Germaine Tailleferre Essentials

In an era where women were routinely relegated to the margins of classical music—when they were acknowledged at all—Germaine Tailleferre managed to make her mark. Born just outside Paris in 1892, she emerged as a notable 20th-century composer against the odds. She changed her name from Taillefesse to Tailleferre as a jab against a father who refused to support her music studies, enrolling in and excelling at the Paris Conservatory. In 1917, Erik Satie called her his “musical daughter”. She quickly became part of the city’s vibrant arts community and, soon after, the sole female composer of the music collective Les Six—other members included Darius Milhaud and Francis Poulenc—which rejected Impressionism and the maximalism of Wagner in favour of neo-classical styles. Encouraged by friend Maurice Ravel, she wrote chamber and symphonic music informed by Bach-like counterpoint, starting in the mid-1920s and continuing after the birth of her daughter with her second husband, lawyer Jean Lageat, in 1931. During World War II she moved to Philadelphia, returning to France in 1946, where she continued to compose, including operas, ballets and scores for film and television, until her death in 1983.