DORMÉS...

Another composer featured this Thursday evening as we begin our nearly 5-century exploration of music by composed by women for San Francisco Performances’ Salon series is Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre. The daughter of a harpsichord-maker and organist, Elisabeth Jacquet was trained by her father in music and displayed exceptional talent at the harpsichord from a young age. She was taken into the French court under the auspices of the King’s mistress, the Marquise de Montespan, who oversaw much of her music education. Around the age of 20, she married the organist Martin de la Guerre, and took on his surname as a secondary surname – a bold proclamation of her intention to continue her professional musical life after marriage. A few years later she would publish her first volume of her music, Les pieces de clavecin: Livre I, which was dedicated to her patron, the Sun King. Well-known as a composer during her time, Jacquet de la Guerre was the first woman to have an opera produced in the history of France, Céphale et Procris. After composing instrumental sonatas that would revolutionize the form, she returned to vocal music, publishing two books of cantatas on biblical subjects, and a final set of cantatas on mythological secular subjects published in 1715.

The below aria is excerpted from that final set of cantatas - this one about about the mythical figure, Ulysses.

If you’re in the Bay Area and are boosted (a requirement for entry to the War Memorial), please come join us this Thursday to hear this aria alongside many more beautiful pieces by Jacquet de la Guerre and her contemporaries!