The turn of the century women composers who provided the soundtrack for Silent Sky…

Mel Bonis (Mélanie Hélène Bonis): ‘Au crepuscule’ (At Dusk)
Paris 1858. d. Sarcelles, France, 1937
Heard as Margie’s composition, end of Act 1

Mélanie Bonis wrote over 300 compositions including chamber music, piano pieces, choral works, and songs. As a child, she taught herself piano and then persuaded her reluctant parents to give her a musical education. The composer César Franck took an interest in her compositions and brought her to the Paris Conservatoire. In 1876 she changed her professional name to the androgynous ‘Mel Bonis’. While at the Conservatoire, she fell in love with a singing student, the baritone Amédée Hettich. Her conservative parents did not approve of her intention to marry a musician; they forced her to leave school and marry a much-older businessman, who had been twice widowed and had five boys from those previous marriages.

Bonis, now ‘Madame Domange’, went on to have three children of her own and was forced to set aside her musical career. However, a few years later, she reunited with Hettich, who encouraged her to compose again and helped get her works published. The two began an affair, which resulted in a daughter, Madeleine; she was brought up by a former chambermaid, unaware that Bonis was her mother. After the death of the foster mother, Bonis took the child in, presenting her as her ‘goddaughter’. The truth came out however, when Madeleine later fell in love with one of Bonis’ sons.

Although Bonis is not well-known today, in her lifetime her works were performed regularly in Paris salons and were championed by leading musicians. ‘Au crepuscule’, opus 111, dates from 1923, and is dedicated ‘A ma petite amie Madeleine’ – to her young ‘goddaughter.’

Cécile Chaminade: ‘Valse tendre’ (Tender Waltz)
1857 Paris. d. 1944 Monte Carlo.b
Heard as the fantasy ocean liner waltz, Act 1 & 2

Cécile Chaminade was already composing by the age of eight. The composer Bizet was a family friend; on hearing her play one of her compositions, he suggested her parents send her to a music school. Although her parents were musicians themselves, they opposed the idea and refused to enroll her at the Paris Conservatoire. Instead, she studied privately with several of the professors.

Chaminade made her solo piano debut at 18, touring France and England (she was a favourite of Queen Victoria). A 1908 tour brought her to the United States, where she played Carnegie Hall, The Academy of Music in Philadelphia, and venues throughout the midwest. In the wake of her performances, musical societies called ‘Chaminade Clubs’ sprang up across America. It is easy to imagine Margaret from Silent Sky being an eager member of her local Wisconsin Chaminade Club.

In 1913 Chaminade was the first woman composer named a Chevalier in the Legion of Honor. Despite international fame, however, the Paris musical world was not kind in her later years. Her compositional style came to be seen as old-fashioned, rooted as it was in the high Romantic language of the 1860s and 70s, Whereas earlier critics celebrated her music’s supposed ‘feminine charm’, now those same qualities were criticized as superficial, and the works written off as ‘salon music’. However, whenever she did create and perform works with greater force, they were dismissed as too ‘masculine’.

Chaminade composed more than four hundred pieces, including works for soloist and orchestra, a symphony, art songs, and the piano miniatures she was best known for in her lifetime. Her works are not well-known today; however, one piece has remained hugely popular through the years: her Concertino for Flute is a standard in the instrument’s repertoire. It is so well-known that flautists refer to it simply as ‘The Chaminade’.

May Aufderheide ‘The Thriller! Rag’
Indianapolis 1888, d. Pasadena 1972
Heard on the “real” ocean liner, Act 2

May Aufderheide grew up in a middle-class family in Indianapolis. Aufderheide studied classical piano with her aunt, a pianist with the Indianapolis Symphony. She likely began composing rags while attending Pelham Manor finishing school in New York state. Upon her return from her Grand Tour of Europe in 1908, she married, settled back in Indiana, and decided to publish some of her ragtime pieces.

The promising sales of her first composition,‘Dusty Rag” led her father, John H Aufderheide, a banker and amateur musician, to establish a publishing company dedicated to his daughter’s work. Aufderheide published 19 pieces between 1908 and 1912. ‘The Thriller!’ was her most successful composition. Sadly, however, she ceased composing entirely after 1912.