Postgraduate Researchers

PhD Research Student - Conservatoire

Project title: The Musical Legacy of Cécile Chaminade: An Examination of Style and Transnationalism in her Recordings (1901–1930)  

Project abstract:

Cécile Chaminade (1857–1944) was a prominent French composer and pianist who had an exceptional output of four-hundred published works. From the age of eighteen, Chaminade enjoyed a successful performance career, with concert tours throughout Europe and in America.  

Between 1901 and 1914, she recorded twenty-two of her own piano works through Gramophone discs and Duo-Art reproducing piano rolls. Despite this, there has been no scholarly examination of these recordings in terms of their historical and interpretive significance. While a lot of work has focussed on her reception in the United States, where hundreds of Chaminade Clubs were established, her transnational popularity in Britain is yet to be investigated. Since she recorded her works in London from 1901–1922 and performed in many concerts beyond the city, England is a particularly interesting place to explore her transnational appeal.   

This project aims to investigate Chaminade’s performance style through aural and written sources. Detailed analysis of selected recordings through the Sonic Visualiser programme, will be combined with an examination of her writings and published scores to further understand her interpretation of her work. Alongside this, Chaminade’s English reception will be considered through a wealth of newspaper reviews and advertisements that documented her performances and recordings. The dialogue between these sources will allow for the exploration of how her personal pianistic style was received by the public alongside Chaminade’s possible reasoning for recording her works in the decades following their publication.  

The project will enhance the understanding of Chaminade’s pianistic approach in the context of romantic performance practices and generate new knowledge on her reception in England in the early twentieth century. Furthermore, it will contribute to the growing literature on women in music and historical recordings in terms of their musical and cultural significance.  

 

Supervisor: Dr Maria McHale

ORCID profile: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5476-4688