{"id":1118,"date":"2022-03-03T00:36:23","date_gmt":"2022-03-03T06:36:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/?p=1118"},"modified":"2022-03-03T00:36:23","modified_gmt":"2022-03-03T06:36:23","slug":"marcelle-meyer-the-quest-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/2022\/03\/03\/marcelle-meyer-the-quest-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"Marcelle Meyer…The Quest Begins"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In my quest to learn more about the life of Marcelle Meyer who was a highly renowned French pianist, I immediately was slapped with some sticky setbacks (and yes, that was purposeful alliteration). <\/span><\/p>\n

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It, frankly, came with no s<\/span>hock to see that there are essentially no girthy articles or scholarships written exclusively about Miss Marcelle Meyer. Although, I thankfully stumbled upon a very useful source: The Musical Times. How <\/span>magnifique! <\/span><\/i>The Musical Times was founded in 1844 by J. Alfred Novello and still is published to this day1<\/sup><\/a>. It has withstood the test of time, to say the least. The editor of this journal at the time was an English musician, composer, conductor, and teacher- Harvey Grace. He had quite a fancy for organ music, which is something good to note when reading his reviews about a fellow keyboardist. This snippet found about Marcelle can allude to an \u201coutsider\u2019s\u201d view of French musicians and how they performed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Please ignore the terrible quality…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Marcelle was known as one of the greatest French pianists of that era, so it is no doubt that this review holds a lot of weight when it comes to how she represented French music and performing tradition. He talks about her \u201crange of musical sympathy\u201d being quite limited and her having a certain \u201crigidity\u201d and \u201chardness\u201d of the tone. But don\u2019t worry, she saved herself when she \u201csoftened\u201d it and gave it \u201capt touches of feminine sentiment.2<\/sup><\/a>\u201d Oof. There is a lot to dig into there. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Marcelle Meyer surrounded by many men… Ironic? We will soon find out.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite this harsh critique and slight misogyny, it is clear to see that Grace is revealing and communicating information about the reception of French musicians without even knowing he was doing so. Marcelle Meyer was widely known for being chosen to play numerous pieces for the most famous comp<\/span>osers of that time- she did not mess around. Not only was she a highly coveted pianist to perform these works, but she also made it big in the recording industry at the time. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the comments made about her performance, it is clear to see that she is possibly following along with the movements that are taking place in France at the time: neoclassicism, known as being \u201c<\/span>abstract, absolute, architectural, pure, concise, direct, and objective.”3<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Marcelle was performing in a similar vein: absolute, concise, direct, and objective. There was n<\/span>o \u201csentimental\u201d or \u201cillustrative\u201d sense in her performance according to Grace.3<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0It would be hard for me to make a claim that she was indeed attempting to reveal the French movement of neoclassicism, but it is very \u201cclear\u201d and \u201cdirect\u201d (ha) to see that Marcelle is demonstrating many of these <\/span>n\u00e9oclassicisme qualities. More to come on Marcelle\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

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1<\/a>\u201cThe Musical Times.\u201d Wikipedia<\/i>, Wikimedia Foundation, (2022), https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Musical_Times.<\/p<\/p>\n

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2<\/a>\u201cLondon Concerts.\u201d The Musical Times<\/i> 70, no. 1032 (1929): 158\u201361. http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/917518.<\/p>\n

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3<\/a> Scott Messing, Neoclassicism in Music: From the Genesis of the Concept through the Schoenberg\/Stravinsky Polemic<\/span><\/i> (Ann Arbor: UMI Press, 1988),<\/span> 88.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  In my quest to learn more about the life of Marcelle Meyer who was a highly renowned French pianist, I immediately was slapped with some sticky setbacks (and yes, that was purposeful alliteration). It, frankly, came with no shock to see that there are essentially no girthy articles or scholarships written exclusively about Miss […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1118"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1154,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118\/revisions\/1154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}