Piano Quartet no. 1 in B flat

On 4 June 1905, in her salon, Mel Bonis revealed her Piano Quartet No. 1, which she performed alongside Louis Duttenhofer (violin), Paulin Gaillard (viola) and a certain Delhaye (cello). The work was published by Demets and then given again on 22 May 1906 at the Salle Berlioz, and in June 1908 at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. Each of these concerts was acclaimed, the reviewers pointing out the music’s “elegance”, its “simplicity” and its “charm” (which Le Mercure musical deemed “very feminine, but not effeminate”). These qualities serve in fact as a foil to the dissonances and the “bizarre modulations” that these same critics condemn in other works of their time. In 1906 Le Guide musical made an interesting remark: “[This] piano quartet does not claim to be a severe work; it is rather a suite in four movements, where the piano plays a somewhat predominant role.” The musical discourse deviates from sonata dialectics, founded on contrasts. Here the evolution towards a more passionate expression or the return to tranquillity takes place gradually, smoothly. The second movement is titled Intermezzo, though the term could apply as well to the opening Moderato, written in a soothing ternary time. Moreover, the progressive tonality also moves away from the world of the sonata: the movements are respectively in B flat major, E flat major, G minor (ending in G major) and G minor again. In 1900, Mel Bonis had already structured her Suite orientale along similar lines.