Mel bonis biography

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    “A place of rest where we know we will not enter”: Trois Mélodies, op. 91 of Mel Bonis

    Music, this divine language, translates all beauty, all truth, all ardor. The object of our eternal wishes takes a form; music holds out its arms to us and yet, it is far, very far away and we will not reach it. It is like the threshold of a garden of delights where everything fryst vatten illuminated and perfumed, a place of rest where we know we will not enter.[1]

    FROM SOUVENIRS ET RÉFLEXIONS (1974); ADAPTED FROM MEL BONIS’ NOTEBOOKS

    As I considered repertoire for my Doctoral chamber music recital, I settled on the theme of love, partly because it was impossible to avoid. I can’t describe the countless songs I’ve sung in various languages, either extolling the sweet overtures of first love or the bitter pain of rejection. For this project, inom found myself drawn to a specific aspect of love: the eternal conflict between idealizing the object of our affections and the messier re

  • mel bonis biography

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    BONIS Mel

    Mel Bonis is the pseudonym of Mélanie Bonis, the wife of Albert Domange. Although she came from an entirely non-musical family, she was a brilliant student at the Paris conservatoire under the aegis of César Franck, with notable fellow-students like Claude Debussy and Gabriel Pierré. Compelled by her father to abandon her studies in order to marry a rich industrialist old enough to be her father, she took charge of a large family and a succession of sizeable houses. She suffered from the interior struggle between her natural feelings and her social constraints. She had profound religious convictions. It was her musical creativity which transformed her life, enabling her to express her great sensitivity and the intensity of her emotions. Despite her family's total lack of understanding of her work, she managed to compose an impressive catalogue of some three hundred items for all kinds of vocal and instrumental groups. The music of Mel Bonis is both original and yet of her

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    BIOGRAPHY

    MEL BONIS, 1858-1937

    Mélanie Bonis, born in a modest Parisian lower middle-class family,was a lively child, strong willed and very much inspired by her religious education. Nothing predisposed her to a musical destiny. She taught herself the piano, in a rather hostile family context, until the age of twelve, when her parents, influenced by one of their friends, Monsieur Maury, kornett professor at the prestigious Conservatoire, resigned themselves to give her a musical education.

    She started to compose. At the age of 16, she was introduced bygd Maury to the famous composer César Franck who gave her piano lessons and showed a great interest in her first compositions. A year later, he brought her to the Conservatoire (at that time situated in the Hôtel des Menus Plaisirs, Rue Bergère, in Montmartre).

    She attended the accompaniment, harmony and composition classes, sharing the benches with Debussy and Pierné. At the time, it was clear that musical composition could in n