Louise Bertin, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Louise Bertin

French composer

Date of Birth: 15-Jan-1805

Place of Birth: Paris, ĂŽle-de-France, France

Date of Death: 26-Apr-1877

Profession: writer, composer, poet

Nationality: France

Zodiac Sign: Capricorn


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About Louise Bertin

  • Louise-AngĂ©lique Bertin (Les Roches, Essonne, 15 January 1805 – Paris, 26 April 1877) was a French composer and poet.Louise Bertin lived her entire life in France.
  • Her father, Louis-François Bertin, and also her brother later on, were the editors of Journal des dĂ©bats, an influential newspaper.
  • As encouraged by her family, Bertin pursued music.
  • She received lessons from François-Joseph FĂ©tis, who directed a private family performance of Guy Mannering, Bertin's first opera, in 1825.
  • This opera, never formally produced, took its story line from the book of the same name, written by Sir Walter Scott.
  • Two years later, Bertin's second opera, Le Loup-garou, was produced at the OpĂ©ra-Comique. At the age of 21, Bertin began working on an opera semiseria, Fausto to her own libretto in Italian, based on Goethe's Faust, a subject "almost certainly suggested" by her father.
  • A performance of the completed opera was scheduled for 1830.
  • However, due to many unforeseen complications, Fausto did not actually reach the stage until a full year later.
  • It was not well received and only saw three performances. Shortly before this, Bertin became friends with Victor Hugo.
  • Hugo himself had sketched out an operatic version of his book Notre-Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) and between the two of them, the opera La Esmeralda was born, Hugo providing the libretto.
  • Bertin was the only composer to have collaborated directly with Hugo on an opera.
  • However, as the opera's run began in 1836, there were accusations against Bertin and her family, claiming she had special privileges due to her brother Armand's connection to the government's opera administration.
  • During the seventh performance, a riot ensued and the run of La Esmeralda was forced to end, though a version of the opera continued to be performed over the next three years.
  • The composer Hector Berlioz, who helped Bertin with the staging and production of La Esmeralda, was also accused of providing the better music of this work, a charge he vehemently denied.
  • In frustration, Bertin refused to write any more operas.
  • In 1837, Franz Liszt transcribed the orchestral score for solo piano (S.476), and made a piano transcription of the "Air chantĂ© par Massol" (S.477). Bertin did however continue to compose in many different genres.
  • Her later compositions include twelve cantatas, six piano ballades, five chamber symphonies, a few string quartets, a piano trio (which includes themes from both her early Fausto and La Esmeralda), and many vocal selections.
  • Of these, only the ballades and the trio were published. Bertin also wrote and published two volumes of poetry, Les Glanes in 1842 and Nouvelles Glanes in 1876.
  • The former of these received a prize from the AcadĂ©mie française.
  • Bertin died the year after the publication of Nouvelles Glanes.

Read more at Wikipedia

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