ABSTRACT
I first encountered the name Augusta Patricia Mary-Anne Holmès in 2004 in Richard Pine’s introductory essay to his edited bookMusic in Ireland 1848-1998 (1998: 24), in which she’s listed as one of a number of forgotten Irish classical composers. An internet search produced a modicum of information, but it was clear even then that here was an intriguing figure deserving of more attention that she had hitherto received. When I began to search in earnest I discovered:
two unpublished American theses – one at Masters level (Rockwood 2002), one doctoral (Theeman 1983);
four French biographies – two written shortly after her death (BarillonBauché 1912; Pichard du Page 1921), two (after decades of neglect) towards the end of the twentieth century (Friang 1998; Gefen 1988);
one short essay on her life and career by the English composer Ethel Smyth (1928: 126-36);
two journal articles dealing with various aspects of her experience (Myers 1967; Pasler 1998);
one chapter detailing her contribution to the centenary celebrations for the French Revolution at the Paris World’s Fair in 1889 (Fauser 2005: 103-38);
two archives of her writings and possessions – one held in the National Library in Versailles where Augusta Holmès (or Holmes as she was then) grew up, one at the National Library in Paris where she lived for most of her life and where she died in 1903;
one recording of selections of her orchestral music (1994) and various recordings of a few of her many songs (Various Artists 1996, 2005);
a sizeable number of song scores in the Music Room of the British Library; one biographical novel focusing on her relationship with the composer
César Franck (Harwood 1978); numerous obscure references to her (much of the time in footnotes) in the
biographies of various ‘Great Men’ from the late nineteenth century, including Franck himself, Camille Saint-Saëns, Stéphane Mallarmé, Richard Wagner and George Moore.
