Marie-Léontine Bordes-Pène

Marie-Léontine Bordes-Pène (25 November 1858 – 24 January 1924) was notable French pianist, who premiered major works by César Franck, Vincent d'Indy and others.

Marie-Léontine Pène (or Léontine-Marie Pène) was born in Lorient in 1858. She studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, gaining first prize in piano in 1872. Her teachers included Félix Le Couppey.^[1]

She married a brother of the composer Charles Bordes, and was known by the surname Bordes-Pène thereafter.^[2][3]

On 16 December 1886, in Brussels, Bordes-Pène was the co-performer, along with the dedicatee Eugène Ysaÿe, in the premiere public performance of César Franck's Violin Sonata in A major. It was the finale to a long program that started at 3pm, and when it came time for the sonata it was early evening. However, the gallery in which the performance took place permitted no artificial lighting for fear of damaging the paintings. Hence, the artists played most of the sonata in the dark and from memory.^[4]

Also in 1886, in Paris, she was the soloist at the first performance of Vincent d'Indy's Symphony on a French Mountain Air, which was dedicated to her.^[2]

In 1888, Pierre de Bréville dedicated his Fantasie to her.^[3] Franck also dedicated his Prelude, aria et finale to her^[2], which she premiered on 12 May 1888.^[5][6]

Marie-Léontine Bordes-Pène championed much other new French piano music, by composers such as Emmanuel Chabrier, Gabriel Fauré, Henri Duparc, Ernest Chausson, her brother-in-law Charles Bordes and others.^[2]

In 1889-91 the painter Jacques Émile Blanche painted her portrait.^[3]

In 1890 a stroke left her paralysed,^[7] and she retired to teach in Rouen where she died in 1924, aged 65.^[2]

References

1. ^ Piano Genealogy
2. ^ ^{a b c d e} Eric Blom, ed., Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed, 1954, Vol. I, p. 814
3. ^ ^{a b c} Musicologie.org
4. ^ Gramophone, February 1938
5. ^ César Franck: a translation from the French of Vincent d'Indy
6. ^ Andrew Thomson, Vincent d’Indy and His World
7. ^ PianoWomen

Persondata
Name	Bordespene, Marieleontine
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Date of birth	1858
Place of birth
Date of death	1924
Place of death