Rita Strohl Essentials

Myth and mysticism often intertwine in the exquisite music of Rita Strohl. The composer, born in Brittany in 1865, was the daughter of Élodie La Villette, one of a vanishingly small number of women to forge a career as a painter in 19th-century France. Young Rita’s musical talents were encouraged by her parents and led during her early teens to studies in piano and music theory at the elite Paris Conservatoire. She also received private lessons in composition and singing, which supplied secure foundations for her large output of songs, including the hypnotic “La Momie” from Dix Poésies mise en musique. Strohl’s early works, the Premier Trio (1884), Quatuor for strings (1885) and Grande Fantaisie-Quintette (1886) impressive among them, predate her marriage to the naval officer Emile Strohl. Solitude, her “Reverie” for cello and piano, was first published in 1897, three years before her husband’s death. It proved a popular hit, building on the success of her finest cello composition, the monumental Sonate dramatique “Titus et Bérénice” (1892), inspired by Racine’s tragic tale of love and betrayal. In 1900 she gave a performance of her clarinet trio Arlequin et Columbine in company with Pablo Casals, among the greatest cellists of the age. Following her remarriage to the much younger René Billa, a stained-glass artist, amateur pianist, and devotee of the operas of Richard Wagner, she moved to the Paris suburbs. The couple, backed by Symbolist painter Odilon Redon, attempted to build La Grange at Bièvres, a theater intended for performances of Rita’s esoteric (and unfinished) stage works based on Christian, Celtic, and Hindu epics. Their grand project ended with the First World War’s outbreak in 1914. Her dozen settings of Belgian poet Pierre Louÿs’ erotic Chansons de Bilitis, sumptuous Symphonie de la Forêt, and orchestral songs such as Les Cygnes reflect the inventive brilliance, expressive depth, and heartfelt eloquence of Strohl’s mature music. Although she continued to compose until her death in 1941, her finest works belong to the period 1893 to 1913.