The Parisian composer who struggled against horrible constraints, and yet nonetheless was one of the most prolific and successful of her day
Born Mélanie in Paris 1858 into a lower-middle class Catholic family who disapproved of her music, she taught herself piano and found one source of support – a family friend who taught at the Paris conservatoire. And when she turned 12, she had a great piece of good luck. That year, 1870, was the first year that the Conservatoire allowed women in to study – not just piano and singing but composing also, like a man. Her parents reluctantly agreed and so she changed her name to the androgynous Mel: and became the first girl in history to sit in César Franck’s composition class alongside Claude Debussy and Gabriel Pierné.
Alas, it couldn’t last. She fell in love with a fellow student, Amédée, and never mind that she was winning all the first and second prizes, her parents forced her out and married her off – against her will, to a wealthy businessman 25 years her senior with properties to manage and five boys. He did not like music. That was the end of her music for now.
And yet, that was not the end of her story. Meeting up again with her Amédée, now a professor at the Conservatoire himself, they fell straight back into an affair and even had a daughter together, in secret. And the floodgates opened. By day she was Madame Domange at the head of a household staff of 12: by night she was Mel Bonis, the composer achieving increasing recognition, performed by the greatest soloists and conductors, sweeping up the top prizes at the SCM the Composers' Society, added to repertoire and taken on tour. In 1910, she was the first woman on their jury – judging the competitions alongside Massenet and Saint-Saëns and Fauré.
Her oeuvre numbers over 300 pieces: works for piano and organ, orchestra, chamber music, choral music, songs. She watched it fall into obscurity after the First World War, alone and bedridden with arthritis but still composing, dying in 1937 at the age of 79. Her beloved forbidden Amédée followed her four weeks later to the day
Mel Bonis (1858 – 1937)
MUSIC: Soir-Matin, Op.76
Neave Trio
Presented by Anna Clyne
Written and produced by Charlotte Wilson for WMHT
Her daughter never forgave her for never telling her that she was actually her mother. - as she absolutely could not, given the strictures of her day. Even here in her early twenties, she already looks so sad.
