Germaine Tailleferre: Her Concerto Grosso and Why You Shouldn’t Overlook This Composer Any Longer
A couple months ago I stumbled across an orchestral recording on YouTube titled Germaine Tailleferre: Concerto for 2 pianos, chorus, 4 sax & orchestra. So… That’s a mouthful, but wow! That combination of instruments seemed fascinating to me!
I preceded to listen and was subsequently knocked to the back of my chair by a fanfare of energy and elation. The piece unfolded with so many exquisite colors and characters that it was a joy to listen to from start to finish.
Honestly at the time I didn’t know much about Tailleferre. I remember reading her name a couple times in college, and I listened to a wonderful live performance of her Harp Sonata when I was at Alba Music Festival in 2018. That was it really. I enjoyed the Harp Sonata, but I was so busy with the Festival that I really didn’t have much time to dwell on the piece or the composer. After discovering this concerto of so many instruments (I later learned it’s also called Concerto Grosso, and that’s what I’ll be calling it here on out. ha!), my interests were certainly piqued and I just had to know more about this composer.
To my surprise, there was not much material to find on Tailleferre’s life when compared to her contemporaries of the time. Her own Wikipedia is extremely sparse. It kind of drove me a little bit crazy, and I ended up going down the rabbit hole trying to learn about this person. What I did find about her and this representative work was so fascinating I was inspired to write about her in hopes of cultivating a new generation of Tailleferre listeners.
Here are three things you should know about Germaine Tailleferre:
1. A Revolutionary Writer of Her Time
Les Six with Jean Cocteau. Left to right: Tailleferre, Poulenc, Honegger, Milhaud, Cocteau, and Auric. Not Pictured: Durey
Tailleferre was a leading voice of her generation. Her compositional skills caught the attention of veteran composer Erik Satie early in her career and went so far as to anoint her as his “musical daughter.” Satie would later help cultivate a number of composers in the 1920’s that would reshape the musical aesthetic of Post-War France by rejecting Wagner, Debussy, and the heavy nationalism that caused The Great War in the first place. This collective of composers would come to be known as Les Six; Tailleferre was the only woman of the group.
In the Concerto Grosso we can hear just how inventive and ambitious Tailleferre truly was. This piece is scored for orchestra, choir, two pianos, and four saxophones, and somehow she manages to find balance among ALL of them. We notice that never does it sound bloated or overly burdensome to the ear. Each timbral color comes into focus fleetingly and shifts to the next color, every combination of instruments a unique thumbprint of sound.
2. Making Music in the Face of Adversity
Tailleferre’s personal life was marked by periods of turmoil that proved to hinder her output and growth as a composer. She grew up in a household where her father was unkind and unfaithful to her mother. Arguments were frequent, and he strongly disapproved of Germaine’s own musical development. When she was accepted to the Paris Conservatoire at age 12 to study piano, she had to attend in secret from her father.
In adulthood, her marital life was particularly gruesome. Although her first marriage began blissfully enough, her husband struggled with bipolar disorder resulting in bouts of violence. The marriage came to a terrifying ending when he tried shooting Tailleferre while she was pregnant in an attempt to abort the child. She fled to safety never to see him again, but the trauma resulted in a miscarriage. She later learned that her husband committed suicide.
At the time Tailleferre wrote the Concerto Grosso in 1934, she was married again, this time to someone who was violently alcoholic and so unsupportive of her musical career that he was known to splatter ink onto her manuscripts.
What is amazing to recognize is through all of this is Tailleferre’s willpower to continue to not just write wonderfully crafted music but to choose to write music that is jubilant, exhilarating, and triumphant. In a 1982 New York Times interview she shared “I have had a very difficult life, you know. Only I do not like to talk about it. I write happy music as a release.”
We can certainly hear a determined happiness and triumph in this piece. Just listen to how thrilling this finish is to the first movement.
3. Nearly Forgotten
Many of Tailleferre’s works remain unpublished, unrecorded, or outright lost forever.
She was well supported by her colleagues in Les Six, and had even built a close friendship with Maurice Ravel who adored her musical style and became a mentor to her.
This sentiment of respect and admiration was not shared by music critics of the time, however, and they were particularly callous focusing more on her looks than her music. One critic described her music as “subpar” but was at least “decidedly the best looking of Les Six.” Her critics’ refusal to take her seriously as a composer drastically suppressed demand for commissions, performances, and recordings, and to this day her orchestral music is seldomly performed in concert halls as a result.
Even worse, a large amount of her original manuscripts were lost during WW II. Tailleferre and her family fled Occupied France to the US and upon their return, discovered their home was used throughout the war as a Nazi communication center. Her music was nowhere to be found.
The Concerto Grosso was virtually forgotten after its 1934 premiere until it was discovered by chance in the 1990s by composer/saxophonist Paul Wehage. Its journey of revival required determination and collaboration of many including pianists Pascal and Ami Rogé. Many parts were missing, and even with the parts carefully transcribed from the score, persuading an orchestra to perform the work proved difficult. It’s an amazing story and you can read more about it in the sources I’ve listed below. Wehage’s account on the matter is a great read. I highly recommend.
In 2015, Tailleferre’s Concerto Grosso just received its second performance since its premiere in 1934, and it is thanks to the hard work of these individuals. The recordings I have been using throughout are from that very performance. That’s the only one that exists. I am so glad that this piece has had a chance to survive. Just listen to how gorgeous and intimate this moment is from the second movement.
Reviving an Overlooked Master
Since discovering the Concerto Grosso back in February, I have taken time to get better acquainted with Tailleferre’s music. It’s incredible work, and it is mind-numbing to try to understand how this composer eludes our attention to this day.
One of the many reasons that I believe some composers get played more often than others is because they have a story that can resonate more readily with an audience and therefore is more “marketable.” For example, everyone knows the basic outline of Beethoven’s life and can empathize with someone who is working to overcome a struggle like he did. Frustrating as it may be, it is no wonder he is still the most programmed composer by orchestras today. Well, with Tailleferre, we have a case for a composer who very much had a fascinating, if not absolutely heart-wrenching, life and was still determined to write as much as she could with as much skill and grace as she could muster.
Her story of hardship and triumph can resonate strongly with audiences, and her works can contend with those of the other great composers of her time.
It would be so phenomenal to see the Concerto Grosso and other orchestral works by this wonderful composer programmed regularly by professional symphonies. I am using whatever platform I have here online to build more awareness for Tailleferre so that one day in the future she can be performed alongside the other great 20th-century composers as the master and contender she is.
If you found this interesting please feel free to read through the sources I used to write this blog down below. You can also find full performance of the Concerto Grosso. Additional works by Tailleferre can be found on YouTube and other streaming services. As always, thanks for listening.