Germaine Tailleferre
(1892-1983)

LÉONIE ROSENSTIEL

Germaine Tailleferre showed her musical gifts at the age of four, when she picked out melodies by ear on the piano and even composed a short piano piece. Over her father’s objections but with her mother’s support and encouragement, she entered the Conservatoire in Paris in 1904. There, between 1906 and 1915, she walked off with first prizes in solfege, harmony, counterpoint, and keyboard harmony. She began her studies in orchestration with Charles Koechlin and completed them under Maurice Ravel.

Tailleferre and three fellow students at the Conservatoire—Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric, and Arthur Honegger—were later to create a sensation in musical circles. Along with Louis Durey and Francis Poulenc, and with the encouragement of Eric Satie, they formed a group, called at first the “Nouveaux Jeunes” (New Young Composers). In 1917 works by each of the six composers first appeared together, on a recital program by singer Jane Bathori. By 1918, Tailleferre’s works had been introduced to an international audience by Erik Satie.

Satie’s friend Jean Cocteau promoted the interests of the group and acted as its spokesperson. In his 1918 book Le Coq et l’arlequin (The Cock and the Harlequin), he spoke out against the German Romantic tradition, with its interest in pomp and complexity, and criticized such composers as Wagner, Strauss, and Schoenberg. Of the composers Cocteau mentioned, he praised only Satie—for his simplicity, wit, and lack of pretension—and he asked that composers take their inspiration from everyday life, to look to machines, the music hall, jazz, and the circus for their ideas.

Although the group was never completely cohesive artistically, in 1920 it received the name by which its members have been known ever since, “Les Six” (The Six). Tailleferre had the distinction of being known as “the only woman of Les Six,” “The Smile of Les Six,” and eventually “The Last Surviving Member of Les Six.”

In June 1921, Les Mariés de la tour Eiffel (The Bride and Bridegroom of the Eiffel Tower), a ballet with two speaking voices, with text and choreography by Cocteau, had its premier in Paris. The speaking parts were supposed to represent phonographs describing a surrealistic wedding party; the music was a collective work of the group, with various pieces contributed by all the members except Durey. As a group their only other collective effort was an album of piano pieces. Only Poulenc retained his adherence to the group’s initial, conscious simplicity. Satie and Honegger had a falling out; Durey became a Socialist; and Auric stayed on as Cocteau’s collaborator on films in later years.

Tailleferre stood somewhat apart from these personal machinations, remaining on good terms with her former colleagues and collaborators. The music world gathered in her salon, and her fame grew not only for her music but also for her friendship with other musicians and artists, first between the world wars in Paris, then in the United States during and shortly after World War II. After the war she returned to Paris, where she spent her last years.

A prolific composer, Tailleferre worked in all genres, from film scores and music for radio to operas, concertos, chamber music, and songs. She was most active before the 1960s, feeling little sympathy for the newest serial and electronic musical developments. She summed up her artistic credo this way: “I create music because I enjoy doing it. It’s not great music. I know that. It’s cheerful, light music that sometimes gets me compared to the lesser 18th century masters, and I’m proud to be.”

Her compositions are mainly in a spontaneous, fresh style, in the musical idiom of Fauré and Ravel, which invites immediate listener understanding without being pedantic. Not until 1958, in her Clarinet Sonata, did Tailleferre experiment with serialism and polytonality. But it was only an experiment, not a permanent part of her musical language, and for the rest of her life she remained opposed to formula music, by either live performers or electronic means. Tailleferre believed that if the listener could not identify a composer’s style after three bars, the composition was lacking in artistry.

Sonate no. 1 for violin and piano, the first movement of which is presented here, shows Tailleferre at her most typical. It was completed in 1921, while Les Six were most active as a group, and published in 1923. It is dedicated to the great violinist Jacques Thibaud, a promoter of young composers in his day, who edited and fingered it for publication. The composer is clearly comfortable writing for the instrument, and the violin part is an encyclopedia of bowings, paying tribute to Thibaud’s honorific title “master of the bow.” In the interplay of complementary sonorities and the intertwined arabesques of the two instruments, the sonata is an exaltation of effortless technique. Tailleferre cheerfully avoids any pretensions to great musical depth, but her sonata, in its deceptive simplicity, combines enjoyable music with careful craft.

Sonate

Germaine Tailleferre

Durand &. Cie. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Theodore Presser Company, Sole Representative U.S.A. & Canada.