The day after the opening by violinist Nemanja Radulovic, the 76th Menton Music Festival honors women composers this Thursday evening
It's here! The 76th Music Festival kicked off last night. The Saint-Michel square was full, impatient, fervent, and happy. The Saint-Michel Basilica and the Church of the White Penitents shone resplendently in the night, offering their baroque facades to the caress of the spotlights. Cloudy weather, overcast skies. But the sun was in the music. We saw that devil of a violinist, Nemanja Radulovic, arrive briskly, in a white jacket and black T-shirt, hair down to the middle of his back, bow raised, heels pounding, music at his fingertips.
Immediately, Vivaldi's Spring from The Four Seasons fills the space. His violin runs, flies, laughs, languishes in unexpected slow motions, allows itself new accents, whispers infinitely tenuous pianissimos, and takes off again in solar bursts. All this lives, vibrates, astonishes, and excites. The orchestra, which plays standing up, is called Double Sens. A curious name for an orchestra! In any case, it fits Radulovic's style. He was trained for this! From the start, the audience is captivated. They will be carried away until the end of the evening.
A change of tone today. The festival continues, but at the Palais de l'Europe. This venue presents, at 6 p.m., concerts by artists who are relatively early in their careers. The Palais concerts are a festival within the festival. Every year, they give rise to wonderful discoveries. Haven't we heard pianists like Adam Laloum or Alexandre Kantorow there at previous festivals, who have gone on to become the stars we know today?
Today, it will be Célia Oneto-Bensaid's turn to perform. She is far from being a beginner! This 32-year-old Parisian, winner of several prizes in international competitions, already performs on major stages at the Philharmonie de Paris , the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, and at the Folles Journées de Nantes and La Roque d'Anthéron festivals.
While playing traditional composers like Bach, Liszt or Ravel, she has chosen to forge her own path off the beaten track and commit to a cause in which she deserves to be supported: the defense of women composers.
Greatly forgottenWomen composers, including those whose works Célia Oneto-Bensaid will perform this afternoon, are largely forgotten in the history of music. Do you know Marie Jaëll, Augusta Holmes, Mel Bonis, Louise Farrenc, Cécile Chaminade, or Germaine Tailleferre? These musicians wrote works of great value. But they were women! They weren't listened to. They lived at a time when it was thought they should be at home, in their roles as wives and mothers. Germaine Tailleferre's father went further and said: "For my daughter, being at the conservatory or working the streets is the same thing!"
In 1908, the New York Evening Post dared to write: "If women can ever vote, they will never manage to compose anything worthwhile!" And yet, these women had talent. Liszt said of Marie Jaël: "A man's name on her scores, and her music would be on every piano!"
Wanting to rehabilitate women composers, Célia Oneto Bensaid recorded a CD of works by Marie-Jaël. She is also the dedicatee of works by contemporary female composers such as Camille Pépin. This afternoon, she will offer us a program entitled Miroirs liquide (Liquid Mirrors), in which all the works were composed by women: Impressions de mer (Sea Impressions) by the Ukrainian composer Marcelle de Manziarly, En gondole (In a Gondola) by Jeanne Leleu, Aquarium by Fernande Decruck, Incandescence by Camille Pépin, Les jours pluieux (Rainy Days) by Marie Jaëll, and Musiques sur l'eau (Music on Water) by Rita Strohl. By honoring women composers, the festival honors itself.
Learn More Today, at the Palais de l'Europe, 6 p.m. Price: 20 euros. Tel.: 04.83.93.70.20.
Marie Jaëll is one of the female composers who will be performing this afternoon. The program includes a series of short pieces with refreshing titles, but which we hope won't bode ill for the weather!: Rainy Days! The collection includes twelve pieces: A Few Drops of Rain, Wind and Rain, Grayness, Little Fine Rain, In a Quarrel, Sheltered, Morose, We Cry, The Storm Does Not Come, Wilted Roses, Boring as Rain, We Dream of Good Weather. A whole program of expressionist music!
Marie Jaëll has been well and truly forgotten. Born in 1846 in the village of Steinseltz in northern Alsace, she proved to be a child pianist prodigy. Her mother, transforming herself into an impresario, organized an international tour for her. At 10, she performed before Queen Victoria. At 12, Saint-Saëns dedicated his first piano concerto to her. She subsequently became one of the most sought-after solo pianists in Europe.
But she was also a composer. She denounced the fact that her works were not performed because they were those of a woman. A feminist before her time, she wrote a book: I Am a Bad Boy. In it, she stated: "Woman shares with man the right to pleasure and pain, why should she not have the right to work?" Was she really a "bad boy" ? We will have the opportunity to find out this afternoon. =============LEG_Legende (15954389)============
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