godard. She developed her skills as a pianist as well as a composer. At her debut as a pianist at age 15 at the Conservatory, two of her own compositions were included, and was praised by the composer Ambroise Thomas: “The girl belongs to the ranks of the great modern musicians. She is a composer, not merely a woman who composes.”[ii] For about 50 years, Cécile had a thriving career, touring in Great Britain and Germany, and in the early 1900s, toured in the United States. Sadly, she developed bone disease, and quietly faded from public’s eyes from late 1920s, until her death in 1944. Overall, she had around 400 published works and more than 200 short piano pieces.
Being a female composer was not easy in those days, but her talent was nonetheless recognised. Cécile received the Légion d’Honneur in 1913, marking the first time in history that this award was given to a female composer. Chaminade reshaped how society (particularly male critics) regarded women’s cultural levels and artistic abilities. As admitted by Jean Huré in Musique et Théâtre in 1916: he had first came to liked the compositions in the late 1890s, but thought that she was a man; learning that she was a female changed his mind about women’s creative powers.[iii] Like other great pianists of her time, Chaminade also took advantage of modern-day recording facilities. In 1908, no less than 36 of her compositions appeared on piano rolls by Aeolian for the pianola. In 1910, she was seen in Parisian concert hall performing duets with pianolas playing her 2-piano compositions Callirhoë and Valse Carnavalesque. In the 1920s she recorded 11 of her own compositions in London for the Duo-Art reproducing pianos, the only rolls she made. A couple of these rolls will feature in one of my podcast episodes, and I will also give an in-depth analysis at a conference paper in March 2023.
Three of Chaminade’s piano pieces share a common theme, ‘Autumn’, which I have recorded and soon be available on the channel. The most famous of these is the Op. 35 no. 2, a virtuoso number amongst 6 concert etudes published in 1886. This study is dedicated to Helene Krzyanowska, and according to Eduard Reuss, is a ‘reminisce of the style of Chabrier’.[iv] The second piece is called Feuille d’Automne, written in 1912 and dedicated to Madeleine Pincherle. This is one of the 11 pieces that Chaminade herself recorded on duo-art piano roll, along with the Autumn concert etude. The last, valse d’Automne, Op. 169 was written in 1928 and dedicated to Madame Pellenc. Since 1925, Chaminade resided near Toulon. In 1926 she was diagnosed with decalcification of the left foot, and since then followed a strict vegetarian diet. According to letters she suffered pain, and eventually the foot had to be amputated. Her last published compositions La Nef Sacrée was issued in 1928, and this piece also dates from around this time.
[i] Patrick Handscombe and Terry Broadbent, The London Duo-Art Pianists (the Player Piano Group, 2014), 66. The source says Charles, but I believe that it is George Bizet in reference. Further investigation is needed on this matter.
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Jean Huré, ‘Filles d’Euterpe’, Musique et Théâtre (1916), 3–4.
[iv] Marcia J. Citron, Cécile Chaminade, a Bio-bibliography (Greenwood Press, 1988), 187.
Joyce Tang 