Élise de Perthuis

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Frédéric Chopin, Piano Sonata in B minor, Op. 58, title page of the first edition, 1845, with the dedication “à Madame la Comtesse E. de Perthuis”

Comtesse Élise de Perthuis de Laillevault (born Elisabeth Auguste Sophie Caroline von Grote; born December 16, 1800 in Hanover , † February 3, 1880 in Paris ) was a Parisian salonnière and close friend of Frédéric Chopin and a patron of numerous artists.

Life

Her parents were Georg von Grote , Imperial Baron von Schauen (1764–1850), royal Hanoverian secret legation councilor , and Countess Louise von Oeynhausen (1771–1823), who had married on May 29, 1792. From 1816 Grote lived with his family in Paris for several years, where in 1819 Élise married Colonel Count Léon-Amable de Perthuis de Laillevault (born March 9, 1795 in Auxerre ; † April 3, 1877 in Caen ), who later became King's first adjutant Louis-Philippe I.

Her marriage made her one of the most powerful and - especially in artistic circles - most influential women in Paris. Born in Germany, she had a salon in her apartment at 12 Rue d'Astorg, which was frequented by numerous artists and writers, including Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy , who stayed in Paris for an extended period from December 9, 1831 to April 20, 1832. Amable de Perthuis, who went to Berlin in March , even took a letter from Mendelssohn with him. Élise de Perthuis organized regular concerts in her home, as illustrated by a letter that Clara Wieck wrote to her fiancé Robert Schumann on April 4, 1839 :

“You probably did not suspect that today at 2 o'clock I was still sitting at the piano and playing your Carnaval ? - I was with a Countess Perthuis and the connoisseurs all stayed, and then I played most of your Carnaval, then Chopin, me, Scarlatti etc. Yesterday I made a real furore. "

The 19-year-old pianist recorded four further encounters with Élise and Amable de Perthuis in her diary: on April 10, May 8, May 28 and May 29, 1839.

The countess also arranged important contacts with the royal family for young musicians on several occasions. The salon of Marie d'Agoult , mentioned several times by Elise de Perthuis in her letters, and of George Sand, were of comparable importance for the Parisian art world of this time .

Friendship with Frédéric Chopin

In 1836 Frédéric Chopin dedicated his Four Mazurken Op. 24 to her husband . In addition, in 1837 he received a copy of the Prelude in A flat major op. 28 No. 17. This emerges from a letter that Chopin addressed to his friend Julian Fontana : “ Si tu peux, je te demanderai de me copier le Prélude en la bémol, car je voudrais le donner à Perthuis "(If you can, I would ask you to copy the Prélude in A flat, because I want to give it to Perthuis) .

Through their mediation, Chopin played together with Ignaz Moscheles for the first time on October 30, 1839 in front of the royal family in their castle Saint-Cloud in the southwest of Paris. Moscheles noted in his diary: "At 9 o'clock, Chopin and I, picked up by P. and his lovely wife, drove out during the heaviest downpours". The concert was a great success, especially for Chopin.

In gratitude for her numerous services to friendship, Chopin finally dedicated his Piano Sonata in B minor, Op. 58, composed in 1844 to her , one of his most important compositions and one of the central works of Romanticism . The first demonstrable performance took place on December 23, 1845 "for dinner at the Perthuis", as Chopin wrote in a letter to his parents. On April 19, 1847 there is also talk of an “evening at the Perthuis”.

In 1848, at the beginning of the February Revolution , she fled with her husband and the overthrown king to Honfleur , a small town at the mouth of the Seine in the English Channel , where Perthuis owned a country house. Finally, both accompanied Louis-Philippe to England, to Claremont House south of Esher , County Surrey , where the king spent the last years in exile. Chopin visited the Perthuis couple there in April 1848 on a trip to London . They later returned to Paris.

Heinrich Börnstein and Julius Stern

Élise de Perthuis proved to be particularly caring when, in the spring of 1842, a German opera company around Heinrich Börnstein ran into financial difficulties in Paris. First the troupe was able to give a concert in front of the king on June 26th in Neuilly . Back home, Börnstein found "a note from Countess Perthuis, in which she asked me to visit her at her apartment at 12 Rue d'Astorg as soon as possible, since she had a lot to tell me". He also writes:

“Countess Perthuis, the wife of the King's first adjutant, a born German and very witty woman, apologized with French politeness for having tried me, but she thinks she can give me some hints that are useful for the purpose of my charitable mission. After we sang with the king, she said, we would confidently receive invitations from the first aristocratic houses to participate in garden parties, private concerts, matinées, etc., and she gave me hints of how I should behave in such cases, which houses I especially accept I prefer and still have a lot of details and information about local conditions, which were of the greatest use to those who were completely strangers on the soil of higher Parisian social life. "

Through her mediation, Börnstein's troupe actually received invitations to concerts "from all sides" over the next few days.

In spring 1844 the Berlin musician Julius Stern led the musical soirees at the Perthuis.

Portraits

Élise de Perthuis has been portrayed several times by Henri Lehmann . The first portrait was exhibited in the Salon de Paris in 1835 and has at least been preserved as a picture. Later a second portrait was created, about which the painter wrote on May 2, 1841 from Rome to his friend Countess Marie d'Agoult: “Madame de Perth [uis] est mourante, lorsque je fis son premier portrait, on me force à l ' exposer. - J'en fais un second, qui a grand succès chez elle, on demande l'Adresse et le prix du peintre, - et je suis à Rome. ”This second, lost portrait, of which no image is known, was published in Salon de Paris exhibited in 1842. One reviewer described it as follows:

“The portrait of Countess Perthuis by H. Lehmann, in the Carnation without life, weak in understanding of form, without sharpness in conception; but in the position of comfortable rest, in the posture of a certain decency; the purple dress is chosen with a great sense of harmony, the whole thing is well done in a pleasantly cool color scheme and has an attractive effect. "

Orient trip

In the years 1853 to 1862 Élise de Perthuis undertook several extensive trips through the Orient , especially to Syria and Lebanon , where her son Edmond was living at the time. On these trips she kept detailed diaries containing valuable material on the history of the two countries. They first appeared in print in 2007.

progeny

Élise and Amable de Perthuis had four children:

  • Léon IV Hector Louis, comte de Perthuis de Laillevault, troisième baron de Moulins Pont Marquis (born August 13, 1820 in Schaüen , † February 19, 1906 in Montjalin )
  • Edmond Eduard Charles Marie Ernest de Perthuis de Laillevault (born April 20, 1822 in Hanover , † May 12, 1904 in Cannes ),
  • Alfred Henri Edmond de Perthuis de Laillevault (born June 15, 1825 in Pont Parquis , † September 10, 1897 in Neuilly , avenue du Chateau)
  • Gaston (twin brother of Alfred) (born June 15, 1825 in Pont Parquis; died in his graduation at Saint Cyr).

literature

  • Frederick Chamier , Review of the French Revolution of 1848: From the 24th of February to the Election of the first President. London 1849, Volume 1, pp. 73-77 (digitized version )
  • Charlotte Moscheles (ed.): From Moscheles' life. After letters and diaries. Leipzig 1872
  • Melville Henry Massue , The titled nobility of Europe. London 1914, p. 1137 (digitized version)
  • Krystyna Kobylańska (ed.), Frédéric Chopin: Letters. Berlin 1983
  • Dina Debbas (ed.), Élise de Perthuis: Voyages en Orient, 1853–1855, 1860–1862: Journal de la comtesse de Perthuis: Manuscrit inédit découvert par Fouad Debbas. Beirut 2007
  • Anja Mühlenweg (Ed.): Correspondence between Robert and Clara Schumann. Volume 2 (= Schumann Letter Edition , Series I, Volume 5), Cologne 2013

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographical data from: Emmo Freiherr von Grote and Wilhelm Grotefend (eds.): History of the Counts and Barons of the Grote family. Hanover 1891, part 2, family tree II B (digitized version)
  2. ↑ Anja Morgenstern and Uta Wald (eds.): Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, all letters. Volume 2, Leipzig 2009, pp. 502–504 and 508
  3. ^ Berthold Litzmann: Clara Schumann. An artist's life. Leipzig 1902, Volume 1, p. 311 (digitized version)
  4. ↑ Swiss music newspaper. Volume 114, 1974, p. 84 (digitized version)
  5. ↑ Chopin, Briefe (1983), p. 245
  6. ↑ Chopin, Briefe (1983), p. 265
  7. ^ Tadeusz A. Zieliński: Chopin. His life, his work, his time. Mainz 2008, p. 829
  8. ^ Heinrich Börnstein: Seventy-five years in the old and new world. Leipzig 1884, Volume 1, p. 309 (digitized version)
  9. ↑ Richard Stern: Memoirs of Julius Stern. Dedicated to his friends and fellow artists. Leipzig 1886, p. 61
  10. ^ Charles Dupêchez (ed.): Marie de Flavigny, comtesse d'Agoult: Correspondence générale. Volume 3, Paris 2005, p. 475
  11. ↑ See also Marie-Madeleine Aubrun: Henri Lehmann. 1814-1882; catalog raisonné de l'euvre. Nantes 1984, Volume 2, pp. 77, 79 and 100
  12. ^ Morgenblatt for educated classes. Art sheet. No. 55 of July 12, 1842, p. 217 (digitized version)
  13. ↑ See also Leila Tarazi Fawaz: An Occasion for War: Civil Conflict in Lebanon and Damascus in 1860. Los Angeles 1994, pp. 118–121
personal data
SURNAME Perthuis, Élise de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Perthuis de Laillevault, Élise de; Grote, Elisabeth Auguste Sophie Caroline von (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French salonière and close friend of Frédéric Chopin as well as patron of numerous artists
DATE OF BIRTH December 16, 1800
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH February 3, 1880
Place of death Paris