Hélène de Montgeroult Essentials

When it is said that the achievements of past women composers have not received wide recognition, there’s perhaps no better illustration than the case of Hélène de Montgeroult. Born into French nobility in the late 18th century, she was forbidden to make her profession as a performing pianist, despite her outstanding talent both as interpreter and for improvisation. Nonetheless, in the course of a remarkable life—she was twice imprisoned and came close to a fatal encounter with the guillotine—Montgeroult eventually became the first female piano professor at the Paris Conservatoire. Montgeroult’s enduring legacy includes the publication of Trois sonatas pour le forte-piano, and a Cours complet pour l’enseignement du forte-piano (Complete course for teaching the piano forte), the second part of which contains 70 etudes. The dry title of the latter conceals a wonderful treasure chest of music which was very much ahead of its time. It influenced not only generations of students at the Paris Conservatoire, but also seems to have been a seminal force in German music of the Romantic era, as Clara Schumann’s father, the great piano teacher Friedrich Wieck, appears to have taught his pupils—who included Robert Schumann—using Montgeroult’s Cours complet. At first hearing, Montgeroult’s music sounds not so much like that of her near contemporary Mozart, but like the richly Romantic and expressive works Beethoven composed in his last years in the 1820s, or even of composers composing in the 1830s such as Chopin and Schumann. But perhaps we should rather recognise that it is Montgeroult’s influence that so widely penetrated music of the 19th century. Try her remarkable Etude No. 112 in E-flat major, presented in three movements like a piano sonata: each movement includes a fermata—a point in the music when the performer is given an opportunity to improvise before moving onto the next part of the written music. Montgeroult insisted that such improvisations should not be a mere pretext to show off virtuosity, but to elaborate on the expression and style of the music being performed. Therefore, she is effectively setting the parameters for the expression and style in which the pianist might improvise—and what a wonderfully rich trio of musical styles she offers!