This first scholarly book on Cecile Chaminade, a popular composer, pianist, and one of the few women to attain critical acclaim as a composer in the early twentieth century, contains an extensive biography drawn from a significant collection of primary sources. The study presents basic information, including facts not previously published, on this neglected composer and it offers a discussion of historical and aesthetic issues inherent in her life and career as well as observations about her musical style. The exhaustive bibliography, an annotated listing of her prolific output, contains a selection of reviews of her compositions and first performances, and a brief section identifying her prose works. The up-to-date discography lists every commercially made recording of her individual works, anthologies, and performances, and it includes out-of-print releases.

This informative book offers the first detailed presentation of information on the location of Chaminade musical autographs and first editions. It fills an urgent need for the basic facts about her life and activities: exactly what she composed, when and why. It also deals with the nature of her performing career and documents critical reviews of both her playing and her compositions. This is the only volume of its kind on Chaminade and one of the few available on any women composer. It will be an indispensable resource for musicologists and researchers of women composers and French music history, as well as a valuable addition to all university and college music libraries.