One Stone to the Building

“Do you love the harp?” The French harpist Henriette Renié (1875–1956) asked this question of each student, and it remained her ideal throughout her life. This book explores the circumstances which surrounded the beginning of Henriette Renié’s career was a masterful harpist and composer. Through her celebrated performances of her Concerto en ut mineur, she gained acclaim simultaneously as a virtuosic performer and composer. In the wake of her success, several new masterpieces by respected composers appeared, including Pierné’s Concertstück and Ravel’s Introduction et Allegro. The elements of Renie’s virtuosity are traced through her famous Légende, and her less-known Deux promenades matinales. Her compositional style is explored through her Scherzo-Fantaisie for harp and violin and her Concerto en ut mineur. As a teacher, Renié’s influence echoed throughout the world. Her profound influence has been evident through the vision of her own students, including Susann McDonald, Marcel Grandjany, Mildred Dilling, Odette Le Dentu, Odette de Montesquiou, Bertile Fournier, Emmy Hürlimann, Bertile Robet Auffray, and Marie Astrid D’Auffray. The crystallization of Renié’s teaching practice is described through her Méthode complète de harpe (Complete Method for Harp) and her twelve volumes of harp transcriptions, Les classiques de la harpe. The amount of literature about Renié’s life and work is disproportionate to the deep imprint she made upon the harp’s history and repertoire. This book is a start to further recognizing her vast importance to the establishment of the harp.