Rita Strohlaus expressionism + impressionism + modern + romantic

Rita Strohl (* 8 July 1865 in Lorient; † 27 March 1941 in La Gaude), was a French pianist and composer.

Life

Rita Strohl was the daughter of the infantry officer and lieutenant colonel Jules La Rousse La Villette (1834-1921) and the painter Élodie La Villette (1842-1917), née Jacquier, and on her mother’s side the niece of the painter Caroline Espinet (1844-1910).

On 18 June 1888 Strohl married the ensign Émile Strohl (1863-1900), whose name she took, but who died early. In 1908 she married René Billa (1884-1944), a Nissarden in Meudon, who preferred the Germanising pseudonym Richard Burgsthal and worked as a glassblower, painter and musician.

Together they founded and ran the theatre La Grange in Bièvres for a short time in 1912 with the financial support of the two painters Odilon Redon and Gustave Fayet and other patrons. It was closed again at the beginning of the First World War. During this time, Strohl created lyrical works full of mysticism and symbolism, which thematically continued the seven-part cycle Le Suprême Puruscha from 1908. She chose this quiet, rural little town north of Paris to escape capital city conventions and devote herself entirely to her new project, so-called experimental music. Her husband René, who was “disturbingly” an admirer of Richard Wagner, tried to build a “Little Bayreuth” there. La Grange was an old mill that was converted for performance purposes. Works by Rita Strohl were performed. She gave up her commitment to writing symphonies for this and shifted to operas, three of which were premiered in this short time: Le Déclin de la Tour d’Ivoire, a Celtic cycle in which music resounded for two hours over five consecutive days; an unnamed inspiration based on Breton music; and an unfinished Hindu cycle lasting seven days. A piano reduction of this last work still exists.

But they had overstretched themselves with the La Grange project. They did not get out of the planning phase, as the effort proved too great and too expensive. There was hostility even from friends. The war finally shifted the focus from subtle thoughts to personal survival. Rita became suffering and depressed, traumatised by the war and developed tinnitus. The couple separated after this failure. Rita went to the south of France in 1930 when René married a younger woman. She wrote less and less and was only occasionally played, although her friend, the opera singer Jane Bathori, who occasionally worked for the radio, dedicated radio broadcasts to her again and again.

Rita Strohl composed various lyrical, symphonic and chamber music pieces. She was celebrated by Camille Saint-Saëns, Vincent d’Indy and Gabriel Fauré. Jane Bathori sang her twelve songs Bilitis to the libretto of Pierre Louÿs, and Pablo Casals played her music. Her withdrawal from Parisian society meant that most of her works were never published or recorded. The individual manuscripts are in the possession of her descendants in Lorient.

A first public concert took place in 1884 with a piano trio, and the following year with a mass for six voices, orchestra and organ in the cathedrals of Rennes and Chartres. Her works show an inclination towards mysticism and a religious mixture of various inspirations: these influences culminated in works such as Les Noces spirituelles de la Vierge Marie (1903), Le Suprême Puruscha, a mystical cycle in seven parts (1908), and the lyrical drama La Femme pécheresse (1913), the names of which already possess high suggestive power. These influences also worked indirectly in most of her other compositions, such as her operas Hindu and Celtic, which are additionally coloured by other forms of spirituality and pantheism. She also composed music for piano, chamber music and songs, first and foremost the Chansons de Bilitis composed in 1898 after twelve erotic poems by Pierre Louÿs, which had a great success.

After her death, she was almost forgotten. Her music has become more popular in recent years, but despite the high quality of the rediscovered works (including the Sonata for Cello and Piano Titus and Berenice), it is still virtually unknown.

Source Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rita_Strohl