Music's Modern Muse

The American-born Winnaretta Singer [1865-1943] was a millionaire at the age of eighteen due to her inheriting a substantial part of the Singer Sewing Machine fortune. Her 1893 marriage to Prince Edmond de Polignac an amateur composer brought her into contact with the most elite strata of French society. After Edmond's death in 1901 she used her fortune to benefit the arts science and letters. Her most significant contribution was in the musical domain: in addition to subsidizing individual artists [Boulanger Haskil Rubinstein Horowitz] and organizations [the Ballets Russes l'Opéra de Paris l'Orchestre Symphonique de Paris] she made a lifelong project of commissioning new musical works from composers many of them unknown and struggling to be performed in her Paris salon. The list of works created as a result is long and extraordinary: Stravinsky's Renard Satie's Socrate Falla's El Retablo de Maese Pedro and Poulenc's Two-Piano and Organ Concertos are among the best-known titles. In addition her salon was a gathering place for luminaries of French culture such as Proust Cocteau Monet Diaghilev and Colette. Many of Proust's memorable evocations of salon culture were born during his attendance at concerts in the Polignac music room. Sylvia Kahan brings to life this eccentic and extravagant lover of the arts whose influence on the 20th Century world of music and literature remains incalculable.