CALLIAS, Helene De

Hélène de Callias was a French composer, organist and music writer. Born in Paris in 1884, she was active in French musical life during the first half of the twentieth century. Her output included piano pieces, songs and adaptations of works from the classical repertoire, placing her within the tradition of French mélodie and salon/concert music.

Callias is also remembered for her interest in the spiritual, symbolic and magical dimensions of sound. Her book Magie sonore, published in 1938, explored ideas such as musical incantation, repetition, the symbolism of numbers and the relationship between music and the cosmos. These ideas brought her into contact with broader currents of French musical modernism and are discussed in relation to André Jolivet, who exchanged ideas with her in the 1930s.
Her known works include vocal music such as Mon pauvre Amour! and the song cycle Trois estampes, which includes settings of texts by Jean de Lestre and Albert Samain. Although she remains a little-known figure today, Hélène de Callias is an important name among French women composers and musical thinkers of the early twentieth century.