# Marie Trautmann Jaëll



## Joachim Raff (Jan 31, 2020)

The first pianist to perform all of Beethoven's piano sonatas in Paris, Marie Trautmann Jaëll (1846-1925) was a renowned 19th century French composer, teacher, and pedagogue in piano technique. As a child prodigy, she toured Europe and won the prestigious First Prize of Piano at the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 16. A student of Franz Liszt and a teacher to Albert Schweitzer, Jaëll presented herself to 19th century artists with passion toward composition, individuality, and scientific technique. She composed a variety of styles, such as solo piano, quartets, sonatas, waltzes, four-hand pieces, and orchestral. Considered a derivative composer, Jaëll will be remembered for her treatises on the physiological study of piano playing. She wrote scientific studies describing muscle movements of the hand, the sense of touch, and the mental discipline involved in playing piano.

Jaëll first studied piano under professor F. B. Hamma and with Ignaz Moscheles, both in Stuttgart. Only one year later, with her mother managing her performances, Jaëll was playing concerts in France, Germany, and Switzerland.

In 1856, her mother presented her to the Paris Conservatory's renowned piano teacher Heinrich Herz, who tutored her. Due to her young age of 10, she studied with Herz until she was old enough to formally register with the Conservatory in 1862. Meanwhile, she continued to perform publicly in Paris. At 10, she played piano sonatas, accompanied by the 13-year-old violin prodigy Guillaume Bauerkeller, a student of Alard of the Academy of Paris.

Once she was 16, after only four official months at the Conservatory, she won the Premier Prix (First Prize of Piano) out-performing 20 other girls. Her mother collected newspapers clippings that touted her daughter as not only a child prodigy but "a true artist." The Revue et Gazette musciale de Paris reported on July 27, 1862, as seen in the Marie Jaëll Exhibit website, that Jaëll "restored freshness and life to the piece … She marked it with the seal of her individual nature. Her higher mechanism, her beautiful style, her play deliciously moderate, with an irreproachable purity, an exquisite taste, a lofty elegance, constantly filled the audience with wonder."

Toured Europe with Husband
At age 20, on August 9, 1866, Marie Trautmann married concert pianist Alfred Jaëll, 15 years her senior, in the Church of La Madeleine in Paris. A student of Chopin, Alfred was an internationally recognized piano virtuoso. Husband and wife navigated Europe and Russia concertizing solos, duos, famous works, and works of their own creations. The two interpreted and performed many four-handed piano compositions popular at the time.

With the connections afforded to her by her husband's notoriety and musical circles, Jaëll was introduced to Franz Liszt in 1868 who took her as his student. The encounter would have a profound effect, not only on her piano playing and composition, but also on her scientific endeavors later in life. Liszt, too, was impressed with his young protege, an article in American Record Guide said Listzt described her as having "the brains of a philosopher and the fingers of an artist." Liszt, in turn, introduced the now-recognized Jaëllto the period's other great musicians, such as Johannes Brahms and Anton Rubinstein. By 1871, Jaëll's piano compositions were being published.

Jaëll's husband died in 1881 when she was 35 years old, but she continued studying composition under special invitation by Liszt in Weimar, Germany, and with César Franck and Camille Saint-Saëns in Paris, France. As recognition of her talent and status, Saint-Saëns introduced Jaëll to the Society of Music Composers, which was an honor for a woman in those days.

Mentored by Franz Liszt
A true admirer of Jaëll, Liszt became her mentor. He premiered her waltz for piano four hands, "Valses pour piano à quatre mains" Op. 8, which was published by F.E.C. Leuckart, Leipzig. Liszt even wrote variations based on the piece, although these variations were not published.

Jaëll spent the years 1883 through 1886 working for Liszt a few months a year in Weimar where she assisted with his correspondences, performed at his musicales, and witnessed piano lessons taught and studied by renowned pianists. Saint-Saëns offered Jaëll advice on her compositions, and he dedicated his first concerto and the "Etude en forme de valse" to her.

During the 1890s, Jaëll's reputation was secure with incredible performances of the masters played in a series of concerts. Her repertory included the primary piano works of Robert Schumann, which she played in six concerts in Salle Erard; and Liszt, with six concerts in Salle Pleyel. She was the first person in France to perform all thirty-two of Beethoven's sonatas in the course of six concerts in Pleyel in 1893.

Although she performed in the top European cities of her day—Bern, Geneva, Heidelberg, and London—Jaëll retained a fond attachment with her hometown of Alsace and sought to honor it. Remembering a happy childhood there, she wrote a composition, "Harmonies of Alsace," and presented a scientific conference in Paris that she titled, "Some observations addressed to the Society of Physics by a musician from Alsace."


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## Joachim Raff (Jan 31, 2020)

This lady certainly had an interesting life. Here is an example of works. Piano Concerto No.2 one of my favourite pieces


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## Andrew Kenneth (Feb 17, 2018)

The Marie Jaëll discography is quite small at the moment.

There's Cora Irsen's 5-disc piano music set.
Cora Irsen raised the funds needed for these recordings via crowdfunding and then proceeded to win the 2017 Echo german music award for this set.










A more varied 3 cd set was released by Bru Zane in 2015 containing piano music; but also the orchestral song cycle "La Légende des ours" & the cello concerto. (The piano music on this set can also be found on the Cora Irsen set; on this set this music is played by a number of different pianists.)
This set is a typical Bru Zane release => 136 page hardcover illustrated book with the cd's housed in slots in the front & backcovers.










There's also a cd containing her string quartet (& Fanny Mendelssohn's string quartet)










Then there's a cd containing her cello sonata, 5 german Lieder, 4 french songs & 4 french songs set to Victor Hugo's orientalist poetry.


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## Andrew Kenneth (Feb 17, 2018)

French pianist Alexandre Sorel recorded 2 discs of Marie Jaëll's piano music.
These discs are now rather hard to find.
(This music can also be found on the Cora Irsen release.)


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## Andrew Kenneth (Feb 17, 2018)

The latest addition to the Marie Jaëll discography is Célia Oneto Bensaid's 2022 rendition of Piéces pour piano d'après une lecture de Dante. (Cora Irsen recorded this piece earlier and the Bru Zane set contains excerpts of it also)


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