H de Montgeroult

The pianist, composer, and teacher Hélène de Montgeroult played a major role in developing the rich French piano repertoire of the late Classic and early Romantic periods, in particular the expressive cantabile style of the 19th century.

Hélène Antoinette Marie de Nervo, born in Lyon on 2 March 1764, began her musical studies in Paris with Nicolas-Joseph Hüllmandel, continuing with Muzio Clementi and perhaps Jan Ladislav Dussek. In 1784, she married André-Marie Gaultier, marquis de Montgeroult; she was 20, he 48.

The musical life of Hélène de Montgeroult (often referred to simply as la marquise) developed within pre-Revolutionary salon culture. In social gatherings in the homes of wealthy music lovers she performed music with amateurs and internationally known professional musicians, French and foreign. Many composers, including Julie Candeille and Dussek, dedicated works to her.

The Revolution destroyed much of this world. In 1793, she and her husband left France, and he died. She returned to Paris, where she escaped the guillotine by the founder of the Institut National de Musique (later the Conservatoire de Paris), who convinced the Revolutionary Tribunal that she was indispensable to the school as one of France’s greatest pianists. In 1795, at the end of the Terror as recovery and reconstruction began, the Conservatoire published her three sonatas, Op. 1, and hired her as one of the professeurs de première classe who enjoyed the highest status and best salary. She gave birth to a son; her second marriage ended in divorce seven years later.

In 1798, she resigned from the Conservatoire to teach privately and compose. She published two more volumes of three sonatas each—Op. 2 first appeared in 1800 and Op. 5 between 1804 and 1807—and other pieces. Like other women musicians of her time, her home was her venue for performance and teaching. An invitation to her distinguished salon, a regularly scheduled musical and social gathering in her home, was highly prized.

By 1820, she had published her celebrated piano method, the three-volume Cours complet pour l'enseignement du forte piano, conduisant progressivement des premiers éléments aux plus grandes difficultés (“Complete Course for Teaching Forte Piano, Leading Progressively from the First Elements to the Greatest Difficulties”). She wrote 972 exercises for volume 1 and, for volumes 2 and 3, 114 études and several other pieces, to illustrate her comments on piano technique, musical style, and good taste.

Her third marriage, in 1820, ended with her husband’s death in an accident in 1826. She began to suffer ill health and moved to Italy with her son in 1834. She died in Florence on 20 May 1836.

In an introductory video to his 2-CD album of all nine sonatas (Naxos GP 885–86, the pianist Nicolas Horvath notes:

“Hélène de Montgeroult a vécu sous la révolution française. Elle est la première femme à enseigner des hommes du Conservatoire de Paris. [J’ai] étudié la compositrice avec la musicologue Déborah Hayes et découvert une nouvelle facette : sa virtuosité! La musique d’Hélène de Montgeroult préfigure des compositeurs comme Alkan et Saint-Saëns. Loin d’être sentimentale sa musique sombre est probablement influencée par le chaos de l’époque révolutionnaire.

(Hélène de Montgeroult lived through the French Revolution. She was the first woman to teach men at the Paris Conservatoire. I studied the composer with the musicologist Deborah Hayes and discovered a new facet : her virtuosity ! The music of Hélène de Montgeroult foreshadows composers like Alkan and Saint-Saëns. Far from sentimental, her dark music is probably influenced by the chaos of the revolutionary era.)