Music's Modern Muse: A Life of Winnaretta Singer, Princesse de Polignac

Eastman Studies in Music

by Sylvia Kahan

The American-born Winnaretta Singer (1865-1943) was a millionaire at the age of eighteen, due to her inheriting a substantial part of the Singer Sewing Machine fortune. Her 1893 marriage to Prince Edmond de Polignac, an amateur composer, brought her into contact with the most elite strata of French society. After Edmond's death in 1901, she used her fortune to benefit the arts, science, and letters. Her most significant contribution was in the musical in addition to subsidizing individual artists (Boulanger, Haskil, Rubinstein, Horowitz) and organizations (the Ballets Russes, l'Opéra de Paris, l'Orchestre Symphonique de Paris), she made a lifelong project of commissioning new musical works from composers, many of them unknown and struggling, to be performed in her Paris salon. The list of works created as a result is long and Stravinsky's Renard, Satie's Socrate, Falla's El Retablo de Maese Pedro, and Poulenc's Two-Piano and Organ Concertos are among the best-known titles. In addition, her salon was a gathering place for luminaries of French culture such as Proust, Cocteau, Monet, Diaghilev, and Colette. Many of Proust's memorable evocations of salon culture were born during his attendance at concerts in the Polignac music room. Sylvia Kahan brings to life this eccentric and extravagant lover of the arts, whose influence on the 20th Century world of music and literature remains incalculable.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why so many mistakes in usage, spelling, and facts?

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

This fascinating biography covers the life of Winnaretta Singer, heiress to the Singer sewing machine fortune and one of the most important music patrons of the late nineteenth and early 20th century in France. She commissioned important works from Stravinsky, Poulenc, Ravel, de Falla, Tailleferre, and many others. She also gave many, many composers and performers support through her musical salons which featured opportunities for both performances and for meeting other musicians and potential patrons. Singer was generally quite forward-thinking, often championing and encouraging those who were at the forefront of modernism. She was a strong-willed, intelligent, and intense person who did an enormous amount for music and the arts during her life. She was also an accomplished musician herself, playing both the piano and the organ and thus often taking part in the performances at her salon. The entire history of 20th century music would have been vastly different were it not for the Princess de Polignac.
Kahan's book is an enormous pleasure to read. It is strongly narrative and linear, which gives it the feel of an engrossing novel while still retaining plenty of intellectual rigor. Kahan makes everything about Singer, her life, and her world vivid and immediate. Singer's story also makes for an interesting perspective on how the musical world of her time worked - how performers and composers built careers, how both public and private activity gave rise to concerts and new works, etc.