Germaine Tailleferre (1892 - 1983) is known as the only woman in the Groupe des Six (Group of Six), the youthful group of French composers that worshiped the twin gods Satie and Cocteau.
Tailleferre received her first music lessons from her mother. Against her father's wishes, she began her studies at the Conservatoire in Paris at the age of 12. Her fellow students included Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud and Georges Auric. From 1919, she was friendly with these three composers as well as with Francis Poulenc and Louis Durey in the Groupe des Six, which pursued a new anti-romantic simplicity.
After World War I, she lived in the Parisian artists' district of Montparnasse, where she received important artists, including Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire. In 1925, she traveled to the United States to perform as a solist with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Willem Mengelberg for the premiere of her piano concerto. She also played the piano with Charlie Chaplin, who wanted to take her to Hollywood to compose film music. Instead, she returned to Paris. In 1931 she gave birth to her only child, a daughter called Françoise,
with lawyer Jean Lageat. The couple married one year later but would divorce in 1955 after years of separation. She spent the war years 1942-1946 in the US again.
Tailleferre wrote many of her most important works during the 1920s, including her First Piano Concerto, the Harp Concertino, three ballet scores (Le marchand d'oiseaux, La nouvelle Cythère, and Sous les ramparts d'Athènes), as well as several pioneering film scores. The 1930s were even more fruitful, with the Concerto for Two Pianos, Chorus, Saxophones, and Orchestra, the Violin Concerto, the opera cycle Du style galant au style méchant, and what has been called her masterwork, La cantate de Narcisse, in collaboration with Paul Valéry.
After World War II she wrote a lot of music commissioned by the radio
and the French government, as well as an impressive number of film and television scores. Germaine Tailleferre continued to compose right up until a few weeks before her death, but many of her last scores were not published anymore. In addition to her work as a composer, she
was a teacher, including at the Schola Cantorum de Paris (1970 to 1972).
Tailleferre is sometimes treated rather lightly, like a sort of latter-day Chaminade, but although her works have their share of chic and charm, that is a grave error. The first violin sonata was debuted in 1922 by Thibaud and Cortot. It is in four movements and somewhat classical in style despite its polytonality. Tailleferre's technical skill is immediately evident in the well balanced dialogue between the two instruments that characterizes the opening movement (modere sans lenteur). The second movement is a witty scherzo. The third movement (assez lent) is the most emotionally charged of the four and leads directly to the finale (tres vite) which abounds in rhythmic effects.
The First Violin Sonata is played below by Mariia Perekrestenko (violin) and
Vivian Naegeli (piano).
Women Composers Index