a biography of the day-augusta holmes (composer)

[niyad]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=KrTfwQiuhSA


Augusta Holmès

Augusta Mary Anne Holmès (18 December 1847 – 28 January 1903) was a French composer of Irish descent. At first she published under the pseudonym Hermann Zenta. In 1871, Holmès became a French citizen and added the accent to her last name.[1] She herself wrote the lyrics to almost all her songs and oratorios, as well as the libretto of the opera La Montagne Noire.

Holmès was born in Paris.[2] Despite showing talent at the piano, she was not allowed to study at the Paris Conservatoire, but she took lessons privately. She developed her piano playing under the tutelage of local pianist Mademoiselle Peyronnet, Versailles' cathedral organist Henri Lambert, and Hyacinthe Klosé. Also, she showed some of her earlier compositions to Franz Liszt. Around 1876, she became a pupil of César Franck, whom she considered her real master.[2] (She led the group of Franck's students who in 1891 commissioned for Franck's tomb a bronze medallion from Auguste Rodin.[3])

Camille Saint-Saëns wrote of Holmès in the journal Harmonie et Mélodie, "Like children, women have no idea of obstacles, and their willpower breaks all barriers. Mademoiselle Holmès is a woman, an extremist."

Holmès never married, but she cohabited with the poet Catulle Mendès; the couple had five children.

For the 1889 celebration of the centennial of the French Revolution, Holmès was commissioned to write the Ode Triomphale for the Exposition Universelle, a work requiring about 1200 musicians. She gained a reputation of being a composer of programme music with political meaning, such as her symphonic poems Irlande and Pologne.

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusta_Holm%C3%A8s


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AUGUSTA HOLMES
(1847 - 1903)

Of acknowledged Irish parentage, although rumour suggested she had been fathered by her godfather, Alfred de Vigny, Augusta Holmès was born in Paris and became a pupil of César Franck. She wrote operas, symphonic poems and dramatic symphonies, and a large number of effective songs. She made a strong impression on many of her contemporaries through her intelligence and beauty and was for many years the mistress of the writer and French champion of Wagner Catulle Mendès, husband of Judith Gautier.

Orchestral and Choral Music/p>

The orchestral compositions of Augusta Holmès include the symphonic poems Irlande, Andromède and Pologne, the symphonic ode Ludus pro patria and the dramatic symphony Les Argonautes. Saint-Saëns, who unwisely and unsuccessfully proposed marriage to her, (note: this may account for that rather nasty commentary in the first bio) found some of her orchestral music noisy and over-orchestrated.

Songs

Augusta Holmès left some 128 songs, a number of which continue to form part of the repertoire of French song.

http://www.naxos.com/person/Augusta_Holmes/24290.htm



Biography of the day: Augusta Holmès


Before I started playing the violin and writing music myself, I spent quite a bit of time obsessing about various composers. One of them was Augusta Holmès (1847-1903) who was born in Paris and grew up in Versailles. Her Irish father, Dalkieth Holmes, was a retired army captain, and her English mother, also named Augusta, was a painter, poet, and horsewoman. Her godfather, Alfred de Vigny, played a great role in Augusta Holmès' education (and some contend that due to a physical resemblance between him and Holmès that he was her natural father).

Holmès studied harmony and counterpoint with Henri Lambert, the organist of the Versailles Cathedral, orchestration with Hyecinthe Klose (1808-1880), the Director of the Regimental Band at Versailles, and voice with Guillot de Sainbris. Later, around 1875, Holmès studied with Cesar Franck, who wove his romantic feelings about her into his Piano Quintet, a piece that Mrs. Franck despised.

Musical life at Versailles was centered around a military band, and Holmès was surrounded by wind players. Her orchestration teacher Klose (who also taught clarinet at the Paris Conservatory) encouraged Augusta to both write for and conduct the regimental band. The advantage of her early training writing for winds gave Holmès' orchestration interesting textures and a fresh voice against the organ-dominated colors of her contemporaries in France.

By age twelve, when she began writing songs, Augusta Holmès spoke French, English, German, and Italian. With a background in poetry and classics offered to her by her Godfather, she wrote most of her own texts. For some of her earliest songs Holmès used texts by contemporary poets, but for most of her 128 songs she supplied her own texts. She began having her songs published when she was fourteen, three under the pseudonym Hermann Zenta, and four under the name A.Z. Holmes, but the bulk of her music, most of which was published during her lifetime, was published under her own name.

After her father's death and after serving as a nurse in the Franco-Prussian war, Augusta Holmès became a French citizen, and added an accent to the "e" in her name. As her father's only heir, she had a generous income and could live as she wished. She also had an extremely generous nature and supported her lover Catulle Mendès and their four children. (Renoir's portrait "The children of Catulle Mendès" is a portrait of three of Holmès' five children). I find it odd that the on-line resources about Mendès do not mention Augusta Holmès. The family resemblance is rather striking. Those de Vigny genes seem to be rather strong.

. . . . .


http://musicalassumptions.blogspot.com/2008/02/biography-of-day-augusta-holmes.html