Marcelle de Manziarly was born on October 13, 1899 as a child of French-Russian parents in Charkow, Russia. Her parents, as many Russians of their generations did, emigrated to Paris, where Marcelle was a student of Nadia Boulanger (1911). Subsequently, she attended a course in conducting in 1930 with Felix Weingartner in Basle and was given lessons in piano classes by Isabella Vengerova in 1943 in New York. She performed several times as pianist and conductor in the United States and played her own piano concert under Alfredo Casella in 1933 at the Festival der Neuen Musik together with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. Her „Sonate pour Notre Dame“ is upon the liberation of the French capital from the Nazis (1944). Her meeting with Rabindranath Tagore during a trip to India created an interest in Indian scales and tonal systems. Dealing with tonality and its limits led to tetratonal compositions (sonata for two pianos, 1946). Marcelle de Manziarly taught and worked partly in Paris and New York. She is seen as one of the most important representative of New Music after Nadia Boulanger, and her chamber music has been rediscovered. The composer died at May 12, 1989 in Ojai, California. |
Marcelle de Manziarly