Cécile Chaminade

The piano was Chaminade’s own instrument twice over: She was both an international recitalist and a composer with an insider’s instinct for the instrument’s capabilities. Born in Paris in 1857, her childhood neighbor Bizet dubbed her “my little Mozart,” and she thwarted her father’s opposition to a musical career to rapidly carve out a dual niche. La Sévillane, a comic opera of 1882, failed to impress its private audience, while the choral symphony Les Amazones fared little better two years later. But her ballet Callirhoë (1888) secured more than 200 performances, and the piano music was so sought-after that so-called Chaminade Clubs blossomed in her honor across the U.S. It’s hardly surprising: a self-proclaimed member of the French Romantic school with a nod to Schumann and Chopin, she developed a style that is beautifully crafted and comfortable in its own skin. Before her death in 1944, her star had largely waned, but the elegant Concertino for Flute and Orchestra, Op. 107 (1902), has never dropped out of a repertoire increasingly rediscovering her eloquent sensibility.