Augusta Holmès

Holmès was born in Paris, the only child of Charles William Scott Dalkeith Holmes (17 July 1797 - 19 December 1869), originally from Youghal, Ireland, and Tryphina Anna Constance Augusta Shearer (1811–1858).{{cite web |url=https://archive.org/details/unemusiciennever00pich/page/4/mode/2up |title=Une musicienne versaillaise: Augusta Holmès |via=archive.org}} The poet Alfred de Vigny, who was her godfather, was rumored to be her natural father.{{cite web |url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/holmes-augusta-mary-anne-a4065 |title=Holmes, Augusta Mary Anne |work=Dictionary Of Irish Biography}}

Despite showing talent at the piano, she was not allowed to study at the Paris Conservatoire, but took lessons privately. She developed her piano playing under the tutelage of local pianist Mademoiselle Peyronnet, the organist of Versailles Cathedral 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. She led the group of Franck's students who in 1891 commissioned for Franck's tomb a bronze medallion from Auguste Rodin.{{cite book |author=Daniele Gutmann |chapter=Rodin et la Musique |title=Revue Internationale de Musique Française |date=February 1982 |page=105}}

Camille Saint-Saëns was among the many artists - musicians, poets, painters - who became enamoured of her and fell in love with her, eventually proposing marriage, but he was turned down.{{cite book |author=Studd, Stephen |title=Saint-Saens: a Critical Biography |publisher=Cranbury, Madison & Teaneck Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |date=1999 |page=72}}{{cite book |author=Rees, Brian |title=Camille Saint-Saens: A Life |location=London |publisher=Chatto & Windus |date=1999 |page=128-129}} Later, he 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." Like other female composers from the nineteenth century including Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann, Holmès published some of her earlier works under a male pseudonym ("Hermann Zenta") because women in European society at that time were not taken seriously as artists and were discouraged from publishing.

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 1,200 musicians. She gained a reputation of being a composer of programme music with political meaning, such as her symphonic poems Irlande and Pologne.

Holmès' oeuvre is made up of cantatas, symphonic poems, operas, a few works for solo piano and over 100 songs.

First hearing Wagner's work at the age of 13, Holmès was influenced by Wagner all her life and advocated to have his works performed in the Concerts Populaires, a formidable concert series in Paris.{{cite book |last1=Citron |first1=Marcia |title=Women and Music |date=1991 |editor=Karin Pendle |publisher= Indiana University Press |location=Bloomington |pages=125–126}} Many parallels can be found in the music of Holmès and Wagner. One of the most direct examples of stylistic likeness can be heard in Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries from Die Walküre (1856) and Holmès' Roland furieux (1876). Both works make use of chromaticism and use similar orchestral colour, with dominant brass sections, announcing strong, rhythmically catching, melodic motives, while the strings drive the music forward with rapid, galloping patterns underneath the melody.{{cite web |author=Andrew Clements |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/jul/25/augusta-holmes-symphonic-poems-album-review-michael-francis |title=Holmès: Symphonic Poems album review – Francis underscores Wagner’s influence on this rediscovered female composer |work=The Guardian |date=25 July 2024}}

Holmès wrote four operas, largely inspired by Wagner, however, La Montagne Noire, staged in 1895, was the only one to be performed. It was one of the few operas written by a woman to be produced at the Paris Opéra in the nineteenth century, but it was poorly received, possibly due to its outdated Wagnerian influences.

The gender rhetoric of the nineteenth century, which prescribed that female composers should limit themselves to smaller, feminine genres, had an impact on the reception towards the music of Holmès. Although praised for her creative gifts, she, like many other female composers of her time, was criticised for crossing the boundary into styles which were thought of as masculine territory.{{cite book |last1=Citron |first1=Marcia |title=Cécile Chaminade: A Bio-Bibliography |date=1988 |publisher= Greenwood Press |location=New York |page=23}} Saint-Saëns, in a review of Holmès' symphonic poem, Les Argonautes, remarked on her "excessive virility – a frequent fault with women composers – and flamboyant orchestration in which the brass explodes like fireworks..."

File:The Daughters of Catulle Mendès, Huguette (1871–1964), Claudine (1876–1937), and Helyonne (1879–1955).jpg, 1888, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art]]

Holmès never married, but she cohabited with the poet Catulle Mendès; the couple had five children, including:{{cite web |title=Auguste Renoir {{!}} The Daughters of Catulle Mendès, Huguette (1871–1964), Claudine (1876–1937), and Helyonne (1879–1955) {{!}} The Met |url=http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/438014?sortBy=Relevance&ao=on&ft=rothschild&offset=0&rpp=100&pos=32 |website=metmuseum.org |publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art |access-date=13 February 2017}}

• Huguette Mendès (1871–1964)
• Claudine Mendès (1876–1937)
• Helyonne Mendès (1879–1955)

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

Image:Maurice Renaud & Lucienne Bréval in Augusta Holmès' La Montagne noire.jpg & Lucienne Bréval in Augusta Holmès' opera, La Montagne noire.]]

• Héro et Leandre (1875) opera in one act{{cite book |author=Arthur Elson |title=Woman's Work in Music |location=Boston |publisher=The Page Company |date=1903 |via=Google}}
• Lancelot du lac, opera in three acts (unpublished)
• La Montagne noire, opera in four acts (1885), Paris, Opéra, 8 February 1895. The Black Mountain was recreated at Theater Dortmund on January 13, 2024 with Aude Extrémo (Yamina), Sergey Radchenko (Mirko) and Mandla Mndebele (Aslar), and the Dortmunder Philharmoniker conducted by Motonori Kobayashi.{{cite web |url=https://www.forumopera.com/spectacle/holmes-la-montagne-noire-dortmund/ |title=HOLMÈS, La Montagne noire – Dortmund |website=Forumopera.com}}

• Astarté, poème musical (1871, unpublished)
• Lutèce, symphonie dramatique (1877)
• Les Argonautes, symphonie dramatique (1880)
• Ludus pro patria, ode-symphonie (1888)
• Au pays bleu, suite symphonique (c.1888)
• Une Vision de Sainte Thérèse for soprano and orchestra (c.1888)
• Ode triomphale en l'honneur du centenaire de 1789 (1889)
• Hymne à la paix (1890)
• Hymne à Apollo (c.1890s)
• La Belle au bois dormant suite lyrique (1902)
• La Vision de la reine, cantata

• Ouverture pour une comédie, symphonic poem (before 1870){{cite web |url=https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/augusta-holm%C3%A8s-orchestral-works |title=Augusta Holmès, Orchestral Works Marco Polo 8 223449 |website=www.gramophone.co.uk |date=1995}}
• Allegro feroce (1870)
• Roland furieux (1876){{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/jul/25/augusta-holmes-symphonic-poems-album-review-michael-francis |title=Augusta Holmès: Symphonic Poems CPO 555 5932 |website=www.theguardian.com |date=2024}}
• Irlande, symphonic poem (1882)
• Andromède, symphonic poem (1883){{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/mar/23/compositrices-new-light-on-french-romantic-women-composers-review-treasure-trove-of-the-overlooked |title=Compositrices: New Light on French Romantic Women Composers, Bru Zane (2023), reviewed in |website=The Guardian |date=23 March 2023}}
• Pologne, symphonic poem (1883)
• La Nuit et l'amour (1888){{cite web |url=https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2022/Mar/Berlioz-nuits-GRAMOLA99247.htm |title=La Nuit étoilé Gramola 99247 (2022) |website=www.musicweb-international.com}}

• Minuetto, for string quartet (1867)
• Trois petites pièces for flute and piano (1879)
• Fantaisie in C minor, for clarinet and piano (1900)
• Molto lento, for clarinet and piano

• Rêverie tzigane (1887){{cite web |url=https://divineartrecords.com/recording/tzigane/ |title=Tzigane (DDA 25033) |website=Divine Art |date=2025}}
• Ce qu'on entendit dans la nuit de Noël (1890)
• Ciseau d'hiver (1892)

(selective list)

• Les Sept ivresses: 1. L'Amour; 2. Le Vin; 3. La Gloire; 4. La Haine; 5. Le Rêve; 6. Le Désir; 7. L'Or (1882)
• Trois Chansons populaires: 1. Mignonne; 2. Les Trois pages; 3. La Princesse (1883)
• Noël: Trois anges sont venus ce soir (1884)
• File:Trois-anges-sont-venus-ce-soir.ogg
• En Chemin (1886)
• Hymne à Eros (1886)
• Fleur de neige (1887)
• La Chanson de gas d'Irlande (1891)
• Berceuse (1892)
• Contes divines (1892–5): 1. L'Aubepine de Saint Patrick (1892); 2. Les Lys bleus (1892); 3. Le Chemin de ciel (1893); 4. La Belle Madeleine (1893); 5. La Légende de Saint Amour (1893); 6. Les Moutons des anges (1895)
• Noël d'Irlande (1896)

{{reflist}}

• Rollo Myers: "Augusta Holmès: A Meteoric Career", in: The Musical Quarterly 53 (1967) 3, pp. 365–76
• Gérard Geffen: Augusta Holmès, l'outrancière (Paris: P. Belfond, 1987), {{ISBN|2-7144-2153-9}}
• Karen Henson: "In the House of Disillusion: Augusta Holmès and La Montagne noir", in: Cambridge Opera Journal 9 (1997) 3, pp. 232–62
• Michèle Friang: Augusta Holmès ou la gloire interdite (Paris: Éditions Autrement, 2003), {{ISBN|2746702983}}
• Mariateresa Storino: "Chère Illustre": Franz Liszt ad Augusta Holmès, in: "Quaderni dell'Istituto Liszt" 9 (2010), pp. 1–44
• M. Storino: Franz Liszt and Augusta Holmès: Portrait of a Musical Friendship, in: Liszt et la France, ed. by Malou Haine and Nicolas Dufetel (Paris: Vrin, 2012), pp. 263–274; {{ISBN|978-2-7116-2369-3}}
• Nicole K. Strohmann: Gattung, Geschlecht und Gesellschaft im Frankreich des ausgehenden 19. Jahrhunderts: Studien zur Dichterkomponistin Augusta Holmès (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 2012), {{ISBN|978-3-487-14701-7}}
• M. Storino: Solidarietà dei Popoli e idea di Patria: i poemi sinfonici di Augusta Holmès, in: Music and War in Europe from French Revolution to WWI, ed. by Etienne Jardin (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), pp. 357–377; {{ISBN|978-2-503-57032-7}}

• {{IMSLP|id=Holmès, Augusta Mary Anne}}
• [https://musescore.com/openscore-lieder-corpus/sets?order=title&text=Holm%C3%A8s%2C+Augusta Free digital scores by Augusta Holmès] in the [https://musescore.com/openscore-lieder-corpus/sets OpenScore Lieder Corpus]
• [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kn8d Holmes and Duparc: A tale of two composers]. BBC Radio 3 Composer of the Week, 6–10 July 2020

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Category:1847 births

Category:1903 deaths

Category:19th-century French classical composers

Category:19th-century French women composers

Category:20th-century French classical composers

Category:20th-century French women composers

Category:Burials at the Cemetery of Saint-Louis, Versailles

Category:Naturalized citizens of France

Category:French opera composers

Category:French people of Irish descent

Category:French Romantic composers

Category:Irish classical composers

Category:Irish women classical composers

Category:Composers from Paris

Category:Pseudonyms

Category:Pupils of César Franck

Category:French women opera composers