Donald Macleod delves into the final years of scientific exploration and isolation for Marie Jaëll

For the first time in the history of Composer of the Week, Donald Macleod explores the life and music of Marie Jaëll [1846-1925]. Jaëll was a piano prodigy, a composer across a wide spectrum of genres including opera and chamber music, and a revolutionary when it came to the art of teaching and playing the piano. She knew many distinguished musicians including Liszt, Saint-Saëns, César Franck, Brahms, Fauré and Rossini, but hers is a name which has been largely forgotten. Donald Macleod this week uncovers Jaëll's music, and tells her story.

In the last few decades of Marie Jaëll’s life, she turned her back on performing and composing, and devoted her time to studying the art of touch in keyboard playing, theorising, publishing books and articles, and teaching. Jaëll also collaborated with the physiologist Dr Féré, and they devised together a system of exercises intended to realise the potential of each individual finger. Jaëll was pushing boundaries, but her friends started to feel she was going too far: in her research, she became fascinated with the rhythms of life, and would study the movement of trees. At the same time, she became increasingly isolated, and would often refuse people entry to her home if they called without an appointment.

6 Melancholy Waltzes: No 5 in A minor; No 3 in G sharp minor
Alexandre Sorel, piano

Ce qu’on entend dans le Paradis (18 Pieces for piano after reading Dante)
Cora Irsen, piano

Pieces for Children
Alexandre Sorel, piano

Désirs ardents; Amour involontaire; Union malheureuse; Épilogue (La Légende des ours)
Chantal Santon-Jeffery, soprano
Brussels Philharmonic
Hervé Niquet, director

Produced by Luke Whitlock, for BBC Wales Show less