Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 35

• Farrenc composed this symphony in 1845.¹
• This symphony premiered at the Paris Conservatory in May 1846.²
  • At the same concert, Farrenc’s daughter and student, Victorine Farrenc, performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in d minor, K. 466.³
• In 1847, Belgian conductor François-Joseph Fétis directed a performance of the work in Brussels.⁴
  • Fétis was an early musicologist as well as a conductor, who presented a seminal series of concert-lectures on historical music in the 1830s, which he called concerts historiques. Fétis’s musicological work influenced Louise and Aristide Farrenc’s musicological efforts, which included editing and publishing anthology of historical keyboard music, Le trésor des pianistes.⁵

Movements 

1. Andante – Allegro 
2. Andante 
3. Scherzo. Vivace 
4. Andante – Allegro⁶

1. Bea Friedland, “Farrenc family,” Grove Music Online, (2001), accessed May 5, 2022,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000009336. 
2. Christopher H. Gibbs, program notes to Symphony No. 2: Louise Farrenc, The Philadelphia Orchestra (April 29, 2021), accessed May 5, 2022, https://www.philorch.org/globalassets/philadelphia-orchestra/performances/digital-stage/digital-program/digitalprogram-farrenc-symphony-no-2.pdf.
3. Katy Hamilton, liner notes to Louise Farrenc: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 3, Solistes Européens, Luxembourg, Christoph König, Naxos 8.573706, CD, 2018.
4. Gibbs, program notes to Symphony No. 2: Louise Farrenc.
5. Friedland, “Farrenc family,” Grove Music Online. 
6. Louise Farrenc, Symphony No. 2 Op. 35, ed. Freia Hoffmann (Wilhelmshaven: Florian Noetzel, 2000), V.