Forbidden from taking lessons at the Paris Conservatory, Augusta Holmès (1847-1903) took piano lessons privately and taught herself composition. Her initial musical efforts were published under the male pseudonym of Hermann Zenta, but when she inherited her Irish father’s fortune in 1871 and became a French citizen, she published all her later works under her own name. She gained both the romantic attention and the musical respect of her male colleagues during her life.