La Trompette (musical society)

La Trompette was a chamber music society based in Paris, founded by Émile Lemoine in January 1861.[1] It has been credited with a major role in the propagation of chamber music in France.[2] Performers included Camille Saint-Saëns, Louis Diémer, Paul Taffanel, Felix Weingartner, Pablo Casals, Harold Bauer, Wanda Landowska, Alfred Cortot, and Serge Koussevitzky.[3][4]

History

The society was founded in 1861 by Lemoine and three fellow students at the École Polytechnique, who enjoyed playing quartets. The name "La Trompette" stemmed from a "non-sympathetic remark a teacher once made to quiet the quartet". With increasing popularity, it became a weekly private concert series. In 1878, the society moved to the hall of the Horticultural Society at 84 Rue de Grenelle, which seated 850.[4]

Lemoine kept the nature of the society informal, considering himself not a manager or director but a host, and members of the society not to be subscribers but his friends, even though an annual monetary contribution was requested from each guest.[1]

The concerts were invitation-only, Lemoine considering the audiences "very musical and ultra-select, with distinction and intellectual value but without snobbery". They began in the late evening, often with a quartet, and were held late December to early May. Most concerts combined a variety of styles, periods, and genres.[4]

After Lemoine died in 1913, his wife continued the society.[4]

Saint-Saëns

Camille Saint-Saëns, a friend of Lemoine, was a longtime associate of La Trompette. He wrote his Septet specifically for the society, after Lemoine had "pestered" him years for a special piece to justify the name of the society.[5]

Compositions by Saint-Saëns that were premiered at La Trompette include:[6]

References
  1. Grove, George, ed. (1890). "Trompette, La". A Dictionary of Music and Musicians. London: Macmillan and Company.
  2. Cooper, Jeffrey Hawley (1983). A Renaissance in the Nineteenth Century. The rise of instrumental music and concert series in Paris, 1828-1871. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press. p. 526. ISBN 0-8357-1403-9.
  3. Baron, John H. (2010). Chamber Music: A Research and Information Guide (Third ed.). New York: Routledge. p. 161. ISBN 978-1-138-88402-1.
  4. Pasler, Jann (1993). "Concert Programs and their Narratives as Emblems of Ideology". International Journal of Musicology. 2: 249–308. ISSN 0941-9535. JSTOR 24617987.
  5. Ratner, Sabina Teller (2005). Notes to Hyperion CD Saint-Saëns Chamber Music. London: Hyperion Records. OCLC 61134605.
  6. Ratner, Sabina Teller (2002). Camille Saint-Saëns, 1835–1922: A Thematic Catalogue of his Complete Works, Volume 1: The Instrumental Works. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-816320-6.

Further reading
  • Augé de Lassur, Lucien (1911). La Trompette: Un Demi-Siècle de Musique de Chambre. Paris: Ch. Delagrave.
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