Donald Macleod and Anastasia Belina reflect on the very different characters of Augusta Holmès and Henri Duparc with music including Duparc’s La vie antérieure.

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, a collaboration 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 in19th-century music and women composers.

The failure of her opera La montagne noire was a huge disappointment to Holmès but it did not prevent her from working on new projects. Duparc’s creative life came to an abrupt end through the re-appearance of a debilitating illness but despite a long compositional silence, his songs continued to find new audiences.

Holmès: La Nuit et l’Amour (from Ludus pro Patria)
Rheinland-Pfalz Philharmonic
Patrick Davin, conductor

Duparc: Élégie
Sarah Walker, mezzo soprano
Roger Vignoles, piano

Holmès: Le château du rêve
Eva Csapò, soprano
Alicja Masan, piano

Duparc: Danse lente
Orchestre symphonique et lyrique de Nancy
Jérome Kaltenbach, conductor

Holmès: Andromède
Rheinland-Pfalz Philharmonic
Samuel Friedmann, conductor

Duparc: La via antérieure
Christiane Karg, soprano
Bamberg Symphony
David Afkham, conductor Show less