Louise Farrenc's Rondos - heard here in world premiere recordings - were composed within the period of a decade, and are delicious examples of her art: graceful, elegant and expressive. Some of them are based on operatic themes or on songs, while others are simpler and intended for younger performers. Volumes 1 and 2 of this 6 album cycle can be heard on GP912-13 and GP934.

Classical Music

Louise Farrenc, a fine early romantic-era composer, led a charmed life as a youngster. Born into a ‘high art’ family, she also had the advantage of coming into contact with dozens of other artistic families at the Sorbonne. With an impeccable cultural background and artistic bloodline, Farrenc was certainly in excellent position to learn piano and music composition. She also was trained by some of the most esteemed musical artists of the time: Antoine Reicha, Johann Hummel and Ignaz Moscheles.

Although Farrenc had to deal with restrictive views concerning acceptable female roles in life, she always considered herself first and foremost a composer of music. Her works were widely performed in Europe during her lifetime, but her current reputation is slim indeed. Her obscurity likely derives from two considerations. First, unlike Clara Schumann or Fanny Hensel, Farrenc was not aligned with a famous relative. Second, Farrenc’s music was of the Germanic tradition, and this style was not popular in 19th century France.

Of the best composers of Farrenc’s era, her music most reminds me of Beethoven’s with a dash of Chopin added into the mix. Her works display an expert sense of construction, ample variety of form and emotional content, and a fine penchant for attractive melodies. However, readers should not think that Farrenc possessed the musical inspiration of a Beethoven or Chopin. Farrenc’s musical magic is more in the range of Hummel and Reicha, which makes her music highly desirable as opposed to essential.

This is not CPO’s first Farrenc recording. The company has already issued a disc of Farrenc symphonies and another of her large-scale chamber works. Those recordings were well received, and I have no doubt that this new solo piano disc will also garner fine reviews. I should also relate that being a pianist, Farrenc’s early compositions consisted primarily of piano music, and that the works on the new disc are from her early career.

Konstanze Eickhorst has the honor of performing Farrenc’s piano music. Ms. Eickhorst is no stranger to Farrenc’s music, performing the piano parts of CPO’s previous chamber music disc mentioned above. Eickhorst currently enjoys a busy concert schedule that started with winning the Clara Haskil Competition in 1981 at the age of twenty. She has also won other piano competitions and performed with many of the most prestigious orchestras and conductors in Europe in addition to chamber music groups such as the Melos Quartet, Carmina Quartet, and the Linos Ensemble. Eickhorst has played a wide range of keyboard music from the Baroque period up to contemporary pieces. Her recordings include Bach’s Goldberg Variations for Bella Musica and Clara Schumann’s piano works on CPO.

Eickhorst programs three types of Farrenc’s piano music: works based on a basic theme with variations, character pieces and Études. Of the two variation works, the Air russe varié is the more contemplative and consists of a Preludio, Theme, eight short variations and a Finale. This expansive structure is expertly crafted by Farrenc and quite distinctive. The Preludio is a serious Moderato of a pleading and compelling nature that is followed by the basic theme that I must admit is rather simple in the manner of the Diabelli theme that Beethoven made into a marvel of variation technique. Although not at Beethoven’s exalted level, Farrenc gives us eight inventive variations. The Finale is rather special, having a first section of Bachian fugue proportion with overlapping voices and a second section of exuberance and triumph.

The other variation work, the Variations brillantes, takes its basic theme from the cavatina "Nel veder la tua costanza" from Gaetano Donizetti’s Opera "Anna Bolena". Although of equal length to the Air russe varié, there are only four variations, which does lead to greater thematic development. Further, the Variations brillantes is very much a work for public display with its virtuosic requirements and exhilarating nature.

The two character pieces on the disc, the Valse brillante and the Nocturne, were both published in the early 1860s but may well have been composed in the early years of Farrenc’s musical career. Neither piece displays the brilliant artistry of Chopin’s character pieces, but both are rewarding in their own right. The Valse brillante is true to its title and consists of a series of contrasting dance themes of a generally upbeat and vivacious nature. The Nocturne is in the style of Chopin’s works in this genre and is quite lovely and poignant.

I have left the best for last: Eickhorst’s selection of nine of the thirty Études of Opus 26. With this body of music, Farrenc shows her expertise in conveying a compendium of the piano techniques used during the first decades of the 19th Century, employing the extended ‘circle of fifths’ as her structural guide. Of course, we are not able to follow the architectural path when only given selections, but Farrenc often programmed just a few of her Opus 26 Études in piano recitals. Each of the pieces is in ABA form and ranges in length from under two minutes to over four minutes.

The Études Nos. 22 and 19 are so propulsive and concentrated that they take on a relentless quality that is compelling. No. 7 is a gorgeous and uplifting Andante, while No. 4 is thoroughly invigorating. Contemplation and melancholy pervade No. 10, and No. 11 has the relentless qualities mentioned for Nos. 22 and 19. My personal favorite is No. 12, another Bachian style fugue that clearly reveals Farrenc’s affinity for baroque form and counterpoint.

In summary, the new CPO disc of Farrenc solo piano music is a highly rewarding effort having both excellent music and performances. The recorded sound is fine, although a little thin compared to current standards of piano richness in recordings. This enjoyable disc represents great entertainment value and should appeal to piano enthusiasts and anyone wanting to travel the byways of the early romantic period.

-- Don Satz, MusicWeb International

Composer, pianist, and teacher Jeanne-Louise Dumont Farrenc was born in 1804 into an artistic and bohemian Parisian family. She studied with Anton Reicha at the Paris Conservatory, where she later became a professor. She was the only female professor at the Conservatory in the 19th century. Her most famous works are chamber music compositions.

Classical Music

Philzuid's sixth album includes works by Louise Farrenc and Robert Schumann. This brave and welcome attempt to rewrite or at least re-evaluate music history features live recordings of Louise Farrenc's Third Symphony and Robert Schumann's Third (Rhenish) Symphony under chief conductor Duncan Ward. Female composers in the 19th century were not expected to pursue a career, let alone compete with the great symphonists of the period; Schumann, however, had all eyes and ears on him whenever he premiered a new work or took up a new position.

"Here is a disc I’ve been waiting for—not necessarily this one specifically, but any CD containing works by Louise Farrenc (1804–1875) that I would be able to review so that I could share with you my admiration and affection for this mid-19th-century French Romantic composer.

If any woman deserves to be recognized as the greatest female composer of the 19th century, it’s Louise Farrenc. But I will go even a step further and say that during the period in which she was active as a composer—roughly the mid 1820s through the late 1850s—few composers of any gender persuasion, save for Felix Mendelssohn—could hold a candle to her when it came to writing symphonies and large chamber-ensemble works.

If ever there was a composer whose praises I’ve wanted to shout from the mountaintop, Louise Farrenc is it. This is sure to be on my Want List in this same volume. And it should be on yours as well. But please don’t stop there. Get her symphonies too. You won’t regret it."

--Fanfare (Jerry Dubins)

Classical Music

Classical Music

Louise Farrenc has emerged in the last decade as a major figure among French composers of the early-Romantic era, whose neglect in previous eras can only be understood in the context of her gender, revealed in both live performances and studio recordings.

Robert Schumann lavished praise on Farrenc’s early published work, and it is easy to hear why from these two piano trios and Cello Sonata, all of which belong to the mainstream of lyrical Romanticism in its early flowering.

The pianist Linda di Carlo has already been the constant presence in two previous albums of Farrenc’s chamber music on Brilliant Classics, and she brings a deep understanding and experience of the idiom to these new recordings.

Louise Farrenc was acclaimed as a pianist and pedagogue, one of the few women to teach an instrument at the Paris Conservatoire in the 19th century, and was admired by Robert Schumann and others for her compositions. This second of six volumes dedicated to Farrenc’s complete works for piano focuses on her Theme and Variations sets.

Maria Stratigou’s recording of the Études (GP912-13) was considered ‘beguiling piano music’ in BBC Music Magazine, confirming once again that Farrenc has been unjustly neglected as a composer.

REVIEW:

Over 50 minutes here are world premier recordings—7 of the 9 tracks—all written in the 1820s. There are brilliant parts all through these, but they are more elegant and expressive than the run of the mill variations.

Stratigou is clearly well qualified to tackle Farrenc’s piano works. Her joy in this music is evident not only in her playing, but in her beautifully written booklet essay. She has a full mastery of Farrenc’s romantic style and a technique to match.

-- American Record Guide

Louise Farrenc was one of the most respected pianists and composers in the 19th-century Parisian music scene, and her four sets of Études are her most important compositions for piano. Beautiful melodies and distinctiveness of character have made the Études, Op. 26 the most popular set, but all of these pieces are full of grace and charm alongside their didactic usefulness in their references to the styles both of Farrenc’s musical ancestors and her contemporaries. The Greek pianist Maria Stratigou is one of Louise Farrenc’s greatest exponents and makes her Grand Piano debut with these exquisite rarities.

REVIEWS:

I am very impressed with Maria Stratigou’s playing here. Technically she is absolutely on top of these études but she has the lyrical expertise to bring out the necessary lightness of touch and shading even in the most exacting moments; her delicacy in the figuration of op.26 no.10 is delicious. I hope she is the pianist who will continue this valuable and enjoyable series.

-- MusicWeb International

Stratigou has a full mastery of Farrenc’s romantic style and a technique to match. I can only hope that she continues on this journey. This is a quite auspicious beginning to what I expect to be a very enjoyable exploration of piano music that deserves to be better known.

-- American Record Guide

Louise Farrenc was renowned in her lifetime as a pianist, composer and teacher, but it is only recently that her compositions have emerged from many years of neglect, Symphony No. 1 in C minor- cast in the German tradition- is an exceptionally accomplished work, finely orchestrated, lyrical and fiery, and a substantial contribution to the canon. The Grand Variations on a Theme by Count Gallenberg is a showcase for virtuosic elegance, and the two overtures demonstrate real theatrical drama- Overture No. 2 was admired by no less a figure than Hector Berlioz.

Pursuing a musical career was no easy matter for women in the nineteenth century, but Louise Farrenc’s character and determination resulted in her becoming a respected part of the European scene, and the first ever female senior professor of piano at the Paris Conservatoire. Farrenc’s Second Symphony owes something to Mozartian models, with imaginative writing for winds and hints of Beethoven. The Third Symphony is notable for a richness of harmonic writing which, in its color and lyricism, is reminiscent of Mendelssohn and Schumann.

Born in 1804, Louise Farrenc became a professional-standard pianist while still a teenager, and later music teacher to the household of the Duke d’Orléans and from 1842 professor of piano at the Paris Conservatoire. Her substantial legacy of composition was largely forgotten after her death in 1875 and is only now being revived. She wrote mainly in the field of orchestral and chamber music:

‘I would defy anyone,’ says the pianist Linda Di Carlo in a personal introduction to this new recording of Farrenc’s music for violin and piano, ‘to cast aspersions on the chamber music in particular on the grounds of her gender.’ No less than Théophile Gautier wrote admiringly of the First Sonata from 1848: ‘an excellent addition to her catalogue of works, and written, like most of them, in an austere classical style reminiscent of the great masters.’

It was Joseph Joachim, no less, who gave the Second Sonata’s premiere in March 1850 at the Salle Érard in Paris. The sonata opens with a distinct echo of Beethoven’s ‘Spring’ Sonata, and the opera buffa spirit of Mozart hovers over the finale, but the elfin dance of the Scherzo is entirely Farrenc’s own, characteristic inspiration. The Variations Concertantes on a popular Swiss melody has more of the perfume of the salon: a work of charm, written to display the prowess of any soloist.

On this recording, the violinist taking up the challenge of Farrenc’s subtly challenging music is Daniele Orlando, concertmaster of I Solisti Aquilani with a distinguished discography to his name, including a much-acclaimed recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. This 2019 recording is the only budget-priced album available of Farrenc’s music for violin and piano: an ideal introduction to a significant figure in 19th-century French music belatedly receiving her due.

REVIEW:

The sonatas have real energy and drive, and both players are urged to give their utmost. I would be surprised if an audience wholly unfamiliar with the Beethoven sonatas would be able to pick these out from Op. 12, or even Op. 30. That said, they are a lot later than Beethoven, though not far advanced beyond him. I do love the quick interplay of the parts and the way one will pick up the tail of what the other has said and run with it. I wonder if Beethoven himself didn’t kill that kind of sonata with the Kreutzer; that work put paid to the violin/piano repertoire for decades, and it’s really only with Brahms that it came back. Performances are excellent, as is the sound.

-- American Record Guide (Michelle Thomson)