Amélie-Julie Candeille
Encyclopedia
Amélie-Julie Candeille (night of 31 July 1767, parish of Saint-Sulpice
, Paris – 4 February 1834, Paris) was a French composer, librettist, writer, singer, actress, comedienne, and instrumentalist.
women". Her ancestry had no real Creole elements, however, and was actually Flemish. She owed her appearance, many talents and natural seductiveness to her own ambition.
Candeille, like many women musicians of her time, came from a musical family. Her father Pierre Joseph Candeille (1744–1827) was a composer, actor and low-bass opera-singer in the chorus, though he ended up exiled in Moulins
where he became a theatre director. Her father was her primary teacher, and some have speculated that his deeply invested interest in his daughter's education was an effort to bolster his career. Candeille developed her natural talents for song and harpsichord
and performed extensively while still a child in chamber orchestras. Aged 7 she played in a concert before the French king and she was said to have played a concert alongside the teenage Mozart. By the age of 13 she had performed in public as a singer, pianist and harpist. Aged 14, she was initiated into the "La Candeur" masonic
lodge, in which she met several playwrights such as Olympe de Gouges
and other influential figures who favoured her artistic career in Parisian society and the intrigues of the dying ancien régime. In her Mémoires, she records how she benefitted from protection by powerful figures such as the marquis de Louvois (an anti-establishment aristocrat and intimate friend of the chevalier de Champcenetz
who was, like him, sent to the fort de Ham for misconduct), the music-loving duchesse de Villeroy (who led a mainly female salon
whose influence also extended into the theatre), and the baron de Breteuil
(minister of the king's household and possibly a lover of Candeille).
Through the influence of her protectors, at the age of 15 she debuted at the Académie royale de Musique on 27 December 1782 in the title role of Gluck
's Iphigénie en Aulide
, in which she had only moderate success. At 16 Candeille made her fortepiano debut at the Concert Spirituel
, where she performed a concerto by Clementi
-–by this time she was also already composing sonatas, romances and airs for the harpsichord and piano, some of which have recently been rediscovered. Aged 17 she debuted a concerto that she composed. A reporter from the Mercure de France
said:
In order to support her family, Candeille returned to the stage. She did not have a voice which could challenge Mme Saint-Huberty in the opera (Saint-Huberty had succeeded Mlle Levasseur and Mlle Laguerre), so she returned returned to the Comédie-Française
on Monday 19 September 1785 as Hermione in Racine
's Andromaque
, receiving mixed reviews. During this time Molé was the protector of both Candeille and her friend Olympe de Gouge. Her strong personality and original ideas did not gain her friends and she was always held in low esteem by her colleagues in the Comédie française such as Molé, Dazincourt
, Fleury or Mlle Louise Contat
, who regarded her just as one of the Versailles courtesans. Candeille joined Talma
and those among his actors who welcomed the French Revolution
in 1789.
she left the company in 1789 and traveled in the northern provinces. Candeille composed her first pieces of dramatic music during her travels.
On her return to Paris, Julie Candeille was an star of the salons formed by the Amis des Noirs, and she is also known to have gone to the salons held by Mme de Lameth (also attended by Robespierre) and by Mme de Villette, Helvétius or Condorcet. It was during this era (1791) that Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, who shared Candeille's ideas, painted her portrait. The plays in which she advertised at the start of the Revolution had considerable success, such as those at the new Théâtre des Variétés Amusantes on rue de Richelieu and at the Théâtre de la République. The Revolution truly re-launched her career and she made several friends in advanced political circles. It is claimed that it was for her that Fabre d'Églantine
wrote his romance
Je t’aime tant, set to music by Garat
. In 1790 she returned to the stage, joining the Théâtre de la République.
In 1792, she participated in a festival held by Talma and his company at their home on the rue Chantereine in honour of general Dumouriez, victor of the battle of Valmy
, at which Marat
(at the head of a group of "énergumènes") loudly announced himself. Most of the guests (such as Antoine-Vincent Arnault
or Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud
) were denounced the following day in l'Ami du peuple
. It is said that Julie Candeille was then the lover of Vergniaud, who had become a brilliant orator for the Girondins. Later in 1792 she debuted her most famous opera, the 3-act prose comedy Catherine, ou La belle fermière, at the Théâtre-Français
. Candeille wrote the words and music for the opera and performed in the title role. First put on during the trial of Louis XVI, it was performed over 150 times in the next 35 years and received some international acclaim, prompting numerous editions of arrangements of the airs with harp or piano accompaniment. However, the opera was a success she was never able to duplicate – none of the scores for her other comedic operas survive.
Michaud, author of a famous biographical dictionary of his contemporaries, inferred under the restoration
that Candeille had played the Goddess of Reason
in Republican festivities
., though she provided evidence to deny this. However, the Goncourt brothers (not given to historical innaccuracies) support Michaud's charge. Compromised by her Girondin sympathies and too close to Vergniaud and other Girondins, in 1793 Julie Candeille was troubled by the authorities despite her popularity. She was the object of a denunciation and a search was ordered of her residence at rue Neuve des Mathurins, but thanks to the Montagnard deputy Julien de Toulouse (a member of the Committee of General Security
) she managed to avoid being labelled a suspect and thus arrested..
was over, on a whim she married the young doctor known as citizen Laroche, though she never took his name. The Directoire
period saw her confirm her popularity as an actress and a playwright. Jacques-Antoine-Marie Lemoine's portrait of her was exhibited at the Paris Salon
in year three, and at the Salon the following year a charming miniature by Mme Doucet de Suriny showing Candeille in a striped dress and red belt writing a new play was also exhibited. The play she was shown writing was her second opera, a slightly scandalous five-act verse comedy entitled La Bayadère ou le Français à Surate. This was written so as to give her the title role and was put on in January 1795, but was not as successful as she had hoped. Some critics had suggested that her success with Catherine had been a result of her father assisting in composition, and after a critical article in the Journal de Paris suggesting the same of La bayadère just after its debut, Candeille published a passionate response:
In 1797, the actress Élise Lange
, old protégée and friend of Julie Candeille, married the businessman Michel Simons, himself the son of a Belgian coach-builder whom Mlle Candeille had met in Brussels
in August 1796, having gone to the Belgian capital to put on her opera Catherine ou la belle fermière. Michel's father Jean Simons was not unfeeling to Candeille's charms and married her in Brussels on 11 February 1798 – she divorced Laroche and broke a theatre engagement to marry him, thus ending her theatrical career. The new Madame Simons from then on lived in luxury in Brussels and Paris. Like many parvenus of that era, the couple wanted a petite maison, which they had built at great expense to designs by Bellanger at pointe Bellevue, on the former Mesdames estate. It is said that she wanted to join her husband in his business activities and that she won him the commission to build Napoleon
's carriage for his coronation via her friend Josephine
(whom she had got to know in the salons) In 1803, Candeille and her former friend Mme Lejay, who had become comtesse de Pontécoulant, were in charge of Brussels' welcome for Napoleon and his wife.
When war resumed at the start of the First Empire, Jean Simons' business affairs declined and his wife retired to their Parisian hôtel particulier
at 3 rue Cérutti, giving piano recitals at aristocratic soirées in the French capital. She also became the beneficiary of a pension bestowed on her by the new empress Marie-Louise. Throughout her life Julie Candeille welcomed, supported and encouraged young people and other women musicians, dedicating many of her works to Hélène de Montgeroult and Pauline Duchambge. Her protégés also included the young painter Girodet
, with whom she had a wholly platonic liaison mainly conducted by letter. The adoptive son of doctor Trioson, Girodet became famous in 1793 for his Endymion, which put forward a newly aestheticised depiction of male anatomy. An undated drawing by Girodet shows him and Candeille in double profile – she is hardly recognisable, having seemingly sacrificed her long blonde hair for an "à la garçonne" haircut before that phrase existed. She addressed passionate letters to him, more playing the role of an accomplice and friend than that of a transitory lover, since she was so much older than him. She signed herself "your dear old Galatea
" ("Votre vieille Galathée") and offered him the chance to be her amorous intermediary, knowing as she did from Girodet's homo-erotic drawings that his tastes were for other men.
Saint-Sulpice (Paris)
Saint-Sulpice is a Roman Catholic church in Paris, France, on the east side of the Place Saint-Sulpice, in the Luxembourg Quarter of the VIe arrondissement. At 113 metres long, 58 metres in width and 34 metres tall, it is only slightly smaller than Notre-Dame and thus the second largest church in...
, Paris – 4 February 1834, Paris) was a French composer, librettist, writer, singer, actress, comedienne, and instrumentalist.
Early life
Julie Candeille described herself in her Mémoires as having "bright blonde hair, brown eyes, white, fine and clear skin, [and] a soft and laughing air". According to her colleague the actress Louise Fusil, Candeille was pretty, with "a well-taken size, a noble gait, [and] traits and whiteness as held by creoleCreole peoples
The term Creole and its cognates in other languages — such as crioulo, criollo, créole, kriolu, criol, kreyol, kreol, kriulo, kriol, krio, etc. — have been applied to people in different countries and epochs, with rather different meanings...
women". Her ancestry had no real Creole elements, however, and was actually Flemish. She owed her appearance, many talents and natural seductiveness to her own ambition.
Candeille, like many women musicians of her time, came from a musical family. Her father Pierre Joseph Candeille (1744–1827) was a composer, actor and low-bass opera-singer in the chorus, though he ended up exiled in Moulins
Moulins
Moulins or Moulin may refer to:-People:*Jean-François-Auguste Moulin, politician in the French Revolution*Jean Moulin, member of the French Resistance during World War II*Pierre Du Moulin, Huguenot minister and author in France...
where he became a theatre director. Her father was her primary teacher, and some have speculated that his deeply invested interest in his daughter's education was an effort to bolster his career. Candeille developed her natural talents for song and harpsichord
Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
and performed extensively while still a child in chamber orchestras. Aged 7 she played in a concert before the French king and she was said to have played a concert alongside the teenage Mozart. By the age of 13 she had performed in public as a singer, pianist and harpist. Aged 14, she was initiated into the "La Candeur" masonic
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
lodge, in which she met several playwrights such as Olympe de Gouges
Olympe de Gouges
Olympe de Gouges , born Marie Gouze, was a French playwright and political activist whose feminist and abolitionist writings reached a large audience....
and other influential figures who favoured her artistic career in Parisian society and the intrigues of the dying ancien régime. In her Mémoires, she records how she benefitted from protection by powerful figures such as the marquis de Louvois (an anti-establishment aristocrat and intimate friend of the chevalier de Champcenetz
Louis René Quentin de Richebourg de Champcenetz
Louis René Quentin de Richebourg de Champcenetz was a French journalist guillotined for his writings. He was the son of the Marquis de Champcenetz, governor of the Tuileries Palace at the time of the French Revolution....
who was, like him, sent to the fort de Ham for misconduct), the music-loving duchesse de Villeroy (who led a mainly female salon
Salon (gathering)
A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to...
whose influence also extended into the theatre), and the baron de Breteuil
Louis Auguste Le Tonnelier de Breteuil
Louis Charles Auguste le Tonnelier, baron de Breteuil, baron de Preuilly was a French aristocrat, diplomat, statesman and politician...
(minister of the king's household and possibly a lover of Candeille).
Through the influence of her protectors, at the age of 15 she debuted at the Académie royale de Musique on 27 December 1782 in the title role of Gluck
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...
's Iphigénie en Aulide
Iphigénie en Aulide
Iphigénie en Aulide is an opera in three acts by Christoph Willibald Gluck, the first work he wrote for the Paris stage. The libretto was written by Leblanc du Roullet and was based on Jean Racine's tragedy Iphigénie...
, in which she had only moderate success. At 16 Candeille made her fortepiano debut at the Concert Spirituel
Concert Spirituel
The Concert Spirituel was one of the first public concert series in existence. The concerts began in Paris in 1725 and ended in 1790; later, concerts or series of concerts of the same name occurred in Paris, Vienna, London and elsewhere...
, where she performed a concerto by Clementi
Muzio Clementi
Muzio Clementi was a celebrated composer, pianist, pedagogue, conductor, music publisher, editor, and piano manufacturer. Born in Italy, he spent most of his life in England. He is best known for his piano sonatas, and his collection of piano studies, Gradus ad Parnassum...
-–by this time she was also already composing sonatas, romances and airs for the harpsichord and piano, some of which have recently been rediscovered. Aged 17 she debuted a concerto that she composed. A reporter from the Mercure de France
Mercure de France
The Mercure de France was originally a French gazette and literary magazine first published in the 17th century, but after several incarnations has evolved as a publisher, and is now part of the Éditions Gallimard publishing group....
said:
In order to support her family, Candeille returned to the stage. She did not have a voice which could challenge Mme Saint-Huberty in the opera (Saint-Huberty had succeeded Mlle Levasseur and Mlle Laguerre), so she returned returned to the Comédie-Française
Comédie-Française
The Comédie-Française or Théâtre-Français is one of the few state theaters in France. It is the only state theater to have its own troupe of actors. It is located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris....
on Monday 19 September 1785 as Hermione in Racine
Jean Racine
Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
's Andromaque
Andromaque
Andromaque is a tragedy in five acts by the French playwright Jean Racine written in alexandrine verse. It was first performed on 17 November 1667 before the court of Louis XIV in the Louvre in the private chambers of the Queen, Marie Thérèse, by the royal company of actors, called "les Grands...
, receiving mixed reviews. During this time Molé was the protector of both Candeille and her friend Olympe de Gouge. Her strong personality and original ideas did not gain her friends and she was always held in low esteem by her colleagues in the Comédie française such as Molé, Dazincourt
Dazincourt
Joseph-Jean-Baptiste Albouy , stage name Dazincourt, was a French actor.-Life:Educated by the Oratorians, Dazincourt entered the service of the maréchal de Richelieu in 1766 and had a taste of acting in comedies of manners...
, Fleury or Mlle Louise Contat
Louise Contat
Louise-Françoise Contat was a French actress.-Career:She was born in Paris and made her debut at the Comédie Française in 1766 as Atalide in Bajazet...
, who regarded her just as one of the Versailles courtesans. Candeille joined Talma
François-Joseph Talma
François Joseph Talma was a French actor.He was born in Paris. His father, a dentist, moved to London, gave him a good English education. He returned to Paris, where for a year and a half he practised dentistry...
and those among his actors who welcomed the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
in 1789.
Playwright
In 1789, she took the rôle of the young slave Mirza in L’heureux naufrage, a three-act play by Olympe de Gouges denouncing the living conditions of slaves in the French colonies. This play formed the pretext for a clash between the representatives of France's powerful colonial slave-owning lobby and the Amis des Noirs, a club co-founded by Brissot, Condorcet and abbé Grégoire. After receiving mixed reviews on her performances for the Comédie-FrançaiseComédie-Française
The Comédie-Française or Théâtre-Français is one of the few state theaters in France. It is the only state theater to have its own troupe of actors. It is located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris....
she left the company in 1789 and traveled in the northern provinces. Candeille composed her first pieces of dramatic music during her travels.
On her return to Paris, Julie Candeille was an star of the salons formed by the Amis des Noirs, and she is also known to have gone to the salons held by Mme de Lameth (also attended by Robespierre) and by Mme de Villette, Helvétius or Condorcet. It was during this era (1791) that Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, who shared Candeille's ideas, painted her portrait. The plays in which she advertised at the start of the Revolution had considerable success, such as those at the new Théâtre des Variétés Amusantes on rue de Richelieu and at the Théâtre de la République. The Revolution truly re-launched her career and she made several friends in advanced political circles. It is claimed that it was for her that Fabre d'Églantine
Fabre d'Églantine
Philippe François Nazaire Fabre d'Églantine , commonly known as Fabre d'Églantine , was a French actor, dramatist, poet, and politician of the French Revolution.-Early life:He was born in Carcassonne, Aude...
wrote his romance
Romance (music)
The term romance has a centuries-long history. Applied to narrative ballads in Spain, it came to be used by the 18th century for simple lyrical pieces not only for voice, but also for instruments alone. During the 18th and 19th centuries Russian composers developed the French variety of the...
Je t’aime tant, set to music by Garat
Pierre-Jean Garat
Pierre-Jean Garat was a French singer and nephew of Dominique Joseph Garat. He was born in Ustaritz.Garat devoted himself from an early age to the cultivation of his musical talents...
. In 1790 she returned to the stage, joining the Théâtre de la République.
In 1792, she participated in a festival held by Talma and his company at their home on the rue Chantereine in honour of general Dumouriez, victor of the battle of Valmy
Battle of Valmy
The Battle of Valmy was the first major victory by the army of France during the French Revolution. The action took place on 20 September 1792 as Prussian troops commanded by the Duke of Brunswick attempted to march on Paris...
, at which Marat
Jean-Paul Marat
Jean-Paul Marat , born in the Principality of Neuchâtel, was a physician, political theorist, and scientist best known for his career in France as a radical journalist and politician during the French Revolution...
(at the head of a group of "énergumènes") loudly announced himself. Most of the guests (such as Antoine-Vincent Arnault
Antoine-Vincent Arnault
Antoine-Vincent Arnault was a French dramatist.Arnault was born in Paris. His first play, Marius à Minturne , immediately established his reputation. A year later he followed with a second republican tragedy, Lucrèce. Arnault left France during the Reign of Terror, but on his return, he was...
or Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud
Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud
Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud was a lawyer and statesman, and a significant figure of the French Revolution. A deputy to the Assembly from Bordeaux, Vergniaud was a notably eloquent and impressive orator...
) were denounced the following day in l'Ami du peuple
L'Ami du peuple
L'Ami du peuple was a newspaper written by Jean-Paul Marat during the French Revolution. “The most celebrated radical paper of the Revolution”, according to historian Jeremy D...
. It is said that Julie Candeille was then the lover of Vergniaud, who had become a brilliant orator for the Girondins. Later in 1792 she debuted her most famous opera, the 3-act prose comedy Catherine, ou La belle fermière, at the Théâtre-Français
Comédie-Française
The Comédie-Française or Théâtre-Français is one of the few state theaters in France. It is the only state theater to have its own troupe of actors. It is located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris....
. Candeille wrote the words and music for the opera and performed in the title role. First put on during the trial of Louis XVI, it was performed over 150 times in the next 35 years and received some international acclaim, prompting numerous editions of arrangements of the airs with harp or piano accompaniment. However, the opera was a success she was never able to duplicate – none of the scores for her other comedic operas survive.
Michaud, author of a famous biographical dictionary of his contemporaries, inferred under the restoration
Bourbon Restoration
The Bourbon Restoration is the name given to the period following the successive events of the French Revolution , the end of the First Republic , and then the forcible end of the First French Empire under Napoleon – when a coalition of European powers restored by arms the monarchy to the...
that Candeille had played the Goddess of Reason
Goddess of Reason
During the French Revolution, on 10 November 1793, a Goddess of Reason was proclaimed by the French Convention at the suggestion of Chaumette. As personification for the goddess, Sophie Momoro, wife of the printer Antoine-François Momoro, was chosen...
in Republican festivities
Cult of the Supreme Being
The Cult of the Supreme Being was a form of deism established in France by Maximilien Robespierre during the French Revolution. It was intended to become the state religion of the new French Republic.- Origins :...
., though she provided evidence to deny this. However, the Goncourt brothers (not given to historical innaccuracies) support Michaud's charge. Compromised by her Girondin sympathies and too close to Vergniaud and other Girondins, in 1793 Julie Candeille was troubled by the authorities despite her popularity. She was the object of a denunciation and a search was ordered of her residence at rue Neuve des Mathurins, but thanks to the Montagnard deputy Julien de Toulouse (a member of the Committee of General Security
Committee of General Security
The Committee of General Security was a French parliamentary committee which acted as police agency during the French Revolution that, along with the Committee of Public Safety, oversaw the Reign of Terror....
) she managed to avoid being labelled a suspect and thus arrested..
"Citoyenne Simons"
Once the Reign of TerrorReign of Terror
The Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...
was over, on a whim she married the young doctor known as citizen Laroche, though she never took his name. The Directoire
French Directory
The Directory was a body of five Directors that held executive power in France following the Convention and preceding the Consulate...
period saw her confirm her popularity as an actress and a playwright. Jacques-Antoine-Marie Lemoine's portrait of her was exhibited at the Paris Salon
Paris Salon
The Salon , or rarely Paris Salon , beginning in 1725 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Between 1748–1890 it was the greatest annual or biannual art event in the Western world...
in year three, and at the Salon the following year a charming miniature by Mme Doucet de Suriny showing Candeille in a striped dress and red belt writing a new play was also exhibited. The play she was shown writing was her second opera, a slightly scandalous five-act verse comedy entitled La Bayadère ou le Français à Surate. This was written so as to give her the title role and was put on in January 1795, but was not as successful as she had hoped. Some critics had suggested that her success with Catherine had been a result of her father assisting in composition, and after a critical article in the Journal de Paris suggesting the same of La bayadère just after its debut, Candeille published a passionate response:
In 1797, the actress Élise Lange
Anne Françoise Elizabeth Lange
Anne Françoise Elisabeth Lange was a French actress of the Comédie-Française and a 'Merveilleuse' of the French Directory. Her stage name was Mademoiselle Lange.-Life:...
, old protégée and friend of Julie Candeille, married the businessman Michel Simons, himself the son of a Belgian coach-builder whom Mlle Candeille had met in Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
in August 1796, having gone to the Belgian capital to put on her opera Catherine ou la belle fermière. Michel's father Jean Simons was not unfeeling to Candeille's charms and married her in Brussels on 11 February 1798 – she divorced Laroche and broke a theatre engagement to marry him, thus ending her theatrical career. The new Madame Simons from then on lived in luxury in Brussels and Paris. Like many parvenus of that era, the couple wanted a petite maison, which they had built at great expense to designs by Bellanger at pointe Bellevue, on the former Mesdames estate. It is said that she wanted to join her husband in his business activities and that she won him the commission to build Napoleon
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
's carriage for his coronation via her friend Josephine
Joséphine de Beauharnais
Joséphine de Beauharnais was the first wife of Napoléon Bonaparte, and thus the first Empress of the French. Her first husband Alexandre de Beauharnais had been guillotined during the Reign of Terror, and she had been imprisoned in the Carmes prison until her release five days after Alexandre's...
(whom she had got to know in the salons) In 1803, Candeille and her former friend Mme Lejay, who had become comtesse de Pontécoulant, were in charge of Brussels' welcome for Napoleon and his wife.
When war resumed at the start of the First Empire, Jean Simons' business affairs declined and his wife retired to their Parisian hôtel particulier
Hôtel particulier
In French contexts an hôtel particulier is an urban "private house" of a grand sort. Whereas an ordinary maison was built as part of a row, sharing party walls with the houses on either side and directly fronting on a street, an hôtel particulier was often free-standing, and by the 18th century it...
at 3 rue Cérutti, giving piano recitals at aristocratic soirées in the French capital. She also became the beneficiary of a pension bestowed on her by the new empress Marie-Louise. Throughout her life Julie Candeille welcomed, supported and encouraged young people and other women musicians, dedicating many of her works to Hélène de Montgeroult and Pauline Duchambge. Her protégés also included the young painter Girodet
Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson
Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson January 5, 1767 – December 9, 1824), was a French painter and pupil of Jacques-Louis David, who was part of the beginning of the Romantic movement by adding elements of eroticism through his paintings...
, with whom she had a wholly platonic liaison mainly conducted by letter. The adoptive son of doctor Trioson, Girodet became famous in 1793 for his Endymion, which put forward a newly aestheticised depiction of male anatomy. An undated drawing by Girodet shows him and Candeille in double profile – she is hardly recognisable, having seemingly sacrificed her long blonde hair for an "à la garçonne" haircut before that phrase existed. She addressed passionate letters to him, more playing the role of an accomplice and friend than that of a transitory lover, since she was so much older than him. She signed herself "your dear old Galatea
Galatea (mythology)
-Name "Galatea":Though the name "Galatea" has become so firmly associated with Pygmalion's statue as to seem antique, its use in connection with Pygmalion originated with a post-classical writer. No extant ancient text mentions the statue's name...
" ("Votre vieille Galathée") and offered him the chance to be her amorous intermediary, knowing as she did from Girodet's homo-erotic drawings that his tastes were for other men.
Literature
Candeille was often criticized for her vanity, and her stage works received many unfavorable reviews in the Parisian papers. Candeille composed a total of 8 works for stage, only one of which (Catherine, ou La Belle fermière) is extant.- Catherine, ou la Belle fermière, Paris, year II.
- La Bayadère, ou le Français à Surate, Paris, year III.
- Ida, ou l’orpheline de Berlin, play in 3 acts.
- Louise, ou la réconciliation.
- Lydie, ou les mariages manqués, Paris, 1809.
- Bathilde, reine des Francs, Paris, 1814.
- Vers sur la bonté.
- Justification de Julie Candeille en réponse à Audiffret.
- Souvenirs de BrightonBrightonBrighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
, LondresLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
et Paris, Paris, 1818. - Agnès de France, ou le douzième siècle, Paris, 1821.
Music
Contemporary discussions of her music highlight the supremacy of melody and use of simple harmonies used throughout her works. She composed in the style of Grétry, whom she greatly admired. Her works for keyboard, which she composed for her personal performances, are virtuosic – her surviving musical works include a concerto for keyboard, three keyboard sonatas (some with violin accompaniment), and a duo for piano. Many other works are lost, including additional keyboard sonatas, duos, fantasias and variations. Modern editions of the concerto for keyboard, three arias and the overture from Catherine are available through Hildegard Publishing. http://www.hildegard.com/- Three sonatas for harpsichordHarpsichordA harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
, with violin accompaniment. - Concerto for piano and strings.
- Two great-sonatas for piano, opus 8 (under the name Julie Simons).
- Fantaisie for piano (dedicated to Mme Rivière).
- Nocturne for piano (fantaisie n°5, opus 11).
Iconography
- Olivier Blanc, Portraits de femmes, Artistes et modèles à l’époque de Marie-Antoinette, Paris, Didier Carpentier, 2006.
Discography
- Mostly Romantic Music by Women Composers. Sonata no. 1. Selma Epstein, piano. Chromattica (1987). 1 Sound cassette.
- Women Composers: an International Sampler. Grande Sonata no.1. Selma Epstein, piano. Chromattica (1988). 1 Sound cassette.