Jeanne Leleu

Jeanne Leleu

Jeanne Leleu (born December 29, 1898 in Saint-Mihiel , † March 11, 1979 in Paris ) was a French composer and pianist.

Leleu, the daughter of a military bandmaster and a piano teacher, entered the Conservatoire de Paris at the age of nine . Here she studied piano with Marguerite Long , harmony with Auguste Chapuis , counterpoint and fugue with Georges Caussade and composition with Charles-Marie Widor . She also had piano lessons from Alfred Cortot .

In 1910 she played the world premiere of the four-hand piano piece Ma mère l'oye by Ravel with Geneviève Durony in the Salle Gaveau , who was so impressed by her that he dedicated his Prelude to her three years later . In 1923 she won the First Premier Grand Prix de Rome with the cantata Béatrix . During the stay at the Villa Medici in Rome associated with the award, several orchestral works and incidental music for Euripides ' satire The Cyclops were created .

In 1931 Leleu published the three-part symphonic suite Transparences , which was premiered in 1933 by Walter Staram . In addition to other orchestral works and two ballets, she composed numerous piano pieces. Since 1947 she was a professor at the Conservatoire de Paris.

Works

• Quatuor for piano and strings, 1922
• Béatrix , cantata, 1923
• Suite symphonique for wind instruments, 1926
• Esquisses italiennes for orchestra, 1926
• Deux Danses for orchestra, 1927
• Le Cyclope , incidental music, 1928
• Transparences , three-part symphonic suite, 1931:
  • L'arbre plein de chants (after André Gide ),
  • Miroir d'eau (based on Fragments du Narcisse by Paul Valéry ),
  • Etincelles d'été (after La jeune Parque de Valéry)
• Croquis de théâtre , WP 1932
• Concerto pour piano et orchester , 1937
• Jour d'été , ballet, premiered in 1939
• Femmes , orchestral suite in four parts 1947
• Virevoltes , orchestral suite , 1957
• Nantéos , ballet, 1957
• Cortège d'Orphée
• Fronton antique
• Par les rues éclatantes for piano
• Pochades , four piano pieces
• En Italie , ten piano pieces