Hugues Cuénod, 108 - Happy Birthday!

Aged 10, Hugues Cuénod attended a concert celebrating Camille Saint-Säens's 78th birthday. Saint-Saëns played  piano with Ignace Paderewski,while Felia Litvine sang. That was 1913. This weekend, Hugues Cuénod reaches his 108th birthday. He still lives in Vevey, in Switzerland, where he was born. He's frail now, sleeps a lot, but still has his wits about him.

Cuénod's famous in the Anglophone world because he made his debut at the Met in his 80's. But the Met isn't the world. Cuénod trained in Vienna and Paris in the 1920's, singing whatever amused him - operetta,  Mozart, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf in 1928, and "Negro spirituals" which he learned from a black American tenor, and recorded in the 1930's.

He didn't hear Pelléas et Mélisande til 1922, but knew many of the people involved with it, including both Mary Garden, Debussy's choice for Mélisande, and Georgette Leblanc, Maurice Maeterlinck's mistress, for whom he'd written the libretto. LeBlanc told him a story about how she and Maeterlinck were canoodling in a park when her husband appeared. Maeterlinck shot up a tree to hide. The scene went into the opera!

Cuénod sang Bach with Vincent D'Indy (in French) and knew the severe, "Protestant" Bach tradition in Geneva. He met Nadia Boulanger in 1934, just when she needed a singer to illustrate her teaching of Monteverdi, thus making him the first "modern" Monteverdi specialist. Boulanger was no purist, playing piano rather than harpsichord or fortepiano, and with heavy-handed gusto, but they made Monteverdi exciting and fun.  He also sang Cavalli and other early operas.. Without Hugues Cuénod, the baroque revival of the 20th century might not have happened so quickly..

Yet, as Cuénod cheerfully says, he's never taken life too seriously. Boulanger was notoriously demanding. Igor Markevitch, also a Vevey boy, and friend of both, called her "Herr Doktor" behind her back. Cuénod could defuse situations with his easy, laconic humour.  He, after all was the man who could croon like Jean Sablon so well that he formed a duo with a soprano, called Bob et Babette, to sing French language pop songs. There's a great photo of them in 1937, looking so wholesome and sweet it's almost a joke!

Cuénod also knew  Noel Coward, whom he described to an  interviewer as "an English Sacha Guitry". They did a thing called The Green Carnations which was so openly gay, even Coward was worried how it might go down. Maybe the public didn't twig. When Switzerland allowed gay marriage, Cuénod was one of the first to take advantage, marrying in his late 80's. They're still together, after 40 years.

 Of course, Cuénod knew Stravinsky, their circles connected in many ways. Stravinsky wrote Sellem the auctioneer in The Rake's Progress for him, a short but characterful role, making the most of Cuénod's dramatic strengths. (one of his favourite roles was the Stammerer in Smetana's The Bartered Bride). Everyone in the business went to the premiere, and Cuénod's opera career blossomed better than any agent could have dreamed. That's how he was asked to sing The Captain in Wozzeck at La Scala with Tito Gobbi.

Cuénod also became an enduring fixture at Glyndebourne.. He was also a regular at Aldeburgh, for many years. Britten wanted him to sing duets with Peter Pears, but it didn't work out because their voices and styles were too different. "Harnessing a horse with a steer", said Cuénod, discreetly.
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So Happy Birthday Hugues Cuénod, and many more to come!
Photo credit : Charles Sigel

Hugues Cuénod, 107

Please note, I'll be doing LOTS more about Cuénod in 2010 including a few exclusives you won't find anywhere else !!!!!!! So please bookmark this site, subscribe and keep coming back.  HERE is the latest post. Celebrate Hugues Cuénod who turned 107 on 26th June. Read the interesting blog (in French) Comme Il vous plaira. by Charles Sigel. To read the post click HERE
It's lovely, scroll down by one message to get to the Letter to Hugues Cuénod. Cuénod knew everyone in French (and other) music circles, often close enough to tutoyer.

Here is a clip of a recording made in 1937. The pianist is Nadia Boulanger. The recording was possibly made in the home of the Princesse de Polignac. It's like listening in on another, private world. The princess, who was an heiress of the man who invented sewing machines, was a great patron of the arts. She held soirees in her palace, attended by the likes of Poulenc, Ravel, Stravinsky, and many others, where many premieres were played sometimes dedicated by one of the group to another. These were private, so most were not recorded, so what survives is precious.

How fresh and young Cuénod sounds. No wonder he was still singing into his mid 80's. The other singer is Paul Derenne, also a tenor. I don't know who plays the violin as I thought the princess was a pianist.

Why music education ? Inspiring women teachers

Governments slash arts funding, and get away with it because people don't value culture. Yet arts education opens far more doors than people realize. Although it's not narrowly vocational, it opens doors to history, literature, philosophy and the appreciation of human values. Sometimes, anyway. It teaches sensitivity and the ability to intuit feelings from abstractions. Minims and crotchets speak! These habits are useful in most kinds of business, so they have commercial application in many fields.

There's a lot more to music teaching than technical exercise. Good teachers bring out the best in those they teach, inspiring them to learn and create. The latest issue of Signature magazine is now out. (click link) It's devoted to different ways of music education : Clara Schumann, Nadia Boulanger, Elizabeth Maconchy and many others less famous, like Guirne Crieth, and Denise Restout, companion of Wanda Landowska.

Diana Ambache contributes a thoughtful chapter on Nadia Boulanger and her impact on 20th century music. The article on Clara Schumann is by Annemarie Vogt, extensively researched and detailed. These two pieces alone are reference resources. I was also moved by Pam Blevin's tribute to her own, charismatic teacher : a humble person whose impact on others was great.

Signature is rewarding as it approaches music from a different perspective. Women have always played a part in music but they tend to get written out of history because they aren't appreciated. Yet their contributions are significant and unique. Download the current volume (80 pp). It's a good read.