Programmatoelichting 'Flora Tristan'

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name: nl Programmatoelichting 'Flora Tristan'
headline: en Program notes 'Flora Tristan'; nl Programmatoelichting 'Flora Tristan'
creator: Louis Andriessen
articleBody: en Duration: 16' For: choir "The multilingual text written by Fleur Bourgonje gave me the idea to write the composition in two different tempi that sound simultaneously: the male voices sing fast the narrative Spanish texts and the female voices always sing slow, like the invocations from Flora Tristan to her daughter. To the end of the piece, af ter the assault in the text, aU the voices come together in the same rhythm" (Louis Andriessen, Oct. 1991). Flora Tristan (1803-1844), born in Paris, was the daughter of a French mother and a Spanish/Peruvian father. The marriage was not registered, so Flora was considered an illegimate child, despite the fact that her father' s family belonged to the Peruvian aristocracy. She was raised in poverty and, at 17, was married off to a second-rate painter, Andre Chazal, with whom she had three children. At the age of 22 she left her husband. In 1883, driven by want of money, Flora sailed, in the company of 20 men, from Bordeaux to Peru to claim her share in the legacy of her father. However, her family refused to give her the money because she was a bastard. Emptyhanded, she returned to France where, matured by her experiences in South Africa, she sought contact with the first socialists (Saint-Simon, Fourier, Proudhon) and with female workers struggling for improvements of their working and living conditions. She then travelled to London, where she visited factories and brothels to talk to laborers and prostitutes. She published Promenades dans Londres, a feminist and political pamphlet (1840). In 1843, one year before her death, she wrote Union ouvière, her declaration of policy for the working class, especially women. Meanwhile, the conflict with her husband, from whom she was separated for many years, escalated. He demanded custody of the children, especially of his daughter Aline (in that time, the father was the "owner" of the children; the mother had no rights at all. He kidnapped Aline a few times and abused her sexually. When Flora took her daughter back and accused him in public, he shot her down on the street. She survived the attack; he was sent to prison. The last years of her life she dedicated herself to the political struggle. She travelled from factory to factory urging the laborers to form unions. Le Tour de France, her last publication, is a record of this time. L 'Emancipation de la femme was published posthumously. Flora Tristan was the grandmother of the French painter Paul Gauguin; her daughter Aline was his mother.
about: Flora Tristan
Identifier: ark:/23946/bVQ3JT

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