Symphonies 1 & 3
Insula Orchestra
Laurence Equilbey Conductor
Erato 0190296698521
Full price
The Review
Louise Farrenc was a Parisian contemporary of Robert Schumann and her symphonies have many of the same orchestral textures and thematic propulsions. Like Schumann’s wife, Clara, she established herself as a pianist and composer in her twenties.
Her husband, a flautist, was also a music publisher and was happy to support her reputation as a composer in a way not afforded Clara. Nonetheless, Farrenc’s orchestral works have not been given the same exposure as her chamber music, perhaps a hangover from more misogynist times.
This is a shame because the symphonies are some of the best to come from France in the 1840s and this recording by the Insula Orchestra, based in the superb new concert hall at La Seine Musicale on a river island in the outskirts of Paris, presents two of the three with great care and affection. It is surprising and a bit of a shame, given her illustrious career, that Farrenc never seems to have written a piano concerto. Perhaps it is yet to be rediscovered. Her feel for orchestral colour and well balanced texture, taking more from Weber than Berlioz, is assured and the invention in the material is more beguiling the more one listens.
Laurence Equilbey is a little too conservative in her tempi for my taste, especially in the third symphony. While this gives the music weight, it also holds it back from releasing its full energy and, while efficient, the Insula lacks the bloom of sound that a higher ranked orchestra could bring, especially among the strings. There is drive and commitment but not quite excellence. It would be interesting to hear the symphonies played by a more established band. One should not be picky, though, because Farrenc needs champions and these performances go a long way to giving her music the high status it deserves.
Of the two symphonies on this disc, I marginally prefer the first, with its dramatic Beethovenian first movement – Francois Gillardot plays the opening clarinet solo deliciously – and gorgeous Adagio cantabile second. That said, by the third symphony Farrenc was finding her way round more complex material which makes it feel more substantial. We could have done with another handful of symphonies from her but, whether because of social discouragement or personal disinclination, she wrote none in the last 26 years of her life.
SM