Louise Farrenc: a composer.

http://www.enciclopediadelledonne.it/index.php?azione=pagina&id=515

I didn't know her at all... never even heard of her.

Thanks for sharing.

I totally like her, unknown to me too

I am glad that someone enjoyed it, so I invite you to go to the link to the biography that I posted above.

The story of Louise Farrenc really struck me deeply and all her music (including three truly "tough" symphonies, look them up on YouTube...!) seems to me to be of such a level as to deserve much more than simple curiosity "as a woman". She truly had great talent and, at least in her time, managed to impose herself only thanks to this (and amidst enormous difficulties). A truly fantastic figure... It seems incredible to me that she has been forgotten.

But how did you "dig it up"?

I have already skimmed the biography, heard a symphony and a set of variations too..... in certain ways it reminds me a little bit of Clara Schumann from afar

From my point of view, even though she is a good musician (as many are today), one needs to understand why her works have suffered the erosion of time... I mean, with the means available today, if she had truly made a difference... we would know, wouldn't we?

there are also too many musicians who have disappeared from the scene, or perhaps are remembered only as teachers or for a few series of studies...... others are completely forgotten too

@aaa, I refer back to

http://www.pianoconcerto.it/forum/index.php?/topic/1147-hummel-il-vero-chopin/

antares86 wrote:

i have already skimmed the biography, heard a symphony and a set of variations too..... in certain ways she reminds me a little bit of Clara Schumann from afar

However, it should be noted that Farrenc is fifteen years older than Schumann; and also that she was neither anyone's wife nor daughter, given that Schumann was the wife of Robert and the daughter of a decidedly relevant musical animator in the landscape of the time. Therefore, strictly speaking, one should say that if anything, it is Schumann who reminds one of Farrenc, and not the other way around.

aaa wrote:

From my point of view, even though she was a good musician (as many are today), one must understand why her works have suffered the erosion of time... I mean, with the means available today, if she had truly made a difference... we would know, wouldn't we?

In my opinion no, it is not at all certain that we would know, but this is just my opinion. Personally, I trust what I hear (formal structure, modulations, melodic and harmonic inventions, personal taste), seeking elements of comparison with her contemporaries. I cannot settle for "if someone has been forgotten, there must be a reason", simply because criticism, over time, has always changed parameters and opinions. And therefore, it will never be definitive to establish that one artist is "superior" to another. Just think that Vivaldi, not more than a century ago, was completely ignored; and Bach was also ignored before Mendelssohn set about making him reconsidered (but it's not that he wasn't known...). And also, in other fields, that a Caravaggio or a Borromini were considered real rubbish (TCI guides, 1925), while today they attract visitors from all over the world. For what reason, then, should we believe that our parameters must be the definitive and imperishable ones?

In any case, Farrenc had a truly remarkable career and she certainly made a difference in her time: we are not talking about a poor musician buried in a hovel and forgotten by everyone, but of someone who, quite much alive and well, held positions of high prestige and received plenty of recognition.

it is not a question of age or of whether someone copied or took inspiration from someone else, things I don't particularly care about..... but Schumann is a bit more well-known (though not by much, eh) and I won't deny it's mainly because of her surname..... but she was also an established piano virtuoso at the time..... as well as a somewhat decent composer.... I know that considering their respective ages, it might be more likely that Schumann perhaps took some inspiration from Farrenc rather than the other way around, but sincerely, I don't care much about that; it was a great discovery nonetheless

P.S. I don't know if anyone has listened to Symphony No. 3 and/or the Octet. Among the things available on Tube, they seem to me to be the most notable ones.

As for Schumann, with all due respect, it is my understanding that she never wrote for orchestra; her activity remained essentially that of a virtuoso, while her activity as a composer remained decidedly in the background. In my opinion, the comparison does not hold. At most, one could speak of Fanny Mendelssohn...

...And this while staying within the female sphere, which in my opinion wouldn't even be right; because Farrenc, in fact, competed with the composers of her own time (even taking away coveted positions from them, such as the piano professorship at the Paris Conservatory), and not with their wives and sisters. Someone like Berlioz, for instance, would have signed off on that...

well he didn't write very much, he wrote a chamber piece, a trio, a konzersatz and a piano concerto, it won't be very much, I agree, more substantial things like symphonies or other.....

ps. i never said i was a fan of Schumann anyway

For heaven's sake, in the case of Schumann we are talking about an enormous personality, with a fundamental weight in the history of music: immediately after Liszt, she practically built the figure of the concert performer (which is no less important than that of the composer). But the music she composed was in function of this role of hers, i.e., her piano career. Which does not diminish it at all, let it be clear (one only needs to think of Chopin...).

Azzurro wrote:

But how did you “dig her up”?

I dug her up because, having a venue where classical background music is played, with notes and information about it on the menu, I had the idea for a female-focused “revue”. I started browsing through the many female composers of the past and this is the one that struck me most (even if unsuitable for my purpose; generally, I must prefer the Baroque period for greater “dynamic consistency”).

...I understood CromaDiBrera, beautiful initiative