Marie Siegling
{{short description|American classical composer (1824–1920)}}
Marie Regina Siegling (February 7, 1824 – January 2, 1920) was an American composer.
Biography
She was born on February 7, 1824, in Charleston, South Carolina, the eldest daughter of Prussian immigrant Johann Zacharias Siegling and his wife Mary Schnierle. Johann Siegling was an instrument maker and music publisher who founded the Siegling Music House in 1819.{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/musicsouthernbe00bail|url-access=registration|page=[https://archive.org/details/musicsouthernbe00bail/page/224 224]|quote=Marie Siegling.|title=Music and the Southern Belle: From Accomplished Lady to Confederate Composer|publisher=SIU Press|author=Bailey, Candace|accessdate=9 November 2010|year=2010|isbn=9780809385577}}{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IvoQQU1QL_QC&q=Marie+Siegling&pg=PA544|title=The Norton/Grove dictionary of women composers|first1=Julie Anne|last1=Sadie|first2=Rhian|last2=Samuel|year=1994|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |accessdate=12 November 2010|isbn=9780393034875}} Her youngest brother was journalist Rudolph Septimus Siegling. Marie Siegling most likely began her musical studies under her mother.{{Cite web |last=Riley |first=Helene |title=Siegling Page |url=http://virtual.clemson.edu/caah/languages/Riley/SieglingMonth.html |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20140202152952/http://virtual.clemson.edu/caah/languages/Riley/SieglingMonth.html |archive-date=2014-02-02 |access-date=2025-05-28 |website=virtual.clemson.edu}}
Siegling was later educated in Europe and had a career as a musician and composer. In 1844, she traveled with her father to Havana where he had a music store called Siegling & Vallote. They stayed in Cuba for three months, where she performed as "Charleston's Jenny Lind." Later in the year, Siegling went to Paris to study music. While on tour in Europe, she met literature professor Eduard Schuman LeClercq, whom she married in 1850. Siegling moved with her husband to Paris and ended her performing career. She had five children.{{citation |title=Memoirs of a Dowager : 1908 Dec. 20 / Mary Regina Schuman LeClercq|author=Archivegrid}}
While in Europe, Marie had contact with many of its greatest composers and musicians. She writes in her memoir: "I met many distinguished artists and authors, amongst them Wagner, Schröder-Devrient, Liszt, Schumann. Here also I was present at the first representation of Tannhäuser and Lohengrin, directed by the great Master Richard Wagner, who took the baton." Her own composition, Souvernir de la Saxe, is dedicated to Her Majesty, Marie, Reine de Saxe.
Siegling published a memoir titled Memoirs of a Dowager in 1908 under the name Mary Regina Schuman LeClercq. Papers related to the family are housed at the University of South Carolina.
She died on January 2, 1920, in Nice.Siegling Family Papers, South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina
Works
Selected works include:
Literary:
- Memoirs of a Dowager : 20 December 1908 as Mary Regina Schuman Le Clercq.
Musical compositions:[http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/S?ammem/mussm:@OR(@field(AUTHOR+@od1(Siegling,+Marie+R++))+@field(OTHER+@od1(Siegling,+Marie+R++))) List of Works]
- La capricieuse
- La gracieuse
- Souvenir de Charleston, valse originale
- Souvenir de la Saxe
- Souvenir de la Saxe, valse
- The Recall: Come back oh Come! for voice and piano
References
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Category:19th-century American classical composers
Category:20th-century American classical composers
Category:American women classical composers
Category:Musicians from Charleston, South Carolina
Category:20th-century American women composers