Four Centuries of Great Music August 16, 2026 Women of La Belle Epoque

Four Centuries of Great Music
FCGM-08-16-26-Women of La Belle Epoque

This episode  of Four Centuries of Great Music is a celebration of the upcoming release by Boulanger Initiative of the third in their series of books Beyond the Box, Into the Barlines which features the biographies of women composers.
The next edition of this series is Beyond the Box, Into the Barlines: Women of La Belle Epoque which explores French female composers at the turn of the 19th into the 20th centuries. So today on  Four Centuries of Great Music I will be featuring French female composers at the turn of the 19th into the 20th centuries.   Now strictly speaking La Belle Epoque ended at the beginning of the First World War but I will be stretching this era out to include the composers active in the years between the World Wars as well.

Lets open this first hour of Four Centuries of Great Music with Cécile Chaminade.   Yes, I celebrated her last week for her birthday this month - but honestly I cannot get enough of her music.  

Lets listen to two sets of her piano music:
Concertstück for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 40 
I. Primavera
II. La chaise . porteurs 
III. Idylle arabe 
IV. S.r.nade d’automne
V. Danse hindoue

Neeme Järvi, conductor Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and  Anna Shelest, piano
DONNA VOCE VOLUME 3:  CLARA SCHUMANN • CÉCILE CHAMINADE
 Music & Arts Programs of America/Sorel Organization

Pièces Romantiques, Op. 55 for piano four hands

Anna & Dmitri Shelest, piano

DONNA VOCE VOLUME 3:  CLARA SCHUMANN • CÉCILE CHAMINADE
 Music & Arts Programs of America/Sorel Organization

Next let close out this first hour of today’s episode of Four Centuries of Great Music featuring Women of La Belle Epoque with the music of Charlotte Sohy     SO-eee

Charlotte Sohy was born Charlotte Durey on July 7, 1887 in Paris, France.  A precocious child, she received musical training from George Marty on piano and music theory. She was introduced to the musical world at a young age and was friends with both Nadia Boulanger and Mel Bonis. She continued her musical studies at the Schola Cantorum (Paris), where she studied organ with Alexandre Guilmant and later with Louis Vierne, as well as composition with Vincent d’Indy.

As a composer, Charlotte Sohy wrote masses, art songs, piano pieces, trios, string quartets, in addition to a symphony and the lyrical drama L'Esclave couronnée under a variety of pen names. Her musical compositions were performed by Paul Dukas, Maurice Ravel, and Gabriel Fauré frequently at the Salon of Marguerite de Saint-Marceaux,

Although very poplar after the first World War, her pieces were performed less often.  She was a ousin of Louis Durey, a member of Les Six.

Charlotte Sohy:  Symphony in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 10 (Grande Guerre): I. Lent - Vif - Modéré
Charlotte Sohy:  Symphony in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 10 (Grande Guerre): II. Vif - Lent - Vif
Charlotte Sohy:  Symphony in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 10 (Grande Guerre): III. Vif - Plus lent - A tempo

Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, Bar Avni, conductor
Symphonies in 3 Movements
Alpha Classics


Lets open this seond hour of today’s episode of Four Centuries of Great Music featuring Women of La Belle Epoque with Mel Bonis

I have talked about Mel Bonis before but to review she was born January 21, 1858  in Paris France and was a prolific French late-Romantic composer. She wrote more than 300 pieces, including works for piano solo and four hands, organ pieces, chamber music, mélodies, choral music, a mass, and works for orchestra. She attended the Paris Conservatoire, where her teachers included César Franck who actually  paid her tuition.  She fell in love with a fellow student who her parents rejected as a mate and married her off to a man 22 years her senior who did not like music.  She immersed herself in domesticity but in  1890s she devoted herself again to composition. Her piano quartet was performed in 1901, and when he heard it, Saint-Saens exclaimed in a backhanded compliment, "I never imagined a woman could write such music!". Bonis was too modest for self-promotion, and even her admirers at the time did not overlook her gender. After the First World War, her music fell into obscurity, and she became bedridden from arthritis. She continued to compose until her death in 1937.  Let’s listen to some of her orchestra music.

Mel Bonis– Works for Orchestra
CPO Records 
WDR Sinfonieorchester Joseph Bastian, conductor 

Alpha Classics

Trois femmes de légende 
1 Le Songe de Cléopâtre op.180 ' 
2 Ophélie op.165  
3 Salomé op.100/2  


Les Gitanos, Valse éspagnole op.15/3 

Suite en forme de valses        
1.  Ballabile op.37/3      
2.  Interlude et Valse lente op.38/3            
3.  Scherzo-valse op.35/3 '  


We will be closing this episode of of Four Centuries of Great Music featuring Women of La Belle Epoque with music by Lili Boulanger.

The life of Lili Boulanger is one of the saddest stories in music history.  She was born on August 21, 1893 to a middle-class musical family, her father Ernest Boulanger was a vocal teacher at the Conservatoire de Paris and her mother was a singer.  Her older sister Nadia Boulanger was a composer and composition teacher of some of the greatest compositional voices of the 20th and 21st centuries including Grażyna Bacewicz, Daniel Barenboim, Burt Bacharach, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, David Diamond, John Eliot Gardiner, Philip Glass, Roy Harris, Quincy Jones, Adolphus Hailstork, Michel Legrand, Gian Carlo Menotti, Astor Piazzolla, Julia Perry, Manuel M. Ponce, George Walker and hundreds more.

At 6 the went with her sister to the Paris Conservatoire and started auditing classes.  Her studies were interrupted by chronic  illness, but she was the first woman to earn the Prix de Rome at the age of 19.   She was very active as a composer with a prominent publisher but died at the age of 24 on March 15, 1918

Let’s listen to her Clairieres Dans Le Ciel for voice and piano
Clair-ee-air don lay  Che-lay-ah

05 Clairieres Dans Le Ciel (For Voice And Piano)_ I. Elle Etait Descendue
06 Clairieres Dans Le Ciel (For Voice And Piano)_ II. Si Tout Ceci
07 Clairieres Dans Le Ciel (For Voice And Piano)_ III. Nous Nous Aimerons
08 Clairieres Dans Le Ciel (For Voice And Piano)_ IV. Demain, Fera Un An

Emile Naoumoff, soprano & Isabelle Sabrie, piano
In Memoriam Lili Boulanger
Marco-Polo Records

I will conclude today’s episode of Four Centuries of Great Music featuring Women of La Belle Epoque with a live performance of Lili Boulanger's "D’un Matin de Printemps" - by Laura Colgate (violin) and Andrew Welch (piano) in October 2017 at the University of Maryland