Holmes, Augusta Mary Anne

1847-1903

Born in Paris. Her father was a captain in the English Army and her mother was a member of an old Hampshire family. She became a naturalized French woman in 1879. Her family were much opposed to any artistic career for her, but her love for music was so great that she soon appeared as a child-prodigy, t playing and singing at concerts and in drawing-rooms. Many of her airs were original, composed under the nom de plume of Hermann Zenta. She received instruction in harmony and counterpoint from H. Lambert, organist of the Cathedral at Versailles, and instrumentation from Klose, official bandmaster. In 1874 appeared her first opera, Hero et Leandre, also the psalm, In Exitu. The next year she became a pupil of Cesar Franck. She became a brilliant pianist, but it is her compositions that have made her famous. A symphony, Lutece, took a prize awarded by the city of Paris in 1879. She again competed and won honorable mention, and Pasdeloup performed the whole score of her work, Les Argonautes, a lyric drama, at the Concerts Populaires. Her next compositions to appear were the symphonic poem, Irlande; Vision de Sainte Therese, for   voice and orchestra; the symphonic ode, Pro Patria Ludus; and the great Ode Triomphale. The last named was given at the Exposition in honor of the centenary of 1789 and it carried her fame to foreign lands. Her Hymne a la Paix was written for the Dante festival in Florence; Au Pays Bleu records her impressions of Italy. Other choral works are the Hymne a Apollo and the allegorical cantata,  La Vision de la Reine. Her last symphonic poem was Andromede and her last opera, La Montagne Noire. Asarte  and Lancelot du Lac are operas in manuscript. Mile. Holmes wrote the words to nearly all her songs. She died in Paris in 1903; the next year a monument was erected to her memory in the St. Louis Cemetery, Versailles.