shelomit-bat-dvorah:18thcenturyconservatoire:Women in music history: Marie PleyelMadame Pleyel imita
shelomit-bat-dvorah:18thcenturyconservatoire:Women in music history: Marie PleyelMadame Pleyel imitates nobody; she is calm at the piano: her eyes are almost constantly fixed on the keyboard; and when she raises them, her look has an unbelievable expression of audacity, of Mephistophelian irony, of scorn for all the difficulties with which she plays….She is not painfully affected, she does not flutter around pleasantly to gain audience support; she conquers it, smiles imperceptibly to herself at such an easy victory, and her beautiful curved figure, immobile, impassive, does nothing to betray the prodigious work of her fingers: it is the highest musical poetry coming from a soul shaped by all the experiences of life, and which enjoys tossing the strangest seductions in your direction. “The allure of Pleyel’s performance as described by Blanchard was that it combined Berlioz’s demand for controlled emotion with a sophisticated level of coquetry. Pleyel had her effect on the audience in mind, but not to the detriment of poetic interpretation, which she understood and felt sincerely. As a performer, her ‘manly’ qualities of control were thus multiple, extending to her own emotion, her technique, and her listeners (including her critics)…”–Katharine Ellis, “Female Pianists and Their Male Critics in Nineteenth-Century Paris.” pp. 374-375Pleyel’s a fascinating figure! Word on the street is Alicia Levin will be publishing the first real monograph on her within the next few years… -- source link
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