LOUISE FARRENC (1804-1875)
Jeanne Louise Farrenc nee Dumont had lived and worked as piano teacher, pianist, composer and scholar in Paris, where she was born on May 31, 1804. Having her origin in an artist family, she took piano lessons with the Clementi-pupil Cécile Soria, furthermore music theory, composition and instrumentation with Anton Reicha. Since 1842 she taught as a piano professor at the Paris conservatoire. Already during her study she composed several piano pieces. Her "Air russe varié" op. 17 was commendatory reviewed 1836 by Robert Schumann in his Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. With the increasing success of her compositions, amongh them three symphonies and a number of chamber music works, she more and more established her position at the conservatoire and in the Paris public. One of her most prominent successes was the world premiere of her third symphony op. 36 with the famous Société des concerts du Conservatoire in 1849 and the world premiere of her Nonett op. 38 with the at that time 19 years old „Wunderkind“ Joseph Joachim in 1850. Louise Farrenc was awarded the Chartier Prize from the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1861 and 1869 for her contributions to chamber music. Since 1861 she published (at first togther with her husband Aristide Farrenc, who died in 1865) the "Trésor des Pianistes", a 23 volume anthology of harpsichord and piano music from the 16. to the 19. century, which became trend-setting for the reactivation and the performance practice of the Early Music. Louise Farrenc taught at the conservatoire until 1872 and died on September 15, 1875 in Paris.
„The music of Louise Farrenc sounds spirited, beautiful and sensitive – romantic works, which were produced at the same time as the tone poems from Chopin, Brahms und Liszt“. Märkische Allgemeine über das Konzert des Meininger-Trio im Rahmen der Musikfestspiele Potsdam SansSouci