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Music HERstory: Teresa Carreño (1853-1917)

Thursday, 14 May 2020



Teresa Carreño (1853-1917)
By Polymnia
Biography

The Venezuelan composer Teresa Carreño was born in Caracas in December 22, 1853. Baptized under the name Maria Teresa Gertrudis de Jesús, she began her piano studies with her father, Manuel Antonio Carreño, approximately when she was six years old. Since the age of three she showed a sharp musicality and curiosity that encouraged her explorations on the instrument through melodies keyboard decoding and left hand musical accompaniment. Teresa recalled that when she was ten years old her repertoire already included pieces of extreme difficulty, such as the Fourth Ballad by Chopin, among others.


In 1862 Teresa and her family decided to move to the U.S. as a consequence of the political instability in Venezuela and thanks to her father connections, who had been Minister of Foreign Affairs for a short period of time. In New York Manuel Antonio organized soirées at home in order to introduce the little pianist to the scene of American and European artists that visited the city. Thus Teresa was introduced to pianist and composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk, who gave her interpretation classes and also recommended her to public presentations in important theaters. The Carreño family gradually grew dependent to the income earned by the child prodigy, who signed her first contract with manager L. F. Harrison when she was ten years old and had her first published composition at the age of ten.

In 1863 Teresa was invited to perform a piano concert at the house of president Abraham Lincoln. Her condition of child prodigy compelled her to a non-stop schedule that became criticized by professor Gottschalk, among others. Attempting not to exaggerate the burden upon Teresa’s shoulders, her father invested a great amount of her gains in an enterprise that unfortunately ended up filing for bankruptcy. Aiming to reach a better situation to all, Manuel Antonio decided to move the family to Paris for a fresh start in 1866.

In the City of Light, the famous piano manufacturer Erard became engaged in introducing little Teresa to the musical scenery. She succeeded in charming the new audiences, receiving compliments by the press and enjoying the admiration of masters such as Rossini and Liszt. Resulting from that she started to undertake new marathons of concerts in which she included the performances of her own compositions aside to works by Thalberg, Beethoven and Gottschalk.

When she was twenty years old Teresa got married to the French violinist Emile Sauret and gave birth to her first child, Emilita. The couple soon realized the inconvenience of touring together with a baby, changing hotels and cities (sometimes under precarious conditions). Another additional burdening factor was the competition that surfaced between the artists, with a clear advantage towards Teresa Carreño. They finally decided to separate in 1877 and Teresa, alone and without proper conditions to raise Emilita, accepted an offer by a wealthy friend of hers to adopt the child. Later, after many years, Teresa tried to revert this process but did not succeed.

Returning to New York, Teresa engaged in an informal commitment with baritone Giovanni Tagliapietra. In 1878 she gave birth to her second daughter, Lulu, whom would die at the age of three. Aiming to reach a higher level of professional and financial stability the composer created a company with singer Emma Donaldi to organize and produce the concerts to both of them. Resulting from her relationship with baritone Tagliapietra, Teresa gave birth to Teresita in 1882 and to Giovanni in 1885. This was a stable period for the composer once she could focus in studying, teaching and performing concerts in a good balance between her professional activities and the family life.

In 1885 Teresa was invited to perform in Caracas, being received with pomp and ceremony upon her arrival. She also received a state commission to compose the Hymn to Bolivar as part of the Venezuelan Libertador centennial celebrations. Resulting from this successful process Teresa decided to bring her husband and children from the U.S. to establish an Opera company in Venezuela. The venture ultimately became a failure and led the composer in 1887 to return with her family to the U.S. completely broke and demoralized.

A third marital separation led Teresa to move with her children to Paris. She was accommodated there by her brother who was then the Venezuelan Ambassador in France. Teresa retook her tours and concerts and also engaged in a fourth marriage, this time with composer Eugen DÁlbert. They had two children, Eugenia and Hertha. Unfortunately the relationship ended up in another divorce in 1894, under the accusations of adultery and even mental insanity by Eugen against her spouse. Even though these accusations were unfounded the composer’s health began to deteriorate after those facts took place.

Teresa Carreño died in 1917 at the age of sixty-four. Relatives and friends commented that her death resulted from the tiredness and the infinity range of turbulences she had to face during her whole life. Her ashes were laid to rest in Caracas at the Pantheon of Venezuela. She is considered one of the greatest Latin American composers and musical performers.

Compositions

Teresa began to compose at the age of seven. Then she composed popular pieces such as polkas and waltzes but also some contemplative and more austere songs. At the age of ten she had her first published piece, Vals Gottschalk, a homage to her professor and great pianist who supported her upon her arrival in the U.S. The following pieces were compositions dedicated to people or to special occasions such as Saludo a Cuba and the Impromptu offered to the Cuban composer and pianist Nicolás Ruiz Espadero, when she was touring in this Caribbean country.

As much as it had happened to Clara Schumann, Teresa’s compositions were directly influenced by the repertoire that she interpreted in recitals (pieces from the classical and romantic periods in general). They are generally virtuosic works for piano with wide chords, sequences of eighths for both hands and technically challenging passages such as the ones that can be heard in Le Printemps Op. 25. The author used to choose tones with several sharp (or flat) notes and applied scales in thirds and/or sixths, as the cascades of notes used by Thalberg and Liszt. In wide terms she always aimed to maintain a good coherence among the tonalities of the movements, as Beethoven used to do.

The native music of Venezuela also influenced the composition of Teresa Carreño, specially in the simultaneous usage of superimposed or juxtaposed ¾ and 6/8 metrics. Dances such as the Vals, Polka and Mazurka, derived from European suites, incorporated local melodies. Her Bal em Réve exemplifies the usage of these practices once the rhythm, composed of three successive eighth notes followed by two punctuated eighth notes, refers to the merengue venezuelano. In all of them Teresa introduced chromatic values to the traditional chords in order to provide them colors similar to the German romantic music and, thus, giving them a classical music atmosphere.

The author’s contact with Rossini and the Italian music became an influence to Un Revue à Prague Op 27, also known as Caprice de Concert. The musical genre Capricho had been explored by Mendelssohn, Chopin and Clara Schumann, under the enchantment of Italy and the opera. This is another Teresa’s virtuosic piece of joyful and witty character. In this piece one can notice her intention to insert some syncopated passages that characterize the Latin American music, following a reversed practice compared to the one mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Venice is the inspiration for the pendular murmur heard in Reverie-Barcarolle Op. 33, which reminds the movement of gondolas through the city canals. Also inspired by Italy, Florence Cantilene Op. 34 is considered by many the jewel of Teresa’s mature phase. Other significant compositions by the composer are the studies approaching difficulties commonly faced by pianists over their career path. This is the case of Le Ruisseau Op. 29, a lounge music study that intends to train consecutive intervals of sixths for both hands. In other direction Un Rêve en Mer brings successive chords in milder speed, being called by Teresa the “study-meditation for the mantra atmosphere”.

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