Hélène Covatti-Dussaut was born in 1910 in Athens. Her mother was a painter and her father worked at the Romanian embassy. At age fifteen, following the death of her father, she left with her mother and one of her brothers to join family in Paris. She entered the Conservatory, studying harmony under Paul Fauchet (first prize in 1934), counterpoint and fugue under Noël Gallon (first prize in 1937), and composition under Jean Roger-Ducasse. She won the Halphen Prize for her Sonate pour violon et piano, with compliments from Arthur Honegger. She married composer Robert Dussaut (1886-1969), who won the Prix de Rome in 1924. In 1939, they had a daughter, Thérèse, who would become and internationally famous pianist. Hélène Covatti-Dussaut’s surviving body of work, composed between her Conservatory studies and the birth of her daughter, is small but of high quality. She then dedicated her life to her daughter’s education and to teaching at the Paris Conservatory. Her work remained unpublished until after her death: a Romance for violin and piano, op. 1, a Sonata for violin and piano which also has a version for viola, Fantaisie sur un thème populaire grec for orchestra (and for piano duet), and eight mélodies set to poems written by women – a clearly deliberate choice. The mélodies were performed in 1938 by Spéranza Calo-Séailles and reprised by Elen Dosia for the French Radio. Violinist Lucia Artopoulos performed the Sonate pour violon et piano at Salle Gaveau – with the piano parts likely performed by Hélène Covatti-Dussaut. Thérèse Dussaut dedicated herself to promoting her parents’ works, and had her mother’s published. She transcribed two mélodies for solo piano, and six others for violin and piano. She also recorded the Sonate pour violon et piano, as well as its transcriptions for violin, with Constantin Bogdanas and André Grudzien. The mélodies were recorded by Adriana González and Iñaki Encina Oyón.

– Florence Launay, based on the work of Thérèse Dussaut and Iñaki Encina Oyón –

[Traduction en anglais : Raphaël Meyer]