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Romantic French

FARRENC, Louise

Louise Farrenc

Born in Paris, May 31, 1804
Died in Paris, Sept 15, 1875

Born Jeanne-Louise Dumont 

  • Farrenc was a concert pianist who achieved a professional level of technique in her teens. She also studied composition at the Paris Conservatory. 
  • Farrenc served as Professor of Piano and the Paris Conservatory from 1842-1873. She was the only woman to hold a permanent, high-ranking position at the Conservatory in the nineteenth century.1 
    • Fun fact – Farrenc fought for equal pay to that of her male colleagues at the conservatory… and won!2
  • Farrenc was a pioneering scholar of early performance practice. Her scholarly magnum opus is Le trésor des pianistes, an anthology and treatise on early keyboard music and historically accurate performance techniques. Until his death in 1865, Farrenc’s husband, flutist and scholar Aristide Farrenc, collaborated on this project. It was published by the Paris music publishing firm Aristide had founded. 
  • Farrenc’s daughter Victorine Farrenc was a piano prodigy who died in 1859 at the age of 33 after a debilitating illness. This loss was so devastating that Louise Farrenc ceased to compose.3
  • As a composer, the bulk of Farrenc’s works were written for her own instrument, the piano, and are known for their technical difficulty without being overly flashy. Farrenc had a “down-to-earth” musical personality and avoided overt sentimentality.

“Louise Farrenc is a major musical personality hiding in plain sight.”

Jessica Duchen, BBC Music Magazine4

Historical Context

  • The year that Farrenc was born (1804)…
    • Napoleon crowned himself Emperor
    • Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony had been written but had yet to receive its premiere.5
    • Haiti declared its independence

Learn More

Biography from Naxos 

Sources

  1. Bea Friedland, “Farrenc family,” Grove Music Online, (2001), accessed July 1, 2021,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000009336. 
  2. Jessica Duchen, “Composer of the Month: Louise Farrenc,” BBC Music Magazine Vol. 29, No. 9 (2021): 86.
  3. William Y. Elias, “Farrenc, Louise,” in The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers, Julie Ann Sadie and Rhian Samuel, eds. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1995), 165-6.
  4. Jessica Duchen, “Composer of the Month: Louise Farrenc,” BBC Music Magazine.
  5. Ibid.

Pieces