A Great Desire: Autobiography in Louise 
Talma's Three Madrigals 

Kendra Preston Leonard 

American composer Louise Talma's compositions are highly autobiographi­
cal, concerning, among other subjects, her conversion to Catholicism (Hound 
of Heaven , 1938), her frustration with teaching and the limited career choices 
available to women of her day (The Alcestiad, 1961), milestone events in her 
life and in those of her friends (Ave Atque Vale, 1989), and her reaction to 
the Vietnam War (Voices of Peace, 1973). In this article I examine ways in 
which Talma's very early secular vocal works likely refer to another aspect 
of her life, namely, her love and desire for an erotic relationship with Nadia 
Boulanger. To that end, I read the music and text ofTalma's Three Madrigals 
(1929, texts by Sir Thomas Wyatt), and, lacking scores, the texts of her songs 
"La Belle Dame Sans Merci" (1929, John Keats), "Late Leaves" (1934, Walter 
Savage Landor), and "Never Seek to Tell Thy Love" (1934, William Blake), 
as a non-traditional form of autobiography, or what Caren Kaplan calls an 
"out-law genre" (Kaplan 1992:122). 

Talma was born in 1906 to opera singer Alma Cecile Garrigues Talma 
in Arcachon, France. The two came to the United States when Talma was a 
child, and "Cecile;' as her mother was known, established a voice and piano 
studio in New York (US.S. Niagara). First studying music with her mother, 
and later attending the Institute for Musical Art (which would become the 
Juilliard School) for her undergraduate studies, Talma gave her first public 
New York recital in March 1925. Around the same time she began teaching 
theory at the Neighborhood Music School and piano privately (New York 
Times). Talma began to compose in 1921, taking lessons and writing at 
least one song for voice and piano before 1925, and in 1926 both she and 
her mother enrolled at the Conservatoire Americain in Fontainebleau. 
Although Talma enrolled in order to study piano with Isidor Philipp, she 
also studied harmony with Nadia Boulanger, who encouraged her to focus 
on composition rather than piano performance (Jory 1967:1). Talma fol­
lowed this advice, becoming a composition student of Boulanger at the 
Conservatoire American the following year, and she remained focused on 
composition for the rest of her career. Eventually becoming the first female 
winner of two back-to-back Guggenheim Awards (1946, 1947) and the 
first female winner of the Sibelius Award for Composition (1963), Talma 
was also the first American woman to have an opera premiered in Europe 

Current Musicology, No. 92 (Fall 2011) 
© 2011 by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York 53 



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(1962) and the first woman elected to the American Academy and Institute 
of Arts and Letters (1974). 

Little research has been published on Talma to date. The bulk of 
her scores and papers are held by the Library of Congress in the Louise 
Talma Collection, which contains recently processed materials including 
manuscripts, printed scores, correspondence, and reviews. Yale University's 
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library holds in both its Thornton 
Wilder Collection and its Louise Talma Collection materials relating to 
Talma and Wilder's collaboration on their opera The Alcestiad. While a great 
deal has been written about Boulanger, very little of that deals directly with 
her relationship with Talma. However, with the materials from the Library of 
Congress now available, if not completely catalogued, it is possible to study 
this relationship in more depth. Talma's extant letters to and from Boulanger 
begin in 1929, but their frequent referencing of past events, meetings, and 
conversations also provides insight into the women's earlier interactions. 

Before further considering Talma's life and compositions, it is important 
to establish some theoretical underpinnings of this analysis. Of women's 
autobiography, Julia Watson writes that "many fictions of female develop­
ment structure the incorporation of sexuality as the internalization of the 
only sexual identity to be spoken-that of female heterosexuality defined as 
the other of heterosexual masculinity. In autobiography, which as a genre has 
functioned as the keeper of the 'law' of patriarchal identity, women's sexuality 
has usually been presumed as heterosexual except when spoken otherwise" 
(Watson 1992:140). Sidonie Smith further notes that when women set aside 
the "sanctities of official narratives;' which would have included personal 
writing such as journaling, and instead chose to write their lives through 
other forms, they were able to "evade narrative fixture in official scripts of 
the universal subject or embodied subject" (Smith 1993:23). Smith defines 
the "autobiographical manifesto" as follows: 

A public performance, the manifesto revels in the energetic display of a new 
kind of subject. The manifesto engages directly the cultural construction of 
identities and their sanctioned and legitimated performances, engaging the 
ideological systems pressing specific identities on specific persons. It takes a 
public stand on behalf of purposeful deflections, intervening in oppressive 
identity performances, troubling cultural authorized fictions. Historicizing 
identity, the autobiographical manifesto implicitly, if not explicitly, insists 
on the temporalities and spatialities of identity and, in doing so, brings 
the everyday practices of identity directly into the floodlights of conscious 
display. (Smith 1993:161) 

The manifesto need not be all-encompassing, nor a complete philosophical 
account of the writer's life or beliefs. Rather, in the terms of autobiographical 



Kendra Preston Leonard 

theory, it may be any statement about a narrator's self that aids in the con­
struction of the narrator's identity, and can be as limited or as extensive as 
the writer chooses. 

I propose that much of Talma's compositional oeuvre is such an auto­
biographical manifesto. Additionally, her early works may be understood 
in terms of Kaplan's concept of the "out-law" narrative, a non-traditional 
autobiographical genre that "renegotiate [s 1 the relationship between personal 
identity and the world, between personal and social history" (Kaplan: 130). 
While journal and diary-keeping was common among women who lived in 
the early and mid-twentieth century, pursuing a career as a composer was 
not. The realm of the composer remained, with a few notable exceptions, 
that of men. Thus, by writing her life through music, Talma created works 
that in both the medium (of a male-dominated art form), and the message 
(a declaration of same-sex love) function as out-law narratives. In these 
pieces, a narrator, whose role is assigned to female singers, addresses her 
unrequited desire for a woman, and laments the cruelty of the woman who 
spurns her. By setting multiple texts traditionally associated with a male 
narrator for a woman, Talma establishes an identity outside of the hetero­
normative orthodoxy presumed by society and negotiates her own personal 
and social history. Reading Talma's early compositions in this manner, we 
may, as Watson puts it, "trace a trajectory of naming an unspeakable;' namely, 
same-sex love and desire among women (140). 

Talma and Boulanger's relationship began as that of student and in­
structor, a dynamic that, as Marjorie Garber points out, is rife with erotic 
possibility. Countless lesbian and bisexual narratives relate the phenomenon 
of a female student's "crush" or "flame" for an older female teacher (Garber 
2000:330). Numerous characteristics of these "flame" relationships described 
by Garber correspond almost exactly to Talma's actions during the first 
several years of the women's relationship. As Garber states, "The list is worth 
scrutinizing because it is a typology of love-any love, but especially what 
we call 'romantic:" The list includes: 

the extraordinary frequency with which, even by means of subterfuges, 
the lovers exchange letters; the anxiety to see and talk to one another, 
to press each other's hands, to embrace and kiss; the long conversations 
and the very long reveries; persistent jealousy, with its manifold arts and 
usual results; exaltation of the beloved's qualities; the habit of writing the 
beloved's name everywhere; absence of envy for the loved one's qualities; 
the lover's abnegation in conquering all obstacles to the manifestations of 
her love; the vanity with which some respond to "flame" declarations; the 
consciousness of doing a prohibited thing; [and] the pleasure of conquest, 
of which the trophies (letters, etc.) are preserved. (2000:304) 

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Talma's relationship with Boulanger demonstrated nearly all of these 
aspects with the exception of physical contact, which Boulanger kept to 
a minimum-at least in public-and which Talma craved beyond all else. 
During the early years of their relationship, spanning the late 1920s, the 
two women spent considerable time together during Talma's summers in 
France at the Conservatoire Americain. Boulanger invited Talma to live in 
her Paris home and at her summer home in Gargenville. Ethel Chapman, a 
close friend of Talma at the time, described the early relationship between 
mentor and pupil: "all the intimacy of those early years, the walks along 
the Seine, the times at her summer place, and on and on" (Chapman 
1964). Their relationship at this time may be characterized as what Lillian 
Faderman calls "romantic friendship:' Faderman describes this kind of 
relationship as a passionate and devoted union that, while couched in the 
language oflovers, was nevertheless "not genital" (Faderman 1981: 18). That 
the relationship excluded sexual activity is seemingly indicated in Talma's 
letters which testify-with great pain and longing-to Boulanger's inability 
to engage in physical affection. Boulanger's affections could be variable, and 
she made it clear that she preferred working with male students over female 
ones (Leonard 2007:46). Nonetheless, Talma pursued Boulanger's affection, 
while at the same time beginning to compose her Three Madrigals-love 
songs whose texts speak of a lover's despair over the beloved's mixed mes­
sages and fickleness. Talma's manuscripts indicate that the Madrigals were 
composed in New York, and performances of them took place there, but it 
is unknown whether Boulanger ever saw or heard them. While Talma was 
more experimental in her early works-abandoning stable key areas and 
meter-the Madrigals are written using common-practice period harmonic 
and rhythmic conventions, adoptions Talma made only after studying with 
Boulanger, possibly in an attempt to gain her teacher's approval. Nonetheless, 
Talma uses several of her common compositional hallmarks, including 
non-developmental blocks to structure a piece; minor and/or major seconds 
to indicate emphaSiS, often distress; and a distinct practice of dis/continuity, 
in which continuity is maintained through certain compositional elements 
while discontinuity is simultaneously created with others. 

During the 1930s, the period in which the love songs were written, 
when Talma was away from Fontainebleau she would write to Boulanger 
up to several times a week. These writings include long letters, postcards, 
telegrams, and missives passed on by friends. Additionally, Talma wrote 
to friends of Boulanger's greatness, overlooking any human foibles that 
she might display (Chapman 1969). Writing to Boulanger in 1933, Talma 
expressed her sincere devotion to her teacher. She writes, "You know that 
the smallest word from you is more to me than all the volumes of the world" 



Kendra Preston Leonard 

(Talma, May 26, 1933). In a later letter recalling the ceremony in which she 
converted to Catholicism with Boulanger as her godmother, Talma couched 
her conversion ceremony as a wedding to Boulanger as much as to the 
Church: "we stood together before God's altar. That was the most joyous 
day of my life" (Talma, July 4, 1941). She further wrote of the ceremony, in 
which Boulanger presented her with a ring: 

My most dear one, you cannot fully realize what this so exquisite ring 
means for me. It is the one thing which I have really desired with a great 
desire-that I might wear a ring given me by you. You must have seen the 
wish in my eyes that I might at some time be so privileged as to have upon 
my finger a ring of yours. (Talma, July 1, 1935) 

However, Talma would continue to desire to live with or close to Boulanger, 
and to have some kind of physical involvement. In 1935, she wrote to a 
mutual friend about the end of the summer in France: 

It was terrible, leaving her [Boulanger]. I hardly knew what I was saying 
that last night with her, and there was so much that had to be said, and 
finally I left in a wave of despair without saying any of it. As for her-Ida 
not know whether she feared that weakening effect on me of any softness 
on her part, or whether she just cannot bring herself to it, or whether it 
is absolutely against her principles, but she let me go without one gentle 
caress ... And yet I know she loves me well. (Talma, 1935) 

Boulanger replied frequently to Talma's letters, but the majority of the extant 
responses, even those from the late 1920s, show her to be cool and detached, 
stating only in closing lines, alongside passages from Scripture, that she 
was thinking of Talma. Despite the intimacies they apparently shared, and 
Boulanger's seeming encouragement of Talma's romantic pursuit that took 
place in person in France during the mid -1920s, it is clear from Boulanger's 
letters at the end of the decade and into the next that she was not willing or 
able to openly reciprocate Talma's feelings, eliminating any possibility for 
romantic development. 

Following Talma's 1934 conversion, Boulanger, who was slowly be­
coming increasingly distant in her letters, took to signing them "Marraine 
[Godmother l:' as if to emphasize the necessity of keeping any emotions she 
had for her godchild repressed or secret. Talma seems to have accepted the 
reality of the situation: that Boulanger would not be her lover in the future, 
whatever had taken place in the past. The tenor of Talma's letters changed 
drastically, and she begged Boulanger for forgiveness for any inappropriate 
overtures she made: 

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I have only an immense sorrow that I can bring you nothing, and remorse 
without name that I have on the contrary given you, my most dearly beloved 
friend on earth, than to serve whom I can, I can think of no greater joy, I 
would wish to do nothing but that which could be of some good to you, 
so many painful hours with my sad, terse countenance and my selfish 
thoughtlessness and lack of restraint -and what is terrible is to have been 
for so long blind to this, and to know that no amount of regret can undo 
those hours. (Talma, August 4,1935) 

Talma later re-emphasized her anguish over the situation, writing: 

I am not yet accustomed to living with this being I am finding myself to 
be-so weak, so poor, so lost, whose relationships are all distorted ... I 
cannot even arrive at the peace of communion, and I need it so greatly. It 
is easy enough to confess fault, but it is horribly difficult to put into words 
intangible mental states which are as sinful as if not more so that actions:' 
(Talma, August 9, 1935) 

Following this outpouring, Boulanger's only response, a month later, was a 
telegram stating that she had not wished to "renew painful emotions of the 
heart;' signing it "Tenderly, Godmother" (Boulanger, September 4, 1935). 
Despite this response, Talma still struggled with her feelings for Boulanger. 
Only a month later she wrote, "I cannot envisage the thought of living 
permanently away from you ... I am so lonely and so unhappy away from 
you! I dream about you and that I am near you with such startling vivid­
ness, and I wake up with infinite sadness to realize it was only a dream and 
that this damned boat is taking me every hour further from you" (Talma, 
September 1935). Later she wrote that, "when all my thoughts should be 
directed towards home and the problems of the immediate future I cannot 
keep them from turning constantly towards you and towards means of 
returning to you:' Talma's friend and fellow Boulanger student Marie Brodeur 
frequently consoled Talma, advising her in a letter, "Do not let Nadia hurt 
you. If she wants to remain frigid you cannot force her" (Brodeur, letter 
written to Talma, 1930s). 

Talma devised methods of worshipping her beloved from afar by wearing 
jewelry Boulanger had given her and creating shrines in her home: 

That you should bestow upon me these things so treasured to you, and 
thereby even more precious to me, is more than wonderful ... My room 
is filled with your presence. When I go to bed your cross which is with me 
all day hangs upon the wall above my head, and sends its bleSSings upon 
me throughout the night. In the morning when I awaken the first thing 
my eyes behold as they open is your beloved countenance looking down 



Kendra Preston Leonard 

from the wall beside me out of four of the seven pictures I have of you (the 
other three are by the piano, so that you are beside me everywhere when 
I am at home). (Talma, January 2, 1936) 

In May 1941, however, Talma's attitude towards Boulanger changed. Shocked 
by Boulanger's anti-Semitism, Talma wrote to her, eschewing the lavish 
language of the earlier letters. It is "very bewildering and sad;' she wrote. 
"Perhaps you can enlighten me on how an expression of hatred can mean its 
opposite. Meanwhile I know that my doctor, who is Jewish, treats me with 
more, I notice, understanding and humanity than do you, my godmother. 
It's sad, but all this changes nothing to my love for you which remains as 
always" (Talma, May 6, 1941). Boulanger claimed not to understand what 
Talma was upset about: "I continue not to understand you, but I don't doubt 
your sentiments" (Boulanger, May 30, 1941). Boulanger later wrote that, 
out of respect, Talma should allow her to think what she liked, stating, "do 
not try to reform me" (Boulanger, June 21, 1941). This rebuke did little to 
assuage Talma, who, two months later wrote, "The day I heard you with 
your anti-Semitism deny the first principle of your faith-our faith-was 
the saddest:' In a line, crossed-out in the draft, Talma goes on to write, 
"because then I lost my most cherished possession-my respect for you:' 
She continues, "My only consolation is to remember that Peter also denied 
his Lord. But love you with all my heart I do, and that is why the anguish 
is so great" (Talma, July 4, 1941). On Good Friday of the following year, 
Talma returned to Boulanger the ring and baptismal cross Boulanger had 
given her upon her conversion. While they would remain in touch almost 
as often as before, and Talma would struggle with her need for Boulanger's 
approval and attention throughout her life, their relationship was unalterably 
changed, and Talma's uncritical adulation of Boulanger and her desire for 
their relationship to be openly romantic had ended. Talma stopped setting 
works of romantic text and began to focus more intensely on religious and 
spiritual materials and forms. 

After her failed relationship with Boulanger, Talma retreated from 
seeking or sustaining many close personal relationships. She maintained a 
non-romantic friendship with Marie Brodeur throughout their lives, and, 
later in life, an intense romantic friendship with another woman, I both of 
whom had also been Boulanger students at the Conservatoire Americain. 
There is no evidence of a physical element in her relationship with this other 
former Boulanger pupil, but the epistolary documentation indicates that the 
woman felt considerable physical desire for Talma. As Talma once wrote to 
Boulanger, so this woman writes to Talma: 

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I committed myself to you long ago-with apprehension, that is true, 
but I did it anyhow, with full knowledge of my own responsibility to that 
commitment -knowing myself so well-knowing that once I turn loose of 
my heart it can never be mine again-knowing my vulnerability-knowing 
that every joy has a pain that is the price-knowing how lonely I get for the 
people I love-knowing the disparity of our own personalities, knowing 
the differences in the way we live ... I stood behind you, and held you in 
my arms, with my heart beating against your shoulder blade, your hand 
in mine ... (Name redacted, February 6, 1965) 

The woman found the relationship difficult, and cites Talma's tendencies to 
pull away or to turn unexpectedly cold (January 1965), bringing them both 
pain and causing the woman to equate Talma's behavior with Boulanger's of 
many years earlier. In addition, this woman, a Catholic convert like Talma, 
clearly agonized over the appropriateness of their situation, writing at one 
point, "I love you, Louisa, were though I wish with all my strength that I 
didn't" (February 1965). Talma's responses to these letters have not been 
discovered. Nonetheless, it appears from the letters that they maintained this 
relationship for several years from the mid -1960s through at least the early 
1970s. In no case did Talma replicate the kind of relationship she had with 
Boulanger with any of her own students, who recall her mostly as "cold;' 
(Powers 2009) and "gruff" towards them (Atlas 2009). 

Between meeting Boulanger and converting to Catholicism, Talma 
wrote several songs for women's voices or solo voice and piano, as well as 
her first orchestral composition, Isabeau Porme (1927-28), a work based 
on French -Canadian folksongs and written for a Canadian contest. Apart 
from the contest piece, the majority of these works address unrequited or 
impossible love: Three Madrigals (1929, texts by Sir Thomas Wyatt); "La 
Belle Dame Sans Merci" (1929, John Keats); Five Sonnets from the Portuguese 
(1934, Elizabeth Barrett Browning); "Late Leaves" (1934, Walter Savage 
Landor); and "Never Seek to Tell Thy Love" (1934, William Blake). 

The first of the songs, composed in 1929, is the cycle Three Madrigals, a 
setting of three poems by Sir Thomas Wyatt. These poems, "The Appeal: An 
Earnest Suit to his Unkind Mistress, not to Forsake him;' "Revocation;' and 
"The Careful Lover Complaineth and the Happy Lover Counseleth;' present 
a narrator who continually asks the beloved to affirm her loyalty and desire 
and implores her to deny that she has rejected the narrator. Ultimately the 
narrator finds the lover cruel. Talma set the songs for women's voices and 
string quartet, changing the narrator's gender from male to female while 
retaining the female gender of the beloved. She also arranged the songs for 
women's voices and piano for performances in which a string quartet was 
not available. 



Kendra Preston Leonard 

The narrative suggested by the ordering of songs in this cycle corre­
sponds to Talma's responses regarding her relationship with Boulanger. Just 
as Talma felt confused that their early intimate period together was followed 
by contradictory messages from Boulanger and finally a withdrawal from 
intimacy, the narrator of "The Appeal" is perplexed that the beloved, whom 
the lover has "loved ... so long/In wealth and woe among:' has begun to cast 
off the lover by denying attention and affection: "wilt thou leave me thus, / 
And have no more pitye / Of him that loveth thee? / Alas, thy cruelty!/ And 
wilt thou leave me thus?" The lover entreats the beloved to change her mind, 
repeatedly pleading, "Say nay! say nay!" The text ends with the relationship 
unresolved: the narrator yearns for the beloved, who returns no encouraging 
response; indeed, there is no response at all. 

And wilt thou leave me thus! 
Say nay, say nay, for shame! 
- To save thee from the blame 
Of all my grief and grame. 
And wilt thou leave me thus? 

Say nay! say nay! 

And wilt thou leave me thus, 
That hath loved thee so long 
In wealth and woe among: 
And is thy heart so strong 
As for to leave me thus? 

Say nay! say nay! 

And wilt thou leave me thus, 
That hath given thee my heart 
Never for to depart 
Neither for pain nor smart: 
And wilt thou leave me thus? 

Say nay! say nay! 

And wilt thou leave me thus, 
And have no more pitye 
Of him that loveth thee? 
Alas, thy cruelty! 
And wilt thou leave me thus? 

Say nay! say nay! 
(Oxford Book of English Verse, 1919) 

61 



Current Musicology 

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62 

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Example 1: "The Appeal:' mm. 1-8. 

While "The Appeal;' with its emphatic cries of "say nay!" could be set in 
a declamatory manner, a musical interpretation of the text that might suggest 
that the narrator is chastising the beloved and ordering her to deny or reverse 
her rejection, Talma sets the text as a lament, signified by the slow tempo 
(Andante non troppo; eighth note = 100) and the quiet dynamic indications. 
Despite the exclamation points that follow each "nay;' the choruses of "say 
nay" are set to falling major seconds and always marked with diminuendos 
from "say" to "nay;' negating the emphasis given by the poet and creating a 
textbook example of a musical "sigh" as used from Bach to Mahler (Gritten 
2006:51). Talma's use of the "sigh" to indicate emotions of sadness, loss, 
and despair can be observed in her very first works, dating from at least as 
early as 1925. 

"For shame" is set identically to "say nay" in the inner voices; again, 
rather than serving as a rebuke, it sounds almost wistful, as if to echo Talma's 
dismay over Boulanger's lack of warmth. The "shame" is that the relationship 
is not proceeding, rather than that the beloved should be ashamed for her 
actions. Nonetheless, the lover holds out some hope: in contrast to the inner 
voices, the outer voices crescendo slightly on "for shame;' and the questions 
asked by the narrator end on rising tones, just as genuine questions do in 
speech, whereas rhetorical questions move down in pitch. "And wilt thou 
leave me thus?;' which rises through each iteration to forte, is repeated, as 
if to counter disbelief, the question pushed over and over in long, slurred 
lines. Contrasting modalities suggest an ambiguous outcome to the lover's 



Kendra Preston Leonard 

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63 



64 

Current Musicology 

question. 'The song initially outlines the Phrygian mode in the outermost 
voices and the melody. At measure 21, the voices state the query together 
at forte and the preceding tonality, centered around E, abruptly shifts with 
the introduction of B~, a contrast to the repeated B-naturals of the previ­
ous measures. 'Thus briefly suggesting a Lydian relationship based on the 
enharmonically spelled augmented fourth of E-B~, Talma then cadences on 
an FM7. 'This tonal and modal discontinuity creates a harmonic instability 
in the work that is resolved only with a formal change of key at measure 27 
from E Phrygian to F# minor. 

'The F#-minor section begins with an extended passage on dlm7, further 
creating a sense of harmonic instability before finally cadencing on F# eight 
measures later at measure 35. Although it begins with a repetition of "And 
wilt thou leave me thus?;' this section, marked Poco piu mosso, soon takes 
up the second stanza: "'That hath given thee my heart / never for to depart / 
Neither for pain nor smart:' 'The slightly faster tempo here suggests that the 
lover makes one last urgent attempt to convince the beloved that the lover 
remains true, but the ritardando at measure 43, which leads to a transition 
back to Tempo I and a modulation back to E Phrygian by again using the 
B~/Bb dichotomy, indicates that this plea has not been successful, as Talma's 
continued pursuit of Boulanger was also unsuccessful. 

'The climax of "'The Appear' arrives at measures 55 and 56. After several 
measures of singing at piano, submissively asking for pity from the beloved, 
the lover at last proclaims the beloved's cruelty in a dramatic crescendo to 
forte that occurs over three measures, Talma all the while continuing to 
include the sigh motif before finally cadencing on E and A in the voices and 
an FM7 in the piano. 'This dissonance signifies the emotional tenor of the 
work and the anguish on the part of the lover. 

Except in cadences, all of which land on the first beat of a measure, Talma 
usually avoids using the fifth of any chord on a strong beat, preferring to add 
it in only fleetingly on an off-beat either in a Single voice or the accompani­
ment. 'This coyness in establishing a tonal center may reflect Talma's own 
sense of unease regarding the unresolved situation with Boulanger; the root 
and third are present, but the fifth, which would help confirm the tonality/ 
modality, is persistently absent. In the song's coda, marked Poco a poco pdt 
lento sino alia fine, there is a strong return to the E pentatonic of the opening, 
which, along with the inner voices singing "say nay" on descending minor 
seconds, suggests that the emotions of the narrator have come full circle. 
"Nay" is the final answer. 

'A Revocation" continues the narrative of 'An Appeal;' expressing the 
lover's anger at rejection, coupled with musical reminders of the previous 
song, including the use of the descending minor second sigh and swiftly 



Kendra Preston Leonard 

fl 
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P , ()rcsc. " 

Soprano 
OJ -lye? A - las, lhv_ cru e1 lv' 

fl 
P /~, '------. 

Alto 
~ 

tre? !\ - las, thy em - el ty' thy em - cl - ty! 

fl P 

Alto ., 

~ ~ r- V. -41- T, -& 

thee? 
las, thy em - e1 - ty! thy em e1 ty! 

f 
--=::::-- .~ 

~ 

~ • (. ... r-: ~. 1 1 J I Y' ! ~_:J: ~ 
j 

PI\ I ... .,..- --.,..(!:. .,.. ... = PIANO 

. u 

Example 3: "The Appeal:' mm. 52-56. 

shifting tonal centers. The text suggests that the lover and the beloved have 
exchanged meaningful words and promises to one another, but that the 
beloved has not been true to those assurances. 

What should I say? 
-Since Faith is dead, 

And Truth away 
From you is fled? 
Should I be led 
With doubleness? 
Nay! nay! mistress. 

I promised you, 
And you promised me, 

To be as true 
As I would be. 
But since I see 
Your double heart, 
Farewell my part! 

Thought for to take 
'Tis not my mind; 

But to forsake 
One so unkind; 

=f 

=3 

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Current Musicology 

And as I find 
So will I trust. 
Farewell, unjust! 

Can ye say nay 
But that you said 

That I alway 
Should be obeyed? 
And-thus betrayed 
Or that I wist! 
Farewell, unkist! 

(Oxford Book of English Verse, 1919) 

Concepts of betrayal and doubleness run throughout the poem, and 
Talma represents this in her setting. The narrator asks, "Should I be led/ 
With doubleness?" in the first stanza, and then repeats the conceit in almost 
every stanza following, citing the beloved's "double heart;' calling her actions 
"unjust;' and decrying acts that caused the narrator to be "betrayed" by 
her. The lack of physical contact between the lover and the beloved is made 
abundantly clear and emphasized in the final stanza, in which the narrator 
abandons hope of reconciliation with an abrupt, "Farewell, unkist!" As in 
''An Appeal;' the lover brands the beloved cruel, here calling her "unkind" 
and "unjust:' The song is structured in four blocks, each with a contrasting 
texture in the piano while the voices provide continuity through their use 
of a rising three-note motif. Although in "The Appeal" each voice was 
treated equally, in ''A Revocation;' Talma singles out the second alto-her 
own preferred voice part (Talma, 1961)-for special treatment; aside from 
the introduction, it always enters before or after the other three voices and 
usually provides contrasting melodic and rhythmic motion. 

In contrast to the pleading quality of ''An Appeal;' ''A Revocation" is 
angry. The introduction, set in E major at a quick tempo, is emphatiC and 
marked forte deciso. It quickly establishes the key, a tendency to modulate 
to the dominant, and the motif, after which the vocalists enter together with 
the first stanza's series of rhetorical questions: "What should I say?" Voices 
are frequently doubled in this A section, both in rhythm and in pitch, before 
launching into counterpoint and coming back together again for "Nay! nay! 
mistress:' 

A more lyrical B section in C major follows, starting at measure 17. 
Accompanied by a rocking tonic-dominant line in the piano, the narrator 
recounts the promises she and the beloved have made one another. The 
key change may represent a different time and space, and the top three 
voices, in rhythmiC unison, the close relationship of the narrator and the 



Kendra Preston Leonard 

Il u ~ 

Soprano 
tJ 

Il u H 

Soprano 
fJ 

Il H 

Alto 
tJ 

Il u ~ 

Alto 
;tT 

tl u H I I I I 

{" 
• 

• --- -t- .. --- ... ~" 1 .... ~, ,-t-:J:f :##~ -t- -t-
.fdeciso 
•• u ~ I I I ~ . . I I ,...... ...., I I I 

PIANO 

I -,}. "I flO'" ?,~----,} :;c;I:. ~-,} .... I 

,; Il u H 
.f 

I I 

S. . 
tJ 

What should I say? Since Faith is dead, and 

Il u H 
.f 

I 

s 
tJ • • ... 

What should I say? What should I 

Il ~ ~ 
.f 

A 
tJ • 

What should I say'l What should I SJ:/! Since 

Il u ~ 
.f 

A 
,tJ • 

What should I sa)'? 

Il u H I I I ~ - -
{- j • t 

1 r ~~ r ~ 

I . . u uJ I I I I 
: 

7 ~ .... • -,} ... I 

PNO. 

r 
Example 4: "A Revocation;' mm. 1-11. 

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68 

Current Musicology 

10 
1\ # 

S 
u 

Truth a \vny from you is fled') Should 

(j ti. 
S. -+!,,,1~ 

u 
say'.' Since Faith dead? Should 

(j ti. 
/\ 

.-' 
Faith is dead? Should_ 

(j H 
A 

u 

(j H r---"1 c~ 

"NO 1 u I r ~ I' #~ 
I 

I I .... I 

Example 4 (continued): ''A Revocation;' illill. 1-11. 

woman she loves. However, the second alto trails behind the top three and 
is more independent, providing motion when the top voices hold pitches, 
a reluctant echo like the lone ascending voice that hopes against hope in 
"An Appeal:' As the text moves from the narrator's recollection of promises 
to her realization of the beloved's doubleness and the necessity of bidding 
the beloved farewell, the key modulates to G major and then back C major, 
perhaps indicating that the narrator's resolve to depart has grown and that 
her anger has returned. The B section cadences in C major, but the piano line 
descends chromatically, dragging the work into a short C section in F minor, 
although using D-naturals throughout to continue the major-second motif 
of the previous section. This stanza, too, ends with farewell; "farewell" and 
"unjust" are positioned against one another on a ii-I cadence that indicates 
that the narrator, while wishing to be finished, is not quite done addressing 
the beloved; an emphatic cadence is avoided. 

Talma modulates from F minor through A~ major back to E major over 
the course of two measures, returning to the material of the A section and 
ending the song with emphatic statements of "Farewell, unkist!" and an 
affirmative V IV - V-I cadence in the piano. If "A Revocation" stands as a 
declarative document ofTalma's own narrative, supported by the epistolary 
evidence, her disappointment and anger over her treatment by Boulanger 
are plainly in view here, emphasized by the often separate voicing of the 
second alto. 



Kendra Preston Leonard 

~ (j 

Soprano 
tJ , .. ~. , 

Fare - welL fare - well my pari, [are - weill 

(j 

Soprano 
tJ , ~. .. 

Fare - well my pari, [are - well! 

(j 

Alto 
tJ ~. .. q ... s' 

~:e -.. 
Fare well my part, well 1 

(j -
Alto 

,tJ q-e- u-
p!t l well my 

(j 
,-.,. r"-o, .-.. __ ,.......,...... .....,....,;... 0. 0 r, r, 

{~ i qi i i '1 i 1 q~r 
, ~ . .. ' ...... I~~'" S 

~ ~ I /1""1 ~ ~ I I~ -"" -PIANO 

.. 
~ I (' 

39 IIIP 
~ (j ~, .. 

S 
tJ 

Thougllillr 10 take. Tis not my 

!l 7IlP~ 
""'- ~ 

S. 
tJ 

Thougllillr 10 take. Tis not my 

(j 
IIlp 

A 
tJ ~. s' ~. S 

Thoughtfor \olake. Tis nolmy mind~ 

!l 
mp 

A 
tJ 

.. " lt~ ~ !tl~n~d; Though\lo lae. 

(j ~\I I ~\I I ~11 

{~ ~:':.' -& I~~·' .~ 
I/~ Irj 

I I·~ I·~ I I'~ I I~ 

PNO. 

OJ - U' 

Example 5: ''A Revocation;' mm, 35-51. 

69 



70 

Current Musicology 

44 
Ii 

t! 

I 
legg;eJ'() 

mind: _____ _ And So will I trust. fare-

S 

mind: _____ _ Pare 

.. ~ 
A 

t) , -# -,; -# ~. 

tor - sake one so un kmd; But to 

A 
t! 

But ~: ~ - s~e ~e ~ ;: k~d 
Ii 1 J ~ I ri 

I 

,~. , 

\\'ell, un-Just l 
leggiero 

So, 
legglel'o 

:J: 
So, 

I 

1-

I;}giero 

-# I 

48 
fl , 

s 
t! 

\\'ell, un- just' Fare -well, un- just' 

fl -
t! -

Fare - well. un- justl Fare - well! 

Ii 
A 

t! 

~:e Fare - welL \\ell! 

Il 
A 

tJ 
Fare - \~L F!e - \~jI 

Il r--I I ~ ,.-, I 

NO, {" 
I r I ~ ~ I I 

cres-

• '~ .. :g: ~g t • : 

Example 5 (continued): "A Revocation;' mm. 35-51. 

Fare \\'ell, 

j-!----j1----oJ-. 
wIll I trust 

-,; ~. 
Fare well 

~ r-:-I I ~ 

r I' 
leggiero 

I I 

I 

" H4 
cen- do 

~- nn 

I +---



Kendra Preston Leonard 

"The Careful Lover Complaineth and the Happy Lover Consoleth" 
is the last of Talma's Three Madrigals. Spurned, the careful lover tells the 
happy lover of her beloved's unfaithfulness: "My Lady is unkind, perdie! She 
loveth another better than me, And yet she will say no;' the poem reads-a 
line applicable to the inconsistent Boulanger, who chose and discarded pet 
students with regularity and at times seems to have delighted in the despair 
of struggling students who nonetheless admired her. The lover tells her happy 
friend, who is lucky in love, and experiences "no such doubleness;' to be 
wary, for "women's love is but a blast / And turneth like the wind:' In this 
song, Talma selects a text that may be understood to depict her own path 
from being Boulanger's would-be happy lover to being a reSigned, hurt, 
and careful lover. Rather than addressing the beloved directly, ''A Careful 
Lover" explores the idea of discussing the failed romance with a third party. 
However, the careful lover deems the happy lover naive and deluded in the 
ways of women's love, and insists on women's faithlessness. Talma's setting of 
the poem as a sung conversation between women could be read as a warning 
to women new to Boulanger's orbit of the teacher's habit of playing favorites, 
her prioritizing of men over women (while encouraging women to marry 
and raise their sons to become great musicians), and finally her inability to 
commit to a relationship. 

"The Careful Lover" begins with a dotted rhythm in the piano, represent­
ing the light heart of the happy lover. The second soprano and second alto, 
jointly serving as the happy lover, call out salutes to "Joly Robin;' but their 
warm greeting ends abruptly with the entrance of the first soprano and first 
alto, who voice the role of the careful, disappointed lover. At the entrance of 
the careful lover, the tempo slows from quarter note = 100 to 76, and Talma 
effects a sudden chromatic shift from G Mixolydian to distant G# minor. 
Where Talma gave the happy lover short phrases with articulated notes, the 
careful lover's text is set in long, slurred sighs of unhappiness. The happy 
lover responds with a slurred line, echOing the despair of the careful lover, 
albeit in her previous mode. The exchange continues in these contrasting 
modalities, and the careful lover has the last say, set by Talma with basic 
text-painting techniques: the second time the careful lover sings "turneth 
like the wind;' the melody is an inversion and transposition of the original 
statement. The careful lover, embodied in Talma's own vocal range, knows 
her beloved to be untrue. 

These three songs, composed for public performance and consump­
tion, constitute a Significant document signifying Talma's relationship with 
Boulanger. The consistency of expression between these works and Talma's 
correspondence of the same period indicates that the songs were written 
with Boulanger in mind and as a manifesto in which the composer could 
voice her desire for Boulanger and her despair over the relationship's failure 
to become a committed and physical one. 

71 



Current Musicology 

!l 
Soprano 

t) 

!l P 
~ I ~ . 

Soprano 
t) 

Ahl Ro- bini Jo-ly Ro bin' Tell me how thy Le-man doth? And 

tl 
Alto 

U 

!l • • • • 
Alto 

t) 

Jo-l)' Ro- bini Tell me how thy 

!l - ,......, - ~~ 
{- I I 

P- P- .~ r-L g ~ .g. 
PIANO 

I 

Meno mosso J = 76 
16 

!l f7\ mf 
-:---- f7\ 

s . . 
tJ ~ 

"Mv La- dy is un - kind, per - diel" 

tl 
lIif", 

tJ ---.. 
thou shalt hear_ of mine. A -

tl 
lIif ..--.-- f7\ 

A 
., . 

tJ H· ~ ..... 7 ~ ..... ,---7 
"My La- dy IS un - kind, per - die'" lIif 

tl . 
A 

tJ (J 

7~ 
[,C-111an doth?And thou shalthear of mine. A-

tl r---::; ~ I f7\ Meno mosso J = 76 f7\ 

{ . ~ ~ 

c.....= u (.I 

~r r r r ~"'" 7 y~ 

~ n I I I I I f7\ • . ~ 
PNO. 

I I 

Example 6: "The Careful Lover;' mm. 11-22. 

72 



Kendra Preston Leonard 

Molto meno mosso J = 60 --===== IIIf 
1L p~ ~~ p/ 

~ 
Soprano 

O!) 

Thou art hap-py While that cloth last, But I say as I 

1L 
Soprano 

O!) 

r. p~ -
Alto 

~ 

that doth ~-:t 
-# 

Thou art hap-py While But 

r. 
Alto 

,~ 

Molto menD mosso J = 60 

r. 
~ ~~ ,~ ~. ,..-, r-"1 ,...;.., ~ ..... 

{u H -I- H"--- • " H·H'f W-I- H"--- - ~ Hr "r- W"!I'-# ii It~ 
I!I-#r r 

PI = ~r I = ====-PIANO 

n H U H U 4- I 

15(j .--~ , = ====- ----------, ~ 

s . 
~ 

find: That \VO-111a11's love is but a blast,And tur - nclh like the \Vind~ That 

(j 

S 
~ 

(j ---
A . . " 

O!) H-
I 

~_-#: 
man's ~:~ is but H: ~:st, I say as tind Wo 

(j 

A 
,~ 

~#n 
.~. 
~ H.rJ #m ~H..J-----(j JI ~ r-::-1r;J 

{" 
. .. L!r It- '!I-# .. 

"""""" \....-.J r ~ ~ 
Ll-L LH 

I 
: 

PNO 

4- H U ':;4 

Example 7: "The Careful Lover:' mm. 39-55. 

73 



74 

Current Musicology 

rll. 
-= 

(\ " . ~ ,-s _. . ) -------. - ----\vo- man's love is hut u blasU\nu tur-neth like the \\lind. 

~-
s. 

~ 

tJ -----------. -~ 
J\ 
~ ~:.r ~:;t_ JJ -:j And tUf 

tJ 
neth, 1m -lleth like __ the \\J- ----- ----

A ---
= .) 

(\~_ ti ~ ~ ti/~_ .------. 

IH.~n# • U H· #-J 
PNO. {:~~ W#~ H::~" 

pp~ 
~#B' 

"If. -,.., ~ 
'lfCl :ec #It::? #~r ~ 

Example 7 (continued); "The Careful Lover:' mm. 39-55. 

For the Five Sonnets from the Portuguese, Talma set sonnets XXI, "Say 
Over Again"; VII, "The face of all the world is changed"; XII, "When our 
two souls stand up"; 1, "I thought once how Theocritus had sung" and 
XXXIII, "Yes, call me by my pet name!" Each of these is an address from 
lover to beloved in which the beloved is implored to confirm her love and 
devotion. Like the Three Madrigals, the Five Sonnets were composed for 
women's voices and piano. Talma's choice of setting "I thought once how 
Theocritus had sung" further suggests an intention for the works to represent 
same-sex desire. Theocritus was well-known for his love poetry addressed 
to other men, and his bucolic poems focus on lovers remaining faithful to 
their beloveds, though they may be manipulated by the gods to love others 
or renounce their love. 

The rest of these early works, for which the scores are missing, likewise 
share themes of cruelty and rejection. In Keats's "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" 
(1929), the narrator recounts a conversation with a knight dying for his love 
of a cruel (and older) faerie woman who has used and discarded him. In a 
vision, he sees the truth of his beloved: "I saw pale kings and princes too, / 
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all: / They cried, 'La belle Dame sans 
Merci / Hath thee in thrall!'" 

Landor's "Late Leaves" (1934) is a statement of resignation and regret 
for a love that will never be truly reciprocated or consummated, with lines 
that must have resonated strongly with Talma, who particularly felt the pain 

=:::::II 

-



Kendra Preston Leonard 

of separating from Boulanger at the end of each summer in France: "And 
spring and summer both are past, / And all things sweet:' There is a final 
paroxysm of desperate hope, or perhaps resigned regret, in Blake's "Never 
seek to tell thy love" (1934). The early lines hold out some hope for the 
relationship, reading, "Love that never told can be; / For the gentle wind 
does move, / Silently, invisibly;' -perhaps a gesture from Talma to Boulanger 
indicating that even if their love could not be publically acknowledged, she 
was willing to be a discreet party to a secret relationship. But in the end, 
the beloved is repulsed by the lover's desire and desperation and rejects the 
lover, leaving her bereft: "I told my love, I told my love, / I told her all my 
heart; / Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears, / Ah! she doth depart:' 

Indicated by the epistolary correspondence between these two figures, 
the connection between these texts and Talma's own desire for Boulanger 
seems clear. During the period in which she composed the Five Sonnets, 
Talma repeatedly promised Boulanger that her devotion had not faded, and 
writes, "As for you, you are enshrined in the inmost sanctuary of my heart 
where neither Time nor the vicissitudes oflife can make the smallest change" 
(Talma, August 1935). The Five Sonnets were, like the Three Madrigals, 
composed for women's voices and piano. They were premiered at a League 
of Composers concert on February 23, 1936, a highly publicized and public 
setting. Like the Three Madrigals, the Sonnets function as public statements 
of a woman expressing her love for another woman. 

Conclusion 

In these works, Talma was able to take what Smith calls a "public stand 
on behalf of purposeful deflections;' and thus "interven[ e 1 in oppressive 
identity performances, troubling cultural authorized fictions" (Smith: 16 1). 
Composing works that expressed her own sexual identity and desires, Talma 
created an autobiographical manifesto. Her works set aside traditional 
women's narratives of love for a man and instead represented a woman's 
desire for another, ultimately unattainable woman. By setting these texts 
for female voice, with several emphatic sections set in her own voice range, 
Talma identified herself with the narrators of these texts and addressed 
those emotions and desires chronicled in her epistolary correspondence 
with Boulanger. Throughout these works, she used harmonic and melodic 
materials consistently, developing a compositional language in which the 
"sigh" motif and chromaticism indicated suffering, and in which rapidly 
changing moods signified changes in persona or emotion. 

Talma's decision to compose works that contained explicit autobio­
graphical elements was set for the rest of her career. Her archived materials 
from this period contain copious sketches for other works focusing on 

75 



76 

Current Musicology 

themes of destined love and thwarted love, many of them echoing her let­
ters to Boulanger, including settings of sonnets by Shakespeare, Marlowe's 
"A Shepherd to his Love;' and texts from Antoine Saint - Exupery's Le Petit 
Prince, but none of these were completed. After her break with Boulanger in 
the early 1940s, Talma moved to radically different texts that dealt with her 
religious beliefs. The majority of her works immediately following the break 
are based on liturgical texts or poems by other adult converts to Catholicism. 
These texts often reflect anxiety, fear, remorse, and inwardness, and as such 
may be seen to mirror Talma's emotions as her relationship with Boulanger 
crumbled and was rebuilt from a position of wariness, and as Talma explored 
more deeply her own personal religious convictions. Moreover, in setting 
these works, Talma assigned the voice parts to the "proper" gender of the 
narrator. She did not seek further performances or publication of the love 
songs. In a sense, Talma appears to have, at least for a time, "take[nl up the 
sanctities of official narratives" described by Smith (Smith 1992:23). She 
had come to the realization that not only was Boulanger cruel to those she 
encouraged to love and worship her, but that she had other serious flaws 
that could not be overlooked. In focusing almost exclusively on religious 
works, Talma appears to have sublimated her past desire for Boulanger, 
invoking a realm of religiOUS separateness, the love for and of a deity, in 
place of erotic love. It was not until 1973, when she set bisexual poet Jean 
Garrigue's (no relation) poem "Rain Song;' as a memorial to the poet, that 
Talma engaged again with texts that hinted of same-sex desire. During the 
intervening years, she had worked to establish herself as a sexless, devout 
vehicle for composing religious works and taught much in the model of 
Boulanger's public pedagogic persona. She appears to have succeeded in 
burying her personal life-her students knew nothing of her life outside of 
the classroom (Powers 2009, Atlas 2009), and she made a name for herself 
as a prickly, difficult woman (Donadio 2006:7). Nonetheless, as Havelock 
Ellis has observed, "Every artist writes his own autobiography" (Ellis:186). 
Talma's early songs were her first step in constructing a body of work in 
which she could represent herself as both person and composer. 

Notes 

1. Although this correspondence is archived and publicly available, I withhold 
the name of the woman at this time. 

References 

Atlas, Allan. 2009. Interview with the author. 
Donadio, Rachel. August 20, 2006. "What I Did at Summer Writers' Camp:' New York Times, 

section 7, page 23. 
Ellis, Havelock. 1892. The New Spirit. London: The Walter Scott Publishing Co., Ltd. 



Kendra Preston Leonard 

Faderman, Lillian. 1981. Surpassing the Love of Men. New York: William Morrow and 
Company. 

Faderman, Lillian. 1992. Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: a History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-
Century America. New York: Penguin. 

Garber, Marjorie. 2000. Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life. New York: Routledge. 
Gritten, Anthony. 2006. Music and Gesture. Aldershot, England: Ashgate. 
Jory, Margaret Fairbank. 1967. "Interview with Louise Talma:' New York Public Library, 

Rodgers and Hammerstein Archive. 
Kaplan, Caren. 1992. "Resisting Autobiography: Out-Law Genres and Transnational Feminist 
Subjects:' In Sidonie Smith, ed. De/colonizing the Subject: the Politics of Gender in Women:' 

Autobiography, 115-138. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 
Leonard, Kendra Preston. 2007. "'Excellence in Execution' and 'Fitness for Teaching': 
Assessments of Women at the Conservatoire Americain:' Women and Music 11: 29-50. 
"Mrs. Kingdom Gould Sponsors a Pianist:' April 5, 1925. New York Times. 
Smith, Sidonie. 1992. De/colonizing the Subject: the Politics of Gender in Women's 

Autobiography. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 
Smith, Sidonie. 1993. Subjectivity, Identity, and the Body: Women:' Autobiographical Practices 

in the Twentieth Century. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. 
Powers, Doreen. 2009. Interview with the author. 
Quiller-Couch, Arthur, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250-1900. Clarendon, 

England: Oxford University Press. 
Louise Talma Collection, Library of Congress. 
U.S.S. Niagara. July 5, 1913. Passenger manifest. 
Watson, Julia. 1992. "Unspeakable Differences: The Politics of Gender in Lesbian and 

Heterosexual Women's Autobiographies:' In Sidonie Smith, ed. De/colonizing the 
Subject: the Politics of Gender in Women:' Autobiography, 139-68. Minneapolis: 
University of Minnesota Press. 

77