Pauline Duchambge
Born: 1778, Martinique
Died: 23 April 1858
BIOGRAPHY MUSIC RECORDINGS SOURCES
Pauline Duchambge (nee Charlotte-Antoinette-Pauline de Montet) was initially thought to have been born in Martinique to a wealthy family but current research suggests she was born and baptized in Strasbourg. While still young, her family moved to Paris where she was educated in a convent while studying piano before becoming a composer and singer.
At twenty years old, Duchambge married Baron Philibert Duchambge. Their divorce followed quickly and she earnestly devoted herself to her music, studying with Jan Dussek, Léopold-Bastien Desormery, Luigi Cherubini, and Daniel Auber. As her family fortune slowly dwindled to nothing, she continued to pursue a career in composition and performance as a matter of survival.
Duchambge began a lifelong friendship with Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, publisher of four collections of poems. This friendship gave Duchambge the opportunity to move in the prime musical and artistic circles of Paris where she met other writers like Victor Hugo and Hugo Lamartine, whose texts she set, as well as women writers like Amble Tastu and Emile de Girardin. In this stimulating atmosphere, Duchambge wrote and published more than 400 romances and ballads, preferring the pastoral, love, and religious texts of the time period for voice.
Though her life was filled with the challenges of ill health and financial difficulties, Duchambge’s work was respected and enjoyed throughout her lifetime.