• Eternal Feminine Podcast Series

    Augusta Holmès

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    In this episode of The Eternal Feminine Podcast Series, we discuss French composer Augusta Holmès (1847-1903). Holmès was a prolific creator and resolutely independent woman whose impressive list of friends and admirers included Saint-Saëns, Liszt, Franck, Renoir, Rodin, and Wagner. A fiercely determined composer, her many creations ranged from operas and cantatas to symphonic and instrumental works. Sadly, much of her music remains unpublished to this day and despite her widespread popularity during her lifetime, her life and works have only recently begun to be rediscovered.

    Listen to the full podcast to hear our discussion of this remarkable woman and our recording of Holmès’ delightful pastiche Le ruban rose.

    Read more about Holmès in “More Than a Muse.”

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  • Eternal Feminine Series - Featured Work

    Holmès – Featured Work

    Le ruban rose

    text: Augusta Holmès (1847–1903)
    translation: Suzanne Yeo

    Celui que j’aime est si mignon
    Que les femmes en sont marries;
    Il n’a ni chasses et prairies;
    Pas même le moindre pignon!
    He whom I love is so pretty
    That he blends in with the ladies;
    He has neither hunting grounds nor meadows;
    Not even the simplest roof!
    Il est de très bonne noblesse,
    Et plus brave que ses aieux!
    Il est jaloux, un rien le blesse!
    Ses étoiles, ce sont mes yeux.
    He comes from a very noble family,
    And is braver than his ancestors!
    He is jealous, the slightest thing wounds him!
    His stars are my eyes.
    Et puis, c’est un charmant visage
    Fier et tendre, bien à mon gré.
    Il ressemble à l’Amour poudré!
    C’est pourquoi j’en ai fait mon page!
    And what’s more, he has a charming face,
    Proud and tender, just to my taste.
    He looks like a powdered Cupid!
    That’s why I made him my page!
    J’étais en grand habit de Cour,
    Fard et mouches, satins, dentelle;
    Celui pour qui je me fais belle,
    A mes genoux parlait d’amour.
    I was in a grand court dress,
    All made up, with my moles and rouge, satins and lace;
    He for whom I dolled myself up
    Was speaking of love at my knees.
    Et mon collier de ruban rose,
    Je ne sais comment, s’envola!
    Il faut cueilli, comme une Rose
    Par le Prince qui passait là!
    And my choker of pink ribbon,
    I don’t know how, but it flew away!
    It was plucked, like a rose,
    By the Prince who was passing by!
    “Voici votre ruban, Madame;
    Reprenez-le contre un baiser!
    Gardez-vous bien de refuser:
    En ce cas votre amant rend l’âme.”
    “Here is your ribbon, My Lady;
    Take it back for a kiss!
    Be careful not to refuse,
    If you do, your lover may give up his soul.”
    Mon jeune ami, plein de fureur,
    Dit: “Madame n’est point en cause!
    Il m’appartient, ce ruban rose,
    Et je vous tuerai, Monseigneur!”
    My young friend, full of rage,
    Said: “Madame is not in question!
    It belongs to me, this pink ribbon,
    And I will kill you, My Lord!”
    Et je le vis, au clair de Lune,
    Si joli pendant le combat,
    Qu’il fut choisi par la Fortune
    Pour que le Prince succombat!
    And I saw him, in the moonlight,
    So handsome during the fight,
    That he was chosen by Fate,
    So that the Prince succumbed!
    “Il faut me consoler, Marquise,”
    Dit mon page, triste à demi;
    “J’ai tué mon meilleur ami!”
    C’est pourquoi je lui fus exquise!
    “You have to console me, Marquise,”
    My page said, half-sadly;
    “I have killed my best friend!”
    And that’s why I was so delightful to him!

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  • Eternal Feminine Podcast Series

    “More than a Muse”

    After Augusta Holmès (1847-1903) composed her Ode triomphale, a massive composition commissioned by the committee for the Exposition universelle for 1889, the centenary of the French revolution, Saint-Saëns said of her that the French Republic had found a muse. More conventionally in the muse department, Holmès also inspired both a hopeless passion in her teacher César Franck – and his indecorously passionate Piano Quintet.

    And yet it would be reductive to speak of her simply as a muse. Unlike Clara Schumann and Alma Mahler, who both inspired their famous husbands and put their men’s careers ahead of their own compositional endeavours, she declined to do any such thing. She was ambitious, determined to make something of herself as a composer, and – at least partly thanks to an inheritance that left her independently well-off – was able to eschew the typical trajectory of a woman of her time. She never got married, despite all the men of the Paris Conservatoire reportedly being in love with her at one point (per Saint-Saëns); instead she chose to have a long relationship with the writer Catulle Mendès, and though she had five children* with him, did not show much interest in the business of motherhood (she never acknowledged them officially, and Mendès, for his part, had his father acknowledge them as his own, making them his legal half-siblings, thus creating, as a friend of his observed, a fine legal imbroglio).

    *three of whom famously appear in Renoir’s painting Les trois filles de Catulle Mendès.

    In her oeuvre, too, we see the same lack of interest in subscribing to stereotypes of femininity. She did not restrict herself to smaller-scale forms and salon music, which was more typical of the work of female composers – not only did she write songs (often to her own texts), she also worked on a large scale: operas, symphonic cantatas, symphonic poems, often with an epic, nationalistic patriotic aspect (the aforementioned Ode triomphale, which was a huge success at the time, would require 1,200 musicians). Male critics and composers – perhaps a bit bewildered by the combination of her physical beauty and her unconventionality – would comment on the “virility” of her work, sometimes in a complimentary way, sometimes in a less complimentary way; less friendly critics would imply that she was not very successfully trying to be a man.

    Be that as it may, she went her way, and does not seem to have bothered too much with the naysayers. She managed to get her opera La montagne noire staged at the Paris Opéra – a coup in itself as she thus became the first woman to have an opera premièred there – and even though its indifferent reception was to prove a considerable blow to her, she continued to compose and had sketched out a second libretto before her death in 1903 – indomitable to the last.

    -Suzanne Yeo
    October 2020

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  • Eternal Feminine Podcast Series

    Poldowski (Régine Wieniawski)

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    In this episode of The Eternal Feminine Podcast Series, we discuss Polish/British pianist and composer Poldowski (1879-1932). A woman of many names, Poldowski was born Irena Régine (Regina) Wieniawski in Belgium to an English mother (Isabella Wieniawski née Hampton) and the famous Polish violinist Henryk (Henri) Wieniawski. Young Régine showed musical talent at a young age and was the only one of her siblings to become a musician. She eventually married into the English aristocracy (thus becoming Lady Dean Paul), and made a name for herself as a sensitive composer of many genres, particularly in her setting of French poetry.

    Listen to the full podcast for more insight into this somewhat elusive figure and hear our live recording of her poignant work Berceuse d’Armorique, which she wrote after the death of her young son.

    To learn more about Poldowski’s famously colorful family, check out From Tsars to Stars.”

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    Poldowski – Featured Work

    Berceuse d’Armorique

    text: Anatole le Braz, 1892
    translation: Suzanne Yeo

    Dors, petit enfant, dans ton lit bien clos:
    Dieu prenne en pitié les matelots!
    Chante ta chanson, chante, bonne vieille!
    La lune se lève et la mer s’éveille.
    Sleep, little child in your closed bed:
    May God take pity on the good sailors!
    Sing your song, sing old woman!
    The moon rises and the sea awakens.
    Au pays du Froid, la boule des fiords
    Chante sa berceuse en berçant les morts.
    Chante ta chanson, chante, bonne vieille!
    La lune se lève et la mer s’éveille.
    In the land of the cold, the swell of the fjords
    Sings its lullaby as it rocks the dead.
    Sing your song, sing old woman!
    The moon rises and the sea awakens.
    Dors, petit enfant, dans ton lit bien doux,
    Car tu t’en iras comme ils s’en vont tous.
    Chante ta chanson, chante, bonne vieille!
    La lune se lève et la mer s’éveille.
    Sleep little child, in your soft bed,
    For you will go as they all do.
    Sing your song, sing old woman!
    The moon rises and the sea awakens.
    Tes yeux ont déjà la couleur des flots.
    Dieu prenne en pitié les bons matelots!
    Chante ta chanson, chante, bonne vieille!
    La lune se lève et la mer s’éveille.
    Your eyes are already the colour of the waves.
    May God have pity on the good sailors!
    Sing your song, sing old woman!
    The moon rises and the sea awakens.

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  • Eternal Feminine Podcast Series

    “From Tsars to Stars”

    Irena Régine Wieniawski (aka Poldowski) came from a world-famous line of musicians. Her father, Henryk Wieniawski (1835 – 1880), was steeped in music from birth and from a young age, made a name for himself as both a violinist and composer. He embarked on extensive world tours, often accompanied by his brother Joseph, an equally accomplished and respected concert pianist and composer. It was through his friend and colleague Anton Rubinstein, the celebrated pianist, that Henryk met the Hampton family in London and fell passionately in love with their daughter, Isabella. Isabella’s mother looked kindly on the match – her brother was a famous Irish pianist by the name of George Osborne, and so perhaps she felt more comfortable with yet another musician in the family. But Isabella’s father was more hesitant to accept this vivacious violinist into the family.

    A romantic story tells of Henryk Wieniawski finally winning over his future father-in-law by playing his own composition Légende on the violin and gaining his approval. But a more realistic account states that Mr. Hampton only consented to the marriage after insisting that Henryk take out a substantial life insurance policy and stop touring so much in favor of settling into the responsibilities of married life. Henryk and Isabella eventually married in Paris in August 1860 with quite the wedding party! Rubinstein had the privilege of walking Isabella down the aisle, while the opera composer Gioacchino Rossini served as witness and Belgian composer and violinist Henri Vieuxtemps provided the music. Henryk and Isabella then moved to St. Petersburg, where he had been engaged as the court musician. There, Henryk continued to compose, perform, and teach. He imparted a particular bowing technique to his students, which many still use today when playing particularly difficult staccato passages. Sadly, Henryk developed a heart condition and died, while on tour, at the young age of 44 years old.

    In 1896, Isabella moved her young family of four children back to London, and our story of Régine Wieniawski begins. It seems that Régine held her father’s same zest for life and music, but that didn’t preclude the rest of the family from living intriguing lives. Régine’s older sister Henryka Klaudyna (Henrietta Claudine) married an American stockbroker named Joseph Loring, who was aboard the Titanic during its doomed voyage across the Atlantic. After hearing news of his death, Henrietta booked her own passage to New York on the Carmania, from which she cast flowers into the sea near the site of the Titanic‘s sinking. This poignant scene inspired a New York Times article entitled “Flowers for the Ocean Grave,” which may in turn have have inspired the painting Le supreme adieu, by the French artist Rene Achille Rousseau-Decelle. In the painting, Henrietta is shown casting flowers into the sea, with icebergs floating placidly in the background.

    Régine’s children also led high-profile lives, they became part of a social circle in 1920s London known as the Bright Young Things. This group consisted mainly of young aristocrats and socialites who enjoyed an extravagant lifestyle of fancy dress parties, elaborate treasure hunts, and a (somewhat less salutary) fondness for hard drugs. This lifestyle didn’t work out entirely well for Régine’s daughter, Brenda Dean Paul, an early “It Girl” and celebrated beauty who later became notorious as an opiate user, jailbird, and failed actress.

    Meanwhile, Régine’s son, Brian Dean Paul, earned his nickname “Napper” from his tendency to fall asleep in doorways due to his drug use. He seemed to continue the family tendency to be well-connected with the arts scene – he was a good friend of Lucian Freud and even had his portrait painted by him in 1954! Brian Dean Paul led an apparently less eventful life than his sister, living out his days quietly until his death in 1972, which also marked the end of the Paul baronetcy.

    More first-hand information about the goings on of the Bright Young Things can be found in the novel Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh. Waugh moved in the same circles and it is said that Brenda Dean Paul inspired at least one character in the novel. (Stephen Fry created a film adaptation called Bright Young Things in 2003, featuring such celebrated actors as Peter O’Toole, Stockard Channing, Emily Mortimer, David Tennant, and Michael Sheen.)

    As for Régine herself, it seems that in addition to her musical creations, she also dabbled in fashion at one point (possibly after separating from her husband, although the dates and circumstances are unclear). Régine set herself up as a dressmaker for society ladies and some of her clients were even members of the royal family, but she had to wind up the business when it started taking a toll on her health. Her sudden and early death prompted many tributes from fellow musicians and critics alike, speaking to her much-loved personality as well as to her musical contributions.

    From tsars to stars, just imagine how many lives would have been changed had Mr. Hampton not approved that initial marriage between Henryk and Isabella!

    -Daniella Theresia Teodoro-Dier
    July 2020

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  • Pauline Viardot-Garcia
    Eternal Feminine Podcast Series

    Pauline Viardot

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    In our first episode of The Eternal Feminine Podcast Series, we discuss French composer and opera singer Pauline Viardot-Garcia (1821-1910). We know her primarily as one of the legendary divas of the 19th century, famed and fêted for the exquisite beauty of her voice and the passion which she infused into her performances. As a singer, she was not only brilliant in her art, but also a very savvy businesswoman. Later, she would become a great voice teacher as well, following in the Garcia family tradition.

    And yet, as much as that would have been, in and of itself, she was still so much more.

    Listen to the podcast to learn about this multi-faceted creator and artist and to hear our rendition of Viardot’s beautiful piece Haï luli.

    To read more about Viardot, check out “Six Degrees of Pauline Viardot“.

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    Viardot – Featured Work

    Haï luli

    text: Xavier de Maistre, c. 1825
    translation: Suzanne Yeo

    Je suis triste, je m’inquiète,
    Je ne sais plus que devenir.
    Mon bon ami devait venir,
    Et je l’attends ici seulette.
    Haï luli, haï luli,
    Où donc peut-être mon ami?

    I am sad, I am anxious,
    I don’t know what’s going to happen.
    My lover was supposed to be here,
    And yet I’m waiting here alone.
    Haï luli, haï luli,
    Where can my love be?

    Je m’assieds pour filer ma laine,
    Le fil se casse dans ma main:
    Allons! je filerai demain,
    Aujourd’hui je suis trop en peine.
    Haï luli, haï luli,
    Qu’il fait triste sans son ami!

    I sit down to spin my wool,
    The thread breaks off in my hand:
    I’m done with it! I’ll spin tomorrow,
    Today I am in too much pain.
    Haï luli, haï luli,
    How sad it is without one’s love!

    Ah! si jamais il devient volage,
    S’il doit un jour m’abandonner,
    Le village n’a qu’à brûler
    Et moi-même avec le village !
    Haï luli, haï luli,
    À quoi bon vivre sans son ami?

    Ah! should he ever become fickle,
    Should he one day abandon me,
    I’ll have to burn down the village
    And myself along with it!
    Haï luli, haï luli,
    What use is it to live without my love?

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