Rita Strohl was born in Lorient (Morbihan) in 1865, the eldest daughter of painter Élodie Jacquier and army officer and amateur violinist Jules Larousse-La Villette. As a student at the Paris Conservatory, she manifested her independence by writing her own solfège lessons. She studied composition privately under Adrien Barthe. In 1880, she played her Ballade en sol mineur for an examination, a feat she reiterated in 1883 with Impromptus. She began composing chamber music in 1884 with Premier Trio, which was performed at the Société Nationale de Musique in 1886. A dozen pieces followed, with Septuor pour cordes et piano (1890), Sonate de la mer pour alto, violoncelle et piano (1893), and Titus et Bérénice, sonate dramatique for cello and piano (1898) bearing mention. She also leaves behind fifty-odd mélodies, written between 1887 and 1901, including a collection titled Bilitis (1900). In 1888, she married naval officer Émile Strohl, with whom she had four children before his death in 1900. She continued writing symphonic pieces, work she had previously undertaken with her lyric symphony Jeanne d’Arc (1885) and her orchestral suite Atala et René (1887): between 1901 and 1904, she composed Symphonie de la forêt, Symphonie de la mer, and Trois Préludes. This period was a turning point in her inspiration, which grew more influenced by spirituality. Around 1903 she met musician and artist René Billa, pseudonymously known as Richard Burgsthal (1884-1944), whom she married in 1908. Together they planned to build a “little Bayreuth” in Bièvres (Essonne), which was to be the stage for the monumental hybrid opera-oratorios she wrote between 1904 and 1923 on her own librettos: a Christian cycle, a Celtic cycle, and a Hindu cycle. The project was interrupted by the war, before being abandoned entirely due to lack of funding. Excerpts of the Christian cycle were performed in 1931 at the Concerts Lamoureux. Note that the vast majority of Rita Strohl’s body of work has remained unpublished.

– Florence Launay –

[Traduction en anglais : Raphaël Meyer]