#marcelle meyer

retour de soleil

.

Remonte le flot des notes qui s'agitent avec exactitude,

gravis la musique jusqu'à sa portée essentielle,

prometteuse et divine,

retrouve la pureté culminante, l'égale de la nature mélodieuse !

.

(Dans la portée des ombres, extrait)

© Pierre Cressant

(samedi 8 octobre 2005)

To celebrate Women’s History Month, here are a few kickass ladies of the pianoforte.

Clara Wieck Schumann lived in a time when musical talent in a women was mainly an advertisement on the marriage market. Clara didn’t let this stop her from creating a sixty-year career as a master pianist, while also handling Robert and Johann and her seven kids and her abusive father.

Yuja Wang is one of the hottest concert pianists alive today. Substitute Tchaikovsky No. 1 for Martha with the BSO? No big deal. Six inch heels and designer dresses included. [photo]

Marcelle Meyer was the Frenchwoman who inspired Les Six and gave the first all-Debussy recital with Claude himself in attendance. She died of a heart attack while playing the piano. [photo]

women of the piano : MARCELLE MEYER the french muse

Alfred Cortôt was her piano teacher as a teenager and when she was twenty, she was Erik Satie’s favorite pianist. Maurice Ravel’s best friend Ricardo Viñes introduced her to Maurice’s music.

She worked with Claude Debussy on his préludes pour piano shortly before his death. She performed the first all-Debussy piano recital.

She premiered Francis Poulenc’s Piano Sonata for Four Hands with the composer; they shared a lifelong friendship and she premiered his Impromptus. Marcelle and Francis also recorded an album together - you can check it out here.

Stravinsky asked her to perform the piano part to his Petrushka (with minimal rehearsal) as a “reference performance.”

She was the muse of Les Six; she revived Rameau. Her playing was fluid, sensitive, and pure.

She wouldn’t pose for Picasso, Man Ray photographed her, and Coco Chanel gave her couture clothes.

women of the piano : marcelle meyer [1897-1958]

Listening to Meyer play, it is obvious that she is seeking to present the music simply as it is, without frivolity and excessively emotive playing. Her presentation of the dance suite is clear and precise, and she allows for the music to speak for itself.

Meyer has an incredible ability to capture the French spirit in her playing – she is precise and clear in her playing, yet calls to mind so many images through her tone production and sound quality.

As one critic has said of her, “While listening to Miss Marcelle Meyer playing the piano one is made to think all the time of the play of light on surfaces – many-coloured but mostly bright surfaces.” [...]

Truly she is one of the most important contributors to French music of our generation.

-FRANCIS POULENC, Le Figaro, April 1945

women of the piano :