Marcelle Germaine Tailleferre (French: [ʒɛʁmɛn tɑjfɛʁ]; born Taillefesse; April 19, 1892 – November 7, 1983) was a French composer. She was the only woman in a group of composers called Les Six.

Biography

Marcelle Germaine Taillefesse was born in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, Val-de-Marne, France. As a young woman, she changed her last name from "Taillefesse" to "Tailleferre" to show she did not agree with her father, who refused to support her musical studies. She began studying piano with her mother at age four and wrote short musical pieces. She was known for having a strong ability to hear and understand music, even when she was young.

Tailleferre studied at the Paris Conservatory, where she met Louis Durey, Francis Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric, and Arthur Honegger. She won awards in several categories. Most importantly, Tailleferre wrote 18 short pieces for the Petit livre de harpe de Madame Tardieu for Caroline Luigini, the Conservatory's assistant professor of harp.

With her new friends, she joined the artistic community in Paris’s Montmartre and Montparnasse districts, including sculptor Emmanuel Centore, who later married her sister Jeanne. She also spent time with artists like Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani at the Café de la Rotonde. In the Montparnasse studio of one of her painter friends, the idea for Les Six began. The publication of Jean Cocteau’s Le coq et l'Arlequin led to articles by Henri Collet that brought fame to the group, of which Tailleferre was the only female member.

In 1923, Tailleferre spent much time with Maurice Ravel at his home in Montfort-l'Amaury. Ravel encouraged her to enter the Prix de Rome Competition. In 1926, she married Ralph Barton, an American caricaturist, and moved to Manhattan, New York. Like her father, Barton did not support her musical work. In her memoir, Tailleferre said she composed very little during the 2½ years they were married. She stayed in the United States until 1927, when she and her husband returned to France. They divorced shortly after.

Tailleferre wrote many of her most important works during the 1920s, including her First Piano Concerto, the Harp Concertino, the ballet Le marchand d'oiseaux (the most frequently performed ballet in the repertoire of the Ballets suédois during the 1920s), La nouvelle Cythère (commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev for the Ballets Russes in 1929), and Sous les ramparts d'Athènes (collaborated with Paul Claudel), as well as several film scores, including B'anda, in which she used African themes.

Tailleferre also worked with choreography while helping Jean Borlin on Le marchand d'oiseaux. Borlin, the chief dancer and official choreographer of the Ballet Suédois, encouraged composers of new ballets to add their own ideas to the choreography. She later said she danced and ran across the stage in her enthusiasm and energy.

In 1931, Tailleferre gave birth to her only child, Françoise Lageat, with lawyer Jean Lageat. The couple married in 1932 and divorced in 1955 after years of separation.

The 1930s were very productive for Tailleferre, with works such as the Concerto for Two Pianos, Chorus, Saxophones, and Orchestra, the Violin Concerto, the opera cycle Du style galant au style méchant, the operas Zoulaïna and Le marin de Bolivar, and her masterwork, La cantate de Narcisse (collaborated with Paul Valéry). Her film music included a collaboration with Maurice Cloche and a series of documentaries, with over 30 scores composed.

When World War II began, Tailleferre had to leave most of her scores at her home in Grasse, except her recently completed Three Études for Piano and Orchestra. She escaped across Spain to Portugal and found passage on a boat to the U.S., where she lived during the war years in Philadelphia.

In 1946, Tailleferre returned to France, where she composed orchestral and chamber music and other works, including the ballets Paris-Magie (with Lise Delarme) and Parisiana (for the Royal Ballet of Copenhagen), the operas Il était un petit navire (with Henri Jeanson), Dolores, La petite sirène (with Philippe Soupault, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s story "The Little Mermaid"), and Le maître (to a libretto by Ionesco), the musical comedy Parfums, the Concerto des vaines paroles for baritone voice, piano, and orchestra, the Concerto for Soprano and Orchestra, the Concertino for Flute, Piano, and Orchestra, the Second Piano Concerto, the Concerto for Two Guitars and Orchestra, her Second Sonata for Violin and Piano, and the Sonata for Harp, as well as many film and television scores. Most of this music was not published until after her death.

In 1976, Tailleferre accepted the job of accompanist for a children’s music and movement class at the École alsacienne, a private school in Paris. During her later years, she focused on smaller musical forms due to increasing arthritis in her hands. She created the Sonate champêtre for oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and piano; the Sonata for Two Pianos; Chorale and Variations for Two Pianos or Orchestra; a series of children’s songs (on texts by Jean Tardieu); and pieces for young pianists. Her last major work was the Concerto de la fidelité for coloratura soprano and orchestra, which was first performed at the Paris Opera the year before her death.

Tailleferre continued to compose until a few weeks before her death at age 91 on 7 November 1983. She is buried in Quincy-Voisins, Seine-et-Marne, France. She was the last surviving member of Les Six.

In 2023, BBC Radio 3 broadcast five hours of biography and critique of Tailleferre’s works in one of its series, Composer of the Week, including recordings of her works (available as podcasts).