Donald Macleod and Anastasia Belina look at how Augusta Holmès and Henri Duparc fared during the Siege of Paris in 1870.

Imagine creating a grand spectacle that demands 1,200 performers, along with the most lavish sets and costumes. You might think that the figure behind such an extraordinary achievement would have staked a claim on immortality, yet despite achieving considerable fame in her own lifetime, this is not the fate that befell Augusta Holmès. Over the passage of time her name has disappeared into obscurity, whilst that of her direct contemporary, Henri Duparc has grown and prospered. These days he’s regarded as one of the leading figures of French song, yet it’s still the case that relatively little is known about his life.

In Duparc’s case his is a reputation built on the slenderest of musical means, some seventeen mélodies. By contrast, Holmès’s Ode triomphale, which was written to mark the centenary of France’s 1789 revolution, is the largest of a generous collection of large-scale orchestral works, to which you can also add four operas, the last of which was mounted at the Paris Opera in 1895, as well as considerable catalogue of songs.

To shed light on Holmès's music, several of her works, including one of her symphonies, have been specially recorded by the BBC Performing Groups, as part of the Forgotten Women Composers project, which was developed by the BBC in association with the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Helping Donald Macleod uncover more about the little-known Augusta Holmès and Henri Duparc, is Anastasia Belina, a researcher with a particular interest in 19th-century music and women composers.

Holmès and Duparc both contributed to the war effort, as a nurse, and as a member of the 18th Battalion. Yet despite the exigencies of their situation, music-making was still possible.

Holmès: La Haine (excerpt)
Rebecca de Pont Davies, mezzo contralto
Clare Toomer, piano

Duparc: La Vague et la cloche
Françoise Pollet, soprano
Orchestra Symphonique et lyrique de Nancy
Jérome Kaltenbach, conductor

Holmès: Memento mei deus
BBC Singers
Hilary Campbell, conductor

Duparc: Lénore, symphonic poem
Toulouse Capitole Orchestra
Michel Plasson, director

Duparc: Au pays où se fait la guerre
Janet Baker, mezzo soprano
London Symphony Orchestra
André Previn, conductor

Holmès: Irlande
Rheinland-Pfalz Philharmonic
Samuel Friedman, conductor
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