Augusta Holmès

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Augusta Mary Anne Holmès

Augusta Mary Anne Holmès (born December 18, 1847 in Paris , † January 28, 1903 there ) was a French composer of Irish descent. She initially published under the pseudonym Hermann Zenta . In 1871 Holmès became a French citizen and therefore included an accent grave in her name. She wrote the lyrics for almost all of her songs and oratorios as well as the libretto for her opera La Montagne Noire .

biography

Holmès was born in Paris and grew up in Versailles. Although her talent at playing the piano was evident, as a woman she was not allowed to study at the Conservatoire de Paris , but had to take private lessons. She received lessons from Mademoiselle Peyronnet, the cathedral organist Henri Lambert in Versailles and Hyacinthe Klosé . She showed some of her early compositions to Franz Liszt . Around 1876 she became a student of César Franck , whom she called her master. She played a leading role in the group of Franck's students who commissioned a bronze medallion from Auguste Rodin for Franck's tombstone in 1891 .

Camille Saint-Saëns wrote of Holmès in the magazine Harmonie et Mélodie : “ Like children, women have no concept of obstacles and their willpower tears down all walls. Mademoiselle Holmès is a woman, an extremist. "

Holmès remained unmarried. She lived with the poet Catulle Mendès , the couple had five children.

For the centenary of the French Revolution in 1889, Holmès was commissioned to compose an Ode Triomphale , a work for around 300 orchestral musicians and 900 choristers. She celebrated her greatest success with the opera La Montagne Noire , the first opera by a composer in the Parisian Palais Garnier since Louise Bertin. Some of her compositions are politically tinged, such as her symphonic poems Irlande and Pologne .

Holmès bequeathed most of her manuscripts to the Conservatoire de Paris.

Selected Works

Maurice Renaud & Lucienne Bréval in Augusta Holmès' opera, La Montagne noire.
Opera
  • Astarté (1871), Poème musical en deux tableaux (unpublished)
  • Héro et Leandre (1874/75), Opéra en 1 acte (unpublished)
  • Lancelot du lac (1875), Drame musical en trois actes et cinq tableaux (unpublished)
  • La Montagne noire (1895), Drame lyrique en quatre actes et cinq tableaux, Premiere: Paris Opéra, February 8, 1895
Vocal music
  • Parmi les meules , for voice and piano
  • Ode triomphale , for choir and orchestra
  • Vision de Sainte Thérèse , for voice and orchestra
  • Hymn à la paix , cantata
  • Au pays bleu
  • Hymn to Apollo , chorale
  • La Vision de la reine , cantata
Orchestral works
  • Andromède , symphonic poem
  • Irlande , symphonic poem
  • La nuit et l'amour: Interlude de l'ode symphonique - Ludus pro Patria , symphonic poem
  • Lutèce , symphony
  • Overture pour une comédie , symphonic poetry
  • Pologne , symphonic poem
  • Trois ans sont venus ce soir

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Augusta Holmès: A Meteoric Career Rollo Myers The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 53, No. 3 (Jul., 1967), page 365. "Her surname was Gallicized by the addition of a grave accent on its last syllable."
  2. ^ A b c d Arthur Elson (1903): Woman's work in music , The Page Company, Boston, digitized by Google.
  3. ^ Daniele Gutmann, "Rodin et la Musique". Revue Internationale de Musique Française, February, 1982, p. 105.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Nicole K. Strohmann (2012): Genre, gender and society in France at the end of the 19th century - studies on the poet-composer Augusta Holmès , Hildesheim: Olms.
personal data
SURNAME Holmès, Augusta
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Holmès, Augusta Mary Anne (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Composer and pianist
DATE OF BIRTH December 18, 1847
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH January 28, 1903
Place of death Paris