Review Summary: The Powerful German Idiom…in a French Woman?
Woman of Classical Music. No. 4
I have a confession to make… It’s about my first reaction to the music of Louise Farrenc. I’m not proud of it, but it was something along the lines of, "Holy ***, a woman wrote this？" I won’t soon forget the experience. I had typed Farrenc’s name into YouTube and picked a piece at random, the Sonata for Cello and Piano in Bb, Op. 46. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing; the sounds were what I’ve come to associate with the German masters: the thick texture, the emphasis on point of arrival, the broad gestures, and the architecture. In a word, the piece felt
masculine. To me the Germans masters were the German masters, and no one, whether male or female, could equal them in weight or depth. I guess I had never really thought about it, but if I did ever expect someone to approach the brilliance of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, or Schubert, I didn’t expect it to be a woman. This is what they call implicit bias, right？
Here’s another thing about Farrenc; she’s not German, she’s French. Farrenc was born in 1804 in Paris into a dynasty of master sculptors who go as far back as 1650, maybe longer. Her great-great grandfather was Pierre Dumont, great grandfather Francois Dumont, grandfather Edme Dumont, father Jacques-Edme Dumont, and brother Agustin-Alexandre Dumont, all whose sculptures litter France especially in Paris, the Louvre, Versailles, and Rouen. You should seriously check them out, they’re masterworks. But Farrenc’s forte, no pun intended, was not sculpting, but music. Atypical for the times, Farrenc’s bohemian parents were very open to allowing their daughter express her artistic capabilities. They not only let her study piano with Ignaz Moscheles and Johann Nepomuk Hummel, two of the very best pianists in the early 19th century, but when she was fifteen years old they enrolled her in the most illustrious school of music in France, the Paris Conservatory. While there, Farrenc showed such talent that she began taking private composition lessons with Beethoven’s friend and compatriot from Bonn, Anton Reicha. This is a considerable feat considering that composition classes were not yet open to women. After finishing at the Conservatory, Farrenc toured the continent making an impressive career for herself over the next decade as a performer.
But Farrenc’s true talent was composition. And here’s what both really surprised me and again also shows my implicit bias. Farrenc wrote both in mediums that demand considerable muscle, chamber and orchestral music, and as a true guardian of the German old guard of absolute music. In other words, she did not write petite piano pieces for the ladies. Neither did Clara Schumann or Fanny Mendelssohn for that matter, but they certainly did not reach the musical heights Farrenc would in her music for winds, strings, and orchestra. In fact, Farrenc felt her true calling was for those genres, rather than for solo piano, and she was right, (although she did compose a good amount of music for the instrument.) Nor did Farrenc bother herself whatever with the genre then all the rage in France,
Bel Canto Opera, a conspicuous absence. Overall, Farrenc would go on to publish some fifty pieces including three symphonies, the last one in G minor she had the wonderful privilege of hearing performed at the Paris Conservatory, two overtures, thirteen chamber pieces, all of which are extraordinary, and a substantial amount of solo piano works.
Written in 1856, Farrenc’s Trio for Cello, Flute, and Piano in E minor, Op. 45 is an example of her rather unique allegiance to the German masters. The first movement begins with an introduction marked
allegro deciso, fast and stern. It’s an interesting passage. Consisting of only eight measures, we begin in 6/8 (two groups of three eighth notes) with two off key forte B-Major strikes. Following in the next measure is a peculiar little roulade from B down to A and back in the piano onto another major strike, this time of f#-diminished. Similar material follows; there’s another strike on B-Major and another roulade. In effect, Farrenc is tiptoeing around the main key of the piece, E-Minor. The sonata proper begins with the cello and flute going up and down the E-harmonic-minor scale, dancing carefully around the tonic. If you’ve taken music theory you’ll know just how striking the harmonic-minor scale can be. It sounds eastern almost, or even Egyptian. From here the flute picks up the melody with the cello providing support and the piano hurrying us along.
There’s already so much to talk about with this first phrase. For one thing, Farrenc’s lyricism is effortless, especially in her handling of the flute. Perhaps this is the French rubbing off; Farrenc’s writing is in general much more
bel canto than that of her female German counterparts. But this isn’t saying enough. Farrenc’s ability to write for woodwinds is the closest thing to Schubert I’ve heard, which also implicitly means it’s superior to Beethoven. You’d think I’m being hyperbolic, but I’m not; the writing is lyrical, effortless, and above all, approached from the mind of a tune smith.
The other thing is just how delicate yet powerful the tone is. We’re never lulled into sleep with bland Bellini-isms, nor are we beaten over the head with sforzandos or extreme chromaticism. The timbre of the flute is certainly separated by a sea of air from the cello, but it knows where it’s going, and it’s not hesitant to get there. Maybe a better way to put it is that there’s considerable muscle in the music. The introduction is evidence enough, but there’s also the harmony to talk about, which feels decidedly Germanic. See the change from G-Major to G-augmented in the first two measures of the B theme, the progression from E-minor to Eb7 in the second transition, or the completely unprepared modulation from G-Major to Eb-Major in the second movement. I’d be remiss to not mention the tempo and texture as well, which is decidedly Beethovinian both in the concluding theme of the exposition and in the development. None of this is to say that Farrenc is a mere imitator. Far from it. Farrenc works in a familiar medium but has her own unique voice; this is no different than the modus operandi of Brahms.
The second movement is an andante in C-Major set in A-B-A form, but with subsections within each section. The movement looks thus, A(aba)-B(aba)-A(aba). The Aa subsection is divided into two units of eight measures, and it begins with a flute solo over sparse piano accompaniment evocative of a splendid ride down a river in Arcadia, a shepherd piping in the distance. There’s a particularly melodious half-diminished D chord in the fourth bar. The second half repeats the theme with the cello in the accompaniment. Next comes motion music featuring scaleur runs in the flute and cello over block chords in the piano. The Ab subsection begins a half-moon away in Eb with the flute still holding the melody for eight bars. Next comes more motion music and back to the Aa subsection that sees thicker accompaniment in the cello and the theme shared between the three instruments rather than just the flute. The B section is quite a world away from the A section. It begins in a stern C-minor march as if we’ve been startled out of a daydream. Its repeat is in the sweet key of Ab, however. The return of the A section sees the theme stated in all the instruments at various points. The section is actually more of a variation rather than a simple repeat that sees more action in both the foreground and background: scaleur runs, arpeggios, and the theme presented in stretti. To treat the repeat of the A section like this is not only in good form, but it allows Farrenc to show off even more of her wonderful ability to create sonic unison from the timbre of three very different instruments. We end light as a feather back home in C-Major.
The third movement is an energetic and playful Scherzo, (short for Scherzo and Trio) in E-minor. If you don’t know, a Scherzo is just a faster Minuet & Trio, a dance in three beats. In the Scherzo the writing is virtuosic, especially for the flute. Here the focus is on harmony and propulsion rather than melody and stasis. The trio is absolutely stunning; the melody is deeply autumnal yet carefree and light, and the way Farrenc handles E-major is gorgeous. The air is crisp, the leaves are browning, and you just want to cuddle up next to the fireplace.
The first theme of the fourth movement, sonata form marked
presto, is sinewy, dewy. There’s no real melody, the flute and the piano oscillate above and below chord tones in thirds at a speedy pace. The impressive thing to note isn’t really the theme itself, but the writing; for a piece of medium length Farrenc has treated the flute in about as many manners as possible, rhythmically, melodically, harmonically, all without sounding bookish. Our second theme is in the sprightly key of G-Major, and Farrenc once again paints a lovely melody in broad strokes. The nice thing is that there are barely any chromatics, just the beauty of the key itself. But Farrenc must really like the lush sound of G-Major to Eb-Major, (who doesn’t), because she uses the progression again to begin the development, which is itself decidedly lush. Except for the ear catching Gr+6 chord eight bars before the end, for the finale we end in an ebullient flourish of E-major. A wonderful Trio, all in all.
It’s been an arduous trek for Farrenc. As recently as 1987, Harold C. Schonberg the former senior music critic for
The New York Times, spent no more than one sentence on Farrenc in his book
The Great Pianists; his only thing to say that she, “made absolutely no impact on history.” I found this to be quite rich coming from a man who’d been given the Pulitzer in 1971 for music criticism, and who in his book spilt a lot of ink on players who have actually, to use his own words, made absolutely no impact on history. Like Blind Tom the “half-witted…[n]egro slave …with great blubbery lips… ‘brutal form and an idiotic brain.’” Two things, first, this is a description so disgusting I have a hard time believing anything Schoenberg has to say about women or minorities as genuine. Second, there was no good reason to include Blind Tom in the book; according to Schoenberg himself, Blind Tom could not actually play the piano, he was mentally retarded… Wtf…？Methinks there might be something else going on here. And, uh, Farrenc’s technique was prodigious. So good, in fact, that in 1842 she was given a permanent position at the Paris Conservatory as Professor of Piano, the
only woman to work for the Paris Conservatory in the 19th century, and a position she held for thirty years. This is an accomplishment absolutely otherworldly, indicative, no doubt, of her incredible proficiency on the instrument. If Schoenberg didn’t consider Farrenc historically significant, then he had no business presenting himself as an authority on pianists. Okay, diatribe over. If you like Schubert, if you like Mozart, if you like the post-Baroque, pre-Romantic German idiom, you will like Louise Farrenc.
