VILLEBLANCHE, Madame De

Madame de Villeblanche was a French composer. She is the author of four sonatas for the pianoforte or harpsichord.

Charlotte Madelaine Louise de Pernet learned music in her youth: she took lessons from a music teacher while she was under the tutelage of Michel Paul Guy de Chabanon. She became a pupil of the pianist Nicolas-Joseph Hüllmandel — then professor at the court of Louis XVI — who, in 1782, dedicated a collection of three sonatas to her. Three years later, Chabanon in turn dedicated three sonatas for harpsichord, with violin accompaniment, to his cousin.

The young girl composed four sonatas for the pianoforte or harpsichord, the first three of which were composed of three movements, the last of which had only two. The Journal de Paris emphasizes the quality of the pieces "whose motifs are new and the features brilliant, without detracting from the graces of the singing."

The composer died prematurely in 1789, at her home in the rue de Grenelle-Saint-Germain. His obituary notice appeared two days later in the Journal de Paris.

The following year, her husband had the scores of the four sonatas published in her memory by Jean Baptiste Léopold Désormery. In 1828, the latter in turn published a collection of various piano pieces, one of which was signed Madame de Villeblanche. Conceived as a variation on the theme of the second movement of the composer's Sonata No. 1, this piece was probably written by Désormery himself long after her death.