Stabat Mater

Description

Clémence de Grandval is one of the important French composers of the second half of the 19th century despite her two handicaps: being born a woman and an aristocrat, which automatically classified her among the dilettantes. A composition student of Camille Saint-Saëns, she successfully expressed herself in all the musical genres that were in vogue at the time, from melody to opera. The Académie des beaux-arts awarded her the Prix Rossini in 1881 for her oratorio La Fille de Jaïre and recognized her significant chamber music in 1890 by granting her the Prix Chartier. Her Stabat was successful from its premiere in Paris in 1870 and was part of the repertoire of many churches and concert societies in Paris and the provinces for several decades. With her Stabat mater, Clémence de Grandval aligns herself with the tradition of 19th-century French music. Her orchestral reduction for piano and harmonium is reminiscent of Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle as well as the works of Charles Gounod, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Alexandre Guilmant, whose accompaniments are written or reduced for the same ensemble. Finally, some composers also sometimes write some of their most beautiful instrumental pieces for this formation, such as César Franck with his Prélude, fugue et variations.