Germaine Tailleferre

Marcelle Germaine Taillefesse was born on 19 April 1892 at Saint-Maur-des-Fossés near Paris. Her mother, an amateur musician, taught her the piano and encouraged her gifts, but her authoritarian father opposed her making music her profession, which he thought unworthy of a young woman. In 1904 she nevertheless entered the Paris Conservatoire thanks to her mother’s support, who paid for her lessons in secret. She won many first prizes there, in solfège, harmony, counterpoint and accompaniment.

In 1912, to assert her independence and break symbolically with her father, she changed her surname to “Tailleferre”. At the Conservatoire she became friends with Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honegger and Georges Auric. Together they frequented the studios of the painters of Montmartre and Montparnasse, such as Picasso, Modigliani and Marie Laurencin, and took an interest in the newest art. Germaine also played the harp, for which she would compose many works.

In 1917 she composed Jeux de plein air for two pianos, a fresh and humorous work. Erik Satie heard it and at once called her his “musical daughter”. He invited her to take part in the concerts of the “Nouveaux Jeunes”. In 1920 a critic, Henri Collet, published an article on six young composers — Milhaud, Honegger, Auric, Poulenc, Durey and Tailleferre — whom he dubbed “Les Six”, echoing the Russian “Five”. Germaine was the only woman. Les Six, gathered around Jean Cocteau, championed simple, clear, joyful music, free from the influence of Wagner and Impressionism.

In 1921 they composed together Les Mariés de la tour Eiffel, a farce by Cocteau for the Ballets Suédois. That same year Tailleferre wrote her Violin Sonata No. 1, dedicated to the violinist Jacques Thibaud. In 1923 she composed Le Marchand d’oiseaux for the Ballets Suédois, a great success, and a Piano Concerto, premiered by Alfred Cortot. Maurice Ravel, whom she admired, gave her advice on orchestration and encouraged her to compete for the Prix de Rome.

In 1925 she went to the United States, where she performed as a pianist and met Charlie Chaplin. There in 1926 she married the American caricaturist Ralph Barton, a very jealous man who resented her success and prevented her from composing; the couple divorced a few years later. In 1927 her Concertino for harp and orchestra was premiered in Boston by the harpist Carlos Salzedo and became one of her most performed works. Back in France she married a lawyer, Jean Lageat, with whom she had a daughter, Françoise, but this second marriage was also difficult.

During the Second World War she took refuge in the United States with her daughter and composed little. She returned to France in 1946. In the 1950s and 1960s she composed a great deal in many genres: radio operas, film and documentary scores, concertos, pieces for harp, such as the Petit Livre de harpe (1955), and for piano. She wrote serious works and light music with equal ease and continued to collaborate with her old friends from Les Six.

Often in financial difficulty, she sometimes had to sell her manuscripts and accept modest commissions. Past eighty she became an accompanist and music teacher for children at the École alsacienne in Paris, where she taught from 1976. She composed until the end of her life and died in Paris on 7 November 1983, aged ninety-one, the last surviving member of Les Six. Her work, long neglected, is now being rediscovered and recorded.