Description

MADELEINE MARCELLI-HERSON (ROUBAIX, 9 SEPTEMBER, 1898 – 11 MAY, 1971)

 

 

 

 

Madeleine Marcelli-Herson was a French cellist of the first half of the twentieth century, remembered today chiefly through her recordings and her work in the musical life of France during the interwar period. She was a pupil of the distinguished French cellist André Hekking, one of the leading cello teachers and performers of his generation. Her training placed her within the important French cello tradition associated with Hekking and the Paris Conservatoire school.

Marcelli-Herson pursued a career as both an orchestral musician and a chamber performer. She was a solo cellist of the Orchestre Pasdeloup, one of Paris’s major concert orchestras, and was also active in chamber music. Her professional activities extended beyond Paris: she was associated with the Conservatoire de Lille, where she served as a cello teacher. Archival documentation from Lille records her as a member of the conservatory’s teaching staff. In 1939–1940, she was removed from her position after failing to return to her post, a circumstance that reflects the disruption of French musical institutions during the beginning of the Second World War.

Her surviving recordings provide an important glimpse of her artistic activity. Among the most notable is her participation in Maurice Ravel’s Piano Trio in A minor, recorded in Paris on 12 March 1931 for the Gramophone Company. Marcelli-Herson played the cello, with Henri Merckel as violinist and Éliane Zurfluh-Tenroc at the piano. The recording was issued on Gramophone DB 4803–4805 and remains an important document of French chamber performance of Ravel’s music.

Marcelli-Herson also made recordings of shorter works for cello and piano. The catalogue of the Bibliothèque nationale de France documents performances under her name of works by composers including Sammartini, Salmon and Dunkler, with pianist M. Petitjean. Her surviving 78-rpm recordings also include arrangements of such works as Schubert’s “Serenade,” Massenet’s Le Dernier Sommeil de la Vierge, and Dvořák’s Humoresque.

Her career was connected with contemporary French composition as well. Paul Pierné’s Nocturne for cello and piano, published in 1932, was dedicated to Madeleine Marcelli-Herson, providing evidence of her standing within French musical circles.

Although comparatively little personal biographical information about Marcelli-Herson has survived, the available documentation places her among the professional French cellists active in both Paris and the provinces during the first half of the twentieth century. Her association with André Hekking, her work as a solo cellist with the Orchestre Pasdeloup, her teaching position at the Conservatoire de Lille, her chamber-music collaborations, and her recordings—particularly the 1931 Ravel Piano Trio—provide a picture of a musician who participated actively in the French musical culture of her time.

Madeleine Marcelli-Herson died in 1971. Her exact place of death has not yet been established from the available documentation. Her surviving recordings remain the principal testimony to her musicianship and constitute valuable documents of the French cello tradition of the early twentieth century.

 

 

TRACKLIST

 

Chants russes (Lalo) Gramophone L-626 0237858 30- 3-27

Elegie (Faure) 1 Partie, 2 Partie M. Petitjean piano HMV L-776, L-776

Grave (J. S. Bach) Gramophone K5741 BS 3461 1929-03-26

Le cygne (Saint-Saëns) Le carnaval des animaux Denise Herbrecht piano HMV K-6472 50-1931

Les millions d’Arlequin (Drigo) Serenade Denise Herbrecht piano HMV K-6591 50-2205

Ravel: Trio pour Piano, Violon et Violoncelle

Henri Merckel, violin,

Madeleine Marcelli-Herson, cello,

Elaine Zurfluh-Tenroc, piano

Recording date: March 12, 1931

Voix de son maître DB4803-05

Matr.  2G 443-48