Renée Chemet | |
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![]() Renée Chemet standing at a microphone, from the George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress. | |
Born | Renée Henriette Joséphine Chemet January 9, 1887 Boulogne-sur-Seine |
Died | January 2, 1977 Paris | (aged 89)
Nationality | French |
Other names | Renée Chemet-Decreus (after marriage) |
Occupation | violinist |
Spouse | Camille Decreus |
Renée Chemet (January 9, 1887 – January 2, 1977) was a French violinist.
Renée Henriette Joséphine Chemet was born in Boulogne-sur-Seine. She studied with Henri Berthelier at the Conservatoire de Paris, graduating in 1902. [1]
Chemet toured the world as a violinist for decades, playing a violin made by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini. In 1904, still a teenager, she was a soloist at the Proms concerts in London, under conductor Henry Wood. [1] In 1907, she toured North America as a violinist with her husband, pianist Camille Decreus, in the company of Emma Calvé. [2] [3] "Madame Chemet is a violinist of great talent", explained a reviewer who heard her in Hamburg in 1911, "with great skill, splendid technique, and big (rather manly) tone. Her style of playing is eminently French; she sometimes overdoes it by forcing sentiment and cantilène." [4]
During World War I, when travel was difficult, she gave benefit concerts and performed for the troops in France, and worked as a nurse's aide; she was awarded the Legion of Honour for her service. [5]
After the war, Chemet was a soloist in Liverpool, Birmingham, Nottingham, Bradford, Cardiff, Edinburgh, and Glasgow in 1920. [6] In the latter half of 1920, Chemet gave a number of joint recitals with the Russian tenor Vladimir Rosing. [7] In New York, she played at Carnegie Hall in 1921, at Aeolian Hall in 1923, [8] Town Hall in 1927, [9] and at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1925 and 1928. [10] [11] Throughout the 1920s, she made many recordings, [12] [13] and appeared regularly on radio. "Radio paves the way," she told a New York Times interviewer in 1930. "It popularizes tunes, the great symphony orchestras, the talented singers and instrumental soloists that would be ignored without this medium." [14] She played Maud Powell's violin [15] on the radio in New York in 1925. [16] [17]
Chemet traveled through Hawaii to Japan in 1932, to perform with pianist Anca Seidlova and koto player Michio Miyagi. [18] [19] [20] Later that year, she performed with the BBC Orchestra. [21]
Chemet married fellow French musician Camille Decreus in 1906. [22] He died in 1939. She died in 1977, at age 89, in Paris.