Rita Strohl

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Rita Strohl , baptized as Marguerite La Rousse la Villette (born July 8, 1865 in Lorient , † March 27, 1941 in La Gaude ), was a French pianist and composer . She was considered highly talented at a young age and was admitted to the Paris Conservatory at the age of thirteen .

family

Rita Strohl was the daughter of the infantry officer and lieutenant colonel Jules La Rousse La Villette (1834-1921) and the painter Élodie La Villette (1842-1917), née Jacquier, and the niece of the painter Caroline Espinet (1844-1910) on her mother's side .

On June 18, 1888 Strohl married the ensign Émile Strohl (1863-1900), whose name she took, but who died early. In 1908 she married the Nissard René Billa (1884–1944) in Meudon , who preferred the Germanizing pseudonym Richard Burgsthal and worked as a glassblower, painter and musician.

Work and work

Together they founded and ran the La Grange theater in Bièvres for a short time in 1912 with the financial support of the two painters Odilon Redon and Gustave Fayet and other patrons . It was closed again at the beginning of the First World War . During this time Strohl created lyrical works full of mysticism and symbolism, which thematically continued the seven-part cycle Le Suprême Puruscha from 1908. She chose this quiet, rural small town north of Paris in order to avoid metropolitan conventions and to devote herself entirely to her new project, so-called experimental music . Her husband René, who was an admirer of Richard Wagner "in a disturbing way" , tried to establish a " Little Bayreuth " there. La Grange was an old mill that was converted for performance purposes. Works by Rita Strohl were performed. Instead, she gave up her commitment to writing symphonies and switched to operas, three of which were premiered in this short time: Le Déclin de la Tour d'Ivoire , a Celtic cycle in which the There was music, an unnamed inspiration based on Breton music and an unfinished, seven-day Hindu cycle . A piano reduction of this last work is still available.

But with the La Grange project they had taken over. They did not get out of the planning phase because the effort turned out to be too great and too expensive. There was even hostility from friends. The war finally shifted the focus from subtle thoughts to personal survival. Rita became suffering and depressed, traumatized by the war and developed tinnitus . The couple separated after this failure. Rita went to the south of France in 1930 when René married a younger girl. She wrote less and less and was only played occasionally, even though her friend, the opera singer Jane Bathori , who occasionally worked for the radio, kept devoting radio programs to her.

Rita Strohl composed various lyrical, symphonic and chamber music pieces. It was celebrated by Camille Saint-Saëns , Vincent d'Indy and Gabriel Fauré . Jane Bathori sang her twelve songs, Bilitis, based on the libretto by Pierre Louÿs , and Pablo Casals played her music. Her withdrawal from Paris society meant that most of her works were never published or recorded. The individual manuscripts are in the possession of their descendants in Lorient.

A first public concert took place in 1884 with a piano trio, the following year with a mass for six voices, orchestra and organ in the cathedrals of Rennes and Chartres . Her works show a tendency towards mysticism and religious mix of different inspirations: these influences culminated in works such as Les Noces spirituelles de la Vierge Marie (1903), Le Suprême Puruscha , a mystical cycle in seven parts (1908), and the lyrical drama La Femme pécheresse (1913), whose names are already highly suggestive. These influences also had an indirect effect in most of the other compositions, such as in her operas Hindu and Celtic , which are also colored by other forms of spirituality and pantheism . She also composed music for piano, chamber music and songs, first and foremost the Chansons de Bilitis, composed in 1898, based on twelve erotic poems by Pierre Louÿs, which were very successful.

After her death she was almost forgotten. Her music has gained greater acceptance in recent years, but despite the high quality of the rediscovered works (including the Sonata for Cello and Piano Titus and Berenice ), it is still virtually unknown.

Catalog of works (selection)

Lyric work

  • 1887: Forêt de Brocéliande
  • 1887: Le Printemps
  • 1898: Bilitis , 12 songs based on poems by Pierre Louÿs , premiered with Jane Bathori

Symphonies and operas

  • 1892: Titus et Bérénice , Sonata for violoncello and piano, op.16 , no.2
  • 1901: Symphonie de la forêt , first performed with the Orchester Lamoureux
  • 1902: Symphonie de la mer
  • 1903: Musique sur l'eau
  • 1904: Trois Préludes pour orchester , first performed with the Orchester Lamoureux
  • 1908: Le Suprême Puruscha , seven-part mystery cycle

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Jules La ROUSSE La VILLETTE on Geneanet.org
  2. ↑ Caroline JACQUIER on Geneanet.org
  3. ↑ a b Rita Strohl: Le Reve fou de la grange de Bievres . Bon sens et Déraison , August 7, 2007
  4. ↑ STROHL, RITA on Bru Zane Media Base , Ressources numériques near to la musique romantique française
  5. ↑ La compositrice lorientaise Rita Strohl est à redécouvrir Ouest-France , April 14, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Strohl, Rita
ALTERNATIVE NAMES La Rousse la Villette, Marguerite
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French pianist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH July 8, 1865
PLACE OF BIRTH Lorient
DATE OF DEATH March 27, 1941
Place of death La Gaude