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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

Composer of the Week - Brand

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Louise Farrenc (1804-1875)

Composer of the Week: Louise Farrenc (1804-1875): Episode 2: The Sorbonne

Episode 2

Episode 2: The Sorbonne

Louise Farrenc (1804-1875)

The Sorbonne

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Louise Farrenc (1804-1875), The Sorbonne

The significance of Farrenc's education and family for her professional ambitions.

Donald Macleod on the significance of Farrenc's education and family for her professional ambitions, focusing on her First Symphony.

Louise Farrenc writes her first symphony and a rare choral setting "O salutaris hostia"

Louise Farrenc may not be a household name in the twenty-first century, but in her own lifetime she enjoyed a career of international standing. She was an accomplished pianist, a valued teacher at the Paris Conservatoire and in the latter part of her life, she devoted the majority of her time to the preparation of a groundbreaking anthology of keyboard music dating from the 16th to the 19th century.

She was born in 1804, a year before Fanny Hensel, Felix Mendelssohn's older sister. However the fifty plus published works that make up her legacy, immediately set her apart. While the majority of her contemporaries had a tendency to focus on smaller forms, songs, choral works and salon pieces for the piano, Farrenc's creative interests involved writing music for much larger combinations of instruments, including quintets, a sextet, a nonet , orchestral overtures and three symphonies.

That's not to say she never contributed to vocal music. Research into Farrenc's extant legacy has established a small collection of her largely unpublished vocal works does exist. For the first time, especially for Composer of the Week, soprano Ruby Hughes, a former Radio 3 New Generation Artist and pianist Anna Tilbrook have recorded four of Farrenc's songs. The BBC Singers, under conductor David Hill have recorded the only two choral settings known to exist. There's an opportunity to hear these vocal rarities spread across the week.

In the second part of his survey, Donald Macleod considers the significance of Louise Farrenc's education and family on her professional ambitions. Overcoming many obstacles, she manages to get her first symphony performed and there's a chance to hear one of only two choral settings made by Farrenc, recorded specially for Composer of the Week.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Donald Macleod explores the life and work of 19th-century French composer Louise Farrenc

Donald Macleod explores the life and work of 19th-century French composer Louise Farrenc. While her reputation was built on writing instrumental and chamber music, she also produced vocal music

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Composer of the Week

Louise Farrenc (1804-1875)

Episode 2: The Sorbonne

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