Biography
Augusta Holmès, a French composer whose music slipped into obscurity until the 2010s, moved within the orbit of César Franck and Camille Saint-Saëns and earned notice for an intense, virile compositional manner. Born in Paris in 1847 to Irish parents as their sole child, she grew up chiefly under her father’s care once her mother died in 1858. Her godfather, the poet Alfred de Vigny, was widely rumored to have been her biological father as well. Although she showed early musical promise, her mother had prohibited formal study; only after that prohibition ended did Holmès begin lessons. Barred from the Paris Conservatory on account of her sex, she pursued private instruction instead, working on harmony and counterpoint with Henri Lambert, orchestration with Hyacinthe Klosè, and voice with Guillot de Sainbris, while the Parisian pianist Mademoiselle Peyronnet guided her rapid advancement.
Between 1870 and 1871 she set music aside to serve as a nurse during the Franco-Prussian War; afterward she acquired French citizenship and inserted the accent into her surname. Her first pieces were chiefly songs issued under the male pseudonym Hermann Zenta to circumvent prevailing prejudice against women composers. In the early 1870s she began living with the writer Catulle Mendès; although they remained unmarried, the couple had five children. By 1875 she had gained wide recognition in Paris and, at the urging of her friend Camille Saint-Saëns, became a pupil of César Franck. Thereafter she concentrated on large-scale forms—cantatas, symphonic poems, and two operas. The symphonic poems Irlande, Pologne, and Ludus pro patria proved especially successful and cemented her standing for expansive, grandiose writing.
In 1890 she received a commission to compose the monumental Hymne à la paix for six hundred performers at the Beatrice Exhibition in Florence. Nine years later she supplied another colossal score, Ode triomphale en l'honneur du centenaire de 1789, for nine hundred singers and three hundred instrumentalists at the Universal Exhibition in Paris. Her family later deposited a substantial collection of her manuscripts at the Paris Conservatoire, where most remain unpublished. Interest in her output revived in recent decades. In 2017 BBC Radio 3, working with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, launched a project on Forgotten Female Composers that yielded premiere recordings by the BBC Concert Orchestra, aired for International Women’s Day in 2018. The following year the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Valentina Peleggi gave the first performance of Roland Furieux.
Between 1870 and 1871 she set music aside to serve as a nurse during the Franco-Prussian War; afterward she acquired French citizenship and inserted the accent into her surname. Her first pieces were chiefly songs issued under the male pseudonym Hermann Zenta to circumvent prevailing prejudice against women composers. In the early 1870s she began living with the writer Catulle Mendès; although they remained unmarried, the couple had five children. By 1875 she had gained wide recognition in Paris and, at the urging of her friend Camille Saint-Saëns, became a pupil of César Franck. Thereafter she concentrated on large-scale forms—cantatas, symphonic poems, and two operas. The symphonic poems Irlande, Pologne, and Ludus pro patria proved especially successful and cemented her standing for expansive, grandiose writing.
In 1890 she received a commission to compose the monumental Hymne à la paix for six hundred performers at the Beatrice Exhibition in Florence. Nine years later she supplied another colossal score, Ode triomphale en l'honneur du centenaire de 1789, for nine hundred singers and three hundred instrumentalists at the Universal Exhibition in Paris. Her family later deposited a substantial collection of her manuscripts at the Paris Conservatoire, where most remain unpublished. Interest in her output revived in recent decades. In 2017 BBC Radio 3, working with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, launched a project on Forgotten Female Composers that yielded premiere recordings by the BBC Concert Orchestra, aired for International Women’s Day in 2018. The following year the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Valentina Peleggi gave the first performance of Roland Furieux.