Farrenc’s style

Viennese style in France Farrenc’s predilection for chamber music and symphonies is rooted in the Viennese classics. Her style has a drama, lyricism and worked-out argument comparable to the soundworlds of Schubert (above), Weber and Mendelssohn, but with an energetic spirit entirely her own. Brilliance, clarity, stamina Most of Farrenc’s chamber music involves her own instrument, the piano, and the majority of her works are solos for it. Her writing is never flashy, but still presents the pianist with a major workout requiring a fast, light, even touch, great clarity and tremendous staying power.

The unsentimental Romantic Unlike some, she avoided grandiosity or sentiment. Her rigour of construction and purity of thought prefigures Saint-saëns. If her pianistic focus places her in line with Chopin, she never let herself head for the dreamworlds his music inhabited. One senses a down-to-earth outlook, curious and probing, but with no time for nonsense.

Head wind Married to a flautist, she sometimes included the instrument in her chamber works, resulting in some unusual combinations, such as a Sextet for piano, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn – magnificently written, it brings out the best of each instrument’s inherent qualities.