AugustaHolmès was a Frenchcomposer of Irish descent. At first she published under the pseudonymHermann Zenta. In 1871, Holmès became a French citizen and added the accent to her last name. She herself wrote the lyrics to almost all her songs and oratorios, as well as the libretto of her opera La Montagne Noire and the programmatic poems for her symphonic poems including Irlande and Andromède.
Biography
Holmès was born in Paris to Irishman Charles William Scott Dalkeith Holmes from Youghal, County Cork. Her godfather was Alfred de Vigny. Despite showing talent at the piano, she was not allowed to study at the Paris Conservatoire, but took lessons privately. She developed her piano playing under the tutelage of local pianist Mademoiselle Peyronnet, Versailles' cathedral organist Henri Lambert, and Hyacinthe Klosé. Also, she showed some of her earlier compositions to Franz Liszt. Around 1876, she became a pupil of César Franck, whom she considered her real master. Camille Saint-Saëns wrote of Holmès in the journal Harmonie et Mélodie: "Like children, women have no idea of obstacles, and their willpower breaks all barriers. Mademoiselle Holmès is a woman, an extremist." Like other female composers from the nineteenth century including Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann, Holmès published some of her earlier works under a male pseudonym because women in European society at that time were not taken seriously as artists and discouraged from publishing. For the 1889 celebration of the centennial of the French Revolution, Holmès was commissioned to write the Ode triomphale for the Exposition Universelle, a work requiring about 1,200 musicians. She gained a reputation of being a composer of programme music with political meaning, such as her symphonic poems Irlande and Pologne.
Personal life
Holmès never married, but she cohabited with the poet Catulle Mendès; the couple had five children, including:
Huguette Mendès
Claudine Mendès
Helyonne Mendès
Holmès bequeathed most of her musical manuscripts to the Paris Conservatoire.
Les Sept ivresses: 1. L'Amour; 2. Le Vin; 3. La Gloire; 4. La Haine; 5. Le Rêve; 6. Le Désir; 7. L'Or
Trois Chansons populaires: 1. Mignonne; 2. Les Trois pages; 3. La Princesse
Noël: Trois anges sont venus ce soir
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En Chemin
Hymne à Eros
Fleur de neige
La Chanson de gas d'Irlande
Berceuse
Contes divines : 1. L'Aubepine de Saint Patrick ; 2. Les Lys bleus ; 3. Le Chemin de ciel ; 4. La Belle Madeleine ; 5. La Légende de Saint Amour ; 6. Les Moutons des anges
