Cernier musical gardens: Mel Bonis in the heart of a recital

A whole piano recital dedicated to a single composer. In addition, Not really the kind of program that runs concert halls. Moreover, On August 26. Furthermore, Polish pianist Aleksandra Bobrowska will indeed play several works by Mel Bonis (1858-1937), contemporary with Gabriel Fauré, who was his master. Therefore, Being one of the big female names in classical music that we rediscover in recent years. Meanwhile, the French composer turns out to be one of the most gifted in its generation, marked by the typically end-of-century post-romanticism, then by the impressionism of Debussy and Ravel.

“Like his compatriot Augusta Holmès. Therefore, who was nevertheless a huge Paris star of the time, Bonis was forgotten after his death,” notes the German maestro David Spainlandfirst guest chief of Sinfonietta de Lausanne. Similarly, During his concert on May 15. For cernier musical gardens: mel bonis example, he also directed “the dream of Cleopatra”, a symphonic poem that he had already recorded in 2023. Meanwhile, “This engraving was a real collective discovery. Similarly, with the impression of touching something unknown, which had not been played for ages, recalls the chief. However, This composer is a missing link between the great musical personalities of the time. ”

Cernier musical gardens: mel bonis

Connection with the piano

A career on scenes. in salons which, as often when it comes to women artists, was not necessarily what the society of the time expected it. Born from cernier musical gardens: mel bonis parents from the working -class environment. entrusted to a strict religious education, Mélanie Bonis quickly presented gifts in music, capable, child, of improvisations that ended up attracting the attention of the teaching staff. She joined the Paris Conservatory in 1876 under the leadership of its director Ambroise Thomas. then became one of the first women to enter a composition class.

Very quickly, she amputates her first name with the latest syllables to make him more neutral. “In his time. to have success, you had to be a composer if not nothing, the women were not taken seriously,” notes the pianist and musicologist Christine Géliot, who is also the artist’s great-granddaughter. At times. she will affix the name of her son, or that of Russian composer Liadov on some of his works, even if everyone in Paris knew that they were indeed. “

In her catalog rich in two hundred opus. chamber music, for organ, for an orchestra also (partly composed from 1907, when she improved her art of orchestration with Charles Koechlin), melodies. But above all a lot of piano pieces. cernier musical gardens: mel bonis ranging from the amiable living room room to ambitious abundant collections, like that of “legendary women”, where the composer evokes Mélisande, Desdémone, Ophélie, Viviane, Phoébé, Salomé and Omphale.

Composer. mom

Even if Mel Bonis was not strictly speaking feminist, “the choice of these heroines speaks volumes about his vision of things, since these are destinies upset by the acts of men,” observes David Reiland. Because although professional composer, Mel Bonis was nonetheless a mother. With the obligations that go with it. Married almost by force to a rich industrialist. the musician will have three children with him, but also a secret adulterous girl with her great love of youth, a singer. Bonis will even have the audacity to integrate this home child by passing her for her goddaughter.

“This family life took her a long time. and she often claimed not to feel good to go and compose,” says Christine Géliot. “She was a woman of great inner strength. who had to face the challenges linked to her composer condition at the end of the 19th century^enote Aleksandra Bobrowska. His works often reflect a feeling of nostalgia, introspection and a poetic imagination. cernier musical gardens: mel bonis At the same time, his lighter pieces reveal a playful, sometimes playful facet. ”

Be that as it may. Mel Bonis’s style has its true signature, with its own harmonies, “as well as a very mobile counterpoint conception, close to declamation, and a daring rhythmic freedom for its time, points David Reiland. It is music that says a great talent ”.

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