FARRENC Life&times

1819

LIFE: Aged 15, she studies at the Paris Conservatoire. There, she becomes friends with the flautist Aristide Farrenc whom she marries two years later. TIMES: Depicting a notorious shipwreck from 1816 in which 150 people died, Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa is displayed for the first time at the Paris Salon.

1842

LIFE: Now an acclaimed performer, she is appointed as a piano professor at the Paris Conservatoire, a position that she will go on to hold for more than 30 years.

TIMES: The author Marie-henri

Beyle, best known for the novels Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme written under the pseudonym Stendhal, dies in Paris aged 59.

1865

LIFE: Following the death of her husband and co-author Aristide, she continues to work alone on their Le trésor des pianistes, a publication that eventually reaches 23 volumes. TIMES: The Printemps department store opens on the corner of Le Havre and Boulevard Haussmann in Paris. The first store in France to use electric lighting, it will eventually expand into a multi-national chain.

1804

LIFE: Jeanne Louise Dumont is born in Paris, the daughter of sculptor Jacques-edme Dumont. She begins piano lessons with Cécile Soria. TIMES: Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned Emperor of the French at Notre-dame de Paris. The title is carefully chosen to avoid being accused of restoring the monarchy.

1849

LIFE: Two years after its completion, her Symphony

No. 3 in G minor proves a great success when it is performed by the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire in Paris.

TIMES: In July, French troops enter Rome to bring an end to the Roman Republic five months after it was declared. The republicans’ leader Giuseppe Garibaldi flees to safety in San Marino.

1875

LIFE: Having long since given up composing, she teaches at the Paris Conservatoire until 1873. She dies two years later, aged 71. TIMES: Bizet’s Carmen is premiered at Paris’s Opéra Comique. It gets a mixed reception and the composer dies just three months later, believing he has produced a flop.

Sixty-seven years old when he completed the Songs of Farewell, Hubert Parry had by that stage enjoyed a long and distinguished career as both a composer and teacher. A stalwart of the recently founded Royal College of Music from 1883 – first as professor of composition and then, from 1895, as head – he passed on his wisdom to gifted students such as Vaughan Williams, Holst and Bridge. As well as his ultra-popular Jerusalem and the coronation anthem I was glad, his own compositions included a wealth of other choral music and four well-crafted symphonies.