Germaine Tailleferre

Image used with permission from A Modern Reveal

French Composer • 1892-1983 •
Classical-French Impressionism • Neoclassical

Fast Facts

• Germaine Tailleferre was born in 1892, just outside of Paris.
• Her music study began at home with her mother teaching her piano lessons.
• She composed her first opera when she was just eight years old!
• At age12 she attended the Paris Conservatory where she met other composers, including Darius Milhaud and Maurice Ravel. 
• Her father disapproved of her music studies, and at the age of 14 she began supporting herself by teaching piano lessons.
• She composed 178 pieces before she died in 1983. 
• She became friends with many of the major French impressionist composers of the time, and was the first woman to be in the famous “Le six”- the 6 French composers. 
• Many of her compositions include piano, her primary instrument, but she also wrote operas, chamber pieces, ballets, vocal music, and music including the harp.

“I have had a very difficult life, you know. Only I do not like to talk about it, because I write happy music as a release. But anyway, things were always against me. Whatever happened, it was against me.” – Germaine Tailleferre

ACCESS THE FULL UNIT