Carpe Diem #1099 Symphony No. 3 by Louise Farrenc

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Another day gone, time flies slips through my fingers like grains of sand. Every new day brings us closer to the future, but also closer to the end of times and life, but that's not for today. Today I love to inspire you all through the beautiful music of a not so well known female composer, Louise Farrenc. I had never heard from her, but she really composed wonderful music.

credits

Louise Farrenc:

Louise Farrenc (1804 – 1875) was a French composer, virtuosa pianist and teacher. Born Jeanne-Louise Dumont in Paris, she was the daughter of Jacques-Edme Dumont, a successful sculptor, and sister to Auguste Dumont.
Louise Farrenc enjoyed a considerable reputation during her own lifetime, as a composer, a performer and a teacher. She began piano studies at an early age with Cecile Soria, a former student of Muzio Clementi. When it became clear she had the ability to become a professional pianist she was given lessons by such masters as Ignaz Moscheles and Johann Nepomuk Hummel, and, given the talent she showed as a composer, her parents decided to let her, in 1819 at the age of fifteen, study composition with Anton Reicha, the composition teacher at the Conservatoire, although it is unclear if the young Louise Dumont followed his classes there, since at that time the composition class was open only to men. In 1821 she married Aristide Farrenc, a flute student ten years her senior, who performed at some of the concerts regularly given at the artists' colony of the Sorbonne, where Louise's family lived. Following her marriage, she interrupted her studies to give concerts throughout France with her husband. He, however, soon grew tired of the concert life and, with her help, opened a publishing house in Paris, which, as Éditions Farrenc, became one of France’s leading music publishers for nearly 40 years.

Music Score by Louise Farrenc

In Paris, Farrenc returned to her studies with Reicha, after which she reembarked on a concert career, briefly interrupted in 1826 when she gave birth to a daughter, Victorine, who also became a concert pianist but who died in 1859 aged thirty-three. In the 1830s Farrenc gained considerable fame as a performer and her reputation was such that in 1842 she was appointed to the permanent position of Professor of Piano at the Paris Conservatory, a position she held for thirty years and one which was among the most prestigious in Europe. Accounts of the time record that she was an excellent instructor with many of her students graduating with Premier Prix and becoming professional musicians. Despite this, Farrenc was paid less than her male counterparts for nearly a decade. Only after the triumphant premiere of her nonet, at which the famous violinist Joseph Joachim took part, did she demand and receive equal pay. Beside her teaching and performing career, she also produced and edited an influential book, Le Trésor des Pianistes, about early music performance style, and was twice awarded the Prix Chartier of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, in 1861 and 1869. Farrenc died in Paris. (Source: Wikipedia; video by Unsung Masterworks)

I think I haven't say to much, this symphony is really a beauty and it inspired me to create the following tanka:

early morning the first sun beams cherish my body she awakens too my sunshine, my cooling summer rain, she the one I will love forever

© Chèvrefeuille

I hope you did like this episode and that this music will inspire you as it did me ...

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until December 22nd at noon (CET). I will publish our new episode, Dragon Empress by BrunuhVille, later on.