CHARDON, Leonie

Léonie Chardon was a French amateur or semi-professional composer active in Paris in the mid-nineteenth century. Very little biographical information about her has survived: no reliable source located so far provides her dates of birth and death, place of birth, musical education, or professional appointments.
Her authorship is, however, securely documented through a Polka for piano, published in Paris in September 1863 as a musical supplement to the Journal des Demoiselles. The work is explicitly credited “par Mlle. Léonie Chardon” and appeared in the journal’s 31st year of publication. A copy is preserved in the Women Composers Collection, where it is catalogued as WCC No. 1704. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
Chardon was also connected with the Parisian musical milieu surrounding the pianist and composer Charles Delioux. His collection Pensées musicales, Op. 89, first published in 1871, contains a Scherzetto dedicated “à Mademoiselle Léonie Chardon.” This establishes that she was known personally or professionally to Delioux, although the surviving evidence does not allow us to state with certainty that she was his pupil. IMSLP
At present, the Polka of 1863 is the only composition by Chardon that I can verify securely. Her inclusion in historical collections of music by women is therefore important because it preserves evidence of a female composer whose broader biography and catalogue have otherwise largely disappeared from the historical record.