Jane Vignery
(b. Ghent, 11 April 1913 – d. Luttre,15 August 1974)
Sonata for horn and piano op. 7
(1942)
Born Jeanne Emilie Virginie Vignery in Ghent, Jane Vignery was the only child of Palmyre Buyst and Marcel
Vignery. Her mother Palmyre Buyst (1875-1957) was a pianist and composer and gave her daughter her first
music lessons. But music also ran in the family on the side of her father, an engineer: her grandfather Emile
Vignery (1852-1926) composed piano music, among other things, and conducted a brass band and a harmony
in Bouillon. Three of his four children were actively involved in music: Alice composed songs, Marcel (Jane’s
father) played various wind instruments and Denise successfully studied piano at the Royal Conservatory of
Ghent, where she was taught by Palmyre Buyst, her later sister-in-law.
Jane Vignery studied at the Ghent Conservatory under renowned composers such as Léon Torck, Léon
Moeremans (harmony) and Martin Lunssens (counterpoint and fugue). In 1930, she decided to study at the
École Normale de Musique in Paris, which had attracted students from all over the world to the French capital
since its foundation in 1919 by Alfred Cortot. There she received violin lessons from three eminent French
violinists, most notably Marcel Chailley, Jules Boucherit and Jacques Thibaud. In Paris, she obtained the
Diplôme d’exécution de violon (1932), the Diplôme d’études françaises de l’Institut féminin de l’enseignement
supérieur (1933) and the Licence de l’enseignement (1936). For this diploma, she wrote a personal thesis
entitled De la sensibilité de l’artiste en général et de ses moyens d’expression pour le violiniste. In 1938, she
also obtained the Licence de concert for violin before a jury that included Charles Münch and Jean Fournier.
Additionally, Vignery studied harmony with Nadia Boulanger and Jacques de la Presle, and is also said to have
taken music analysis in Paul Dukas’ class.
The impending war interrupted her studies, and she returned to Ghent. However, a persistent muscle problem
in her right arm frustrated her ambitions as a violinist. By necessity, she gave up her violin career and turned
to harmony and composition. Meanwhile, she studied composition with conservatory director Jules Toussaint
de Sutter, and under his guidance she won an honourable mention in the Prix de Rome in 1941 with her cantata
La lumière endormie. Vignery was the only one of the five contestants to be awarded by the jury chaired by
Lodewijk Mortelmans. A year later, she won the triennial Prix Émile Mathieu with her Horn Sonata op. 7, a
challenging work that is still often performed and recorded today. She was very productive around that time;
she also composed a Sonata for violin and piano op. 8, the symphonic poem Vision de guerre, the cantata La
fille de Jephté, motets for choir and orchestra, songs and piano works.
In 1945, Jane became a harmony teacher at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Ghent, where she trained
numerous students. On 15 August 1974, she was killed in the Luttre train disaster that claimed the lives of 18
people and left more than 60 injured.
The Sonata for horn and piano op. 7 was composed in 1942, the same period as her Violin Sonata (published
in The Flemish Music Collection, 2647). Vignery dedicated the work to Maurice Van Bocxstaele (1897-1974),
horn teacher at the Ghent Conservatory and the first performer of her sonata.
In this classically structured sonata, Vignery employs a French-impressionist idiom that refers to Debussy,
Ravel and Fauré. Brilliant fanfares in the horn open the first movement, followed by a successful alternation
of chromatic ‘bouché’ and ‘ouvert’ passages. The lyrical movement is introduced by the piano in Ges, after
which the horn answers with a lovely countermelody. After the development and the recapitulation, the first
movement closes with a shimmering fi nale. The somewhat melancholic three-part middle section opens with
a syncopated fi gure that continues under the lyrical horn melody. Remarkably, this melody is repeated three
times unchanged in the horn, but the piano’s underlying harmonies give it each time a different color. In
the frisky fi nal movement, the horn plays short rhythmic motifs, often played ‘bouché’, while the dancing
piano part contributes to the cheerful atmosphere. Notable throughout the piece is the pianist’s structuring and
guiding role.
Vignery's music was published by Brogneaux and now with Andelmusic