Madeleine LEMARIEY

It is seemingly impossible today to ascertain the slightest detail about the life of Madeleine Lemariey. This name, which appears on nine pieces published in 1904 and 1913, could very well be a pseudonym. If it is not, then is Lemariey a maiden or married name? It seems likely to originate in Normandy, where this spelling is common. In any case, we can confidently state that there was no student of that name at the Paris Conservatoire, and that the newspapers of the Belle Époque never mention this woman composer (or disguised male composer?). The publications associated with this person form two coherent blocks. On the one hand, in 1904, with an unidentified publisher, she presented five piano pieces grouped together in a set entitled ‘Échos poudrés’. The short pieces are called Écho-Gavotte, Écho-Menuet, Le Bon Vieux Temps, Berceuse and Pavane. Nine years later, this time with the avant-garde publisher Maurice Sénart, Madeleine Lemariey turned her attention to the genre of the mélodie with piano accompaniment. One of these was on her own verse: a pastoral romance entitled Ma Bergère. She chiefly set poems by Paul Verlaine – Chanson d’Automne, Chant de la pluie, Spleen, Sagesse, Clair de Lune, Heure exquise – in a set of Six Mélodies, as well as a text by Édouard Pailleron in La Falaise and the famous Sonnet of Félix d’Arvers. The first line of the last-named seems perfectly suited to this enigmatic figure – ‘Mon âme a son secret, ma vie a son mystère’ (My soul has its secret, my life has its mystery) – but she changed this to ‘Mon cœur a son secret, mon âme a son mystère’ (My heart . . . my soul).