Compositrices

During the Third Republic, through the impetus of the Société nationale de musique, the piano trio enjoyed a completely new vogue in France. It became a genre in which to prove oneself, with the possibility of measuring one’s skills as an author of chamber works against the productions of the most prominent composers (César Franck, Camille Saint-Saëns, Édouard Lalo and Claude Debussy). For female composers anxious to be taken seriously, it was an ideal showcase, since it also allowed them to reveal their talents as virtuoso pianists. Some of them, however, either out of timidity or under pressure from publishers, did not embrace the genre in its Classical form, but instead composed pieces in two movements bearing evocative poetic titles.


Concert preceded by a lecture