By Taeko Nishizaka
In the early 1850s, French critic Pierre Scudo wrote, “France is still and will remain for a long time dependent upon the Germans in instrumental music.... It is notable, however, that among the two or three composers of worth who have successfully attempted this genre, we have in France a woman, and a woman of outstanding attainments—Mme. Farrenc....”1 Louise Farrenc (1804-75), pianist, teacher, and in her later life, editor of a historical anthology of keyboard music, was a composer of whom the French were proud. Nevertheless, she is relatively unknown today, and her name rarely appears in the standard histories of Western music published in the 20th century.
In La musique française (1949) by Norbert Dufourcq, for example, Farrenc is not mentioned, although one reference to her husband, publisher Aristide Farrenc, appears.2 Her omission seems especially strange considering that the book is structured to emphasize composers. It is also amazing to observe the difference between the entry for Farrenc in Fétis’s monumental Biographie universelle (1874),3 and in two encyclopedias published in the late 1950s: Larousse and Fasquelle.4 Fétis devotes more than twice as much space to Louise than to Aristide. In the two later sources, however, the article on Louise is not only shorter than that on her husband but also fails to address her accomplishments as a composer, except for a related statement that she was a “pupil of Reicha.”
During her lifetime, Farrenc was highly regarded as both a pianist and composer by her contemporaries. In Les pianists célèbres (1878), for instance, pianist Antoine Marmontel admired her achievements as a “brave” musician who dared to compose chamber music for various instrumentations, as well as symphonies, which were equal to those by renowned masters. In his essay, Marmontel discussed how highly motivated Farrenc was as a composer and emphasized her talent and the success she attained.5 One should therefore question what happened to her reception over the decades. Why did her music fade into oblivion? What causes a person so talented and esteemed during her lifetime to be forgotten so quickly?
Gender played in important role in Farrenc’s music as well as her life in general, a critical factor in addressing these questions. But I propose an additional factor that may have contributed to her decline: the rise of nationalism and misogyny that began in France after the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) and continued through the early-20th century. This cultural change affected attitudes toward outstanding women of previous generations such as Louise Farrenc, as well as contemporary women.
First, it would be appropriate to review some relevant aspects of Farrenc’s music and life. Her music was largely based on the Viennese Classical/early Romantic style, which was considered conservative for the time. Furthermore, she devoted herself primarily to instrumental music, especially “absolute music,” which was quite outside the mainstream in mid-19th-century France, where the preference was for dramatic works. Opera was the national favored type of musical entertainment, for which government subsidies were substantial.
Farrenc’s chamber works are considered among her finest compositions, but most composers and especially audiences at that time were not enthusiastic about chamber music. Although her compositions were performed, orchestral programs were dominated by the works of Beethoven and other Austro-German masters. The status of instrumental music was elevated in Austro-Germany, one of the most influential centers of Western art music. Thus began the evolution of German-oriented music history. Even though musicians and critics such as Robert Schumann praised Farrenc’s compositions, the German disdain for French music was well known. After the astonishing success of the premiere of her Nonetto, which the celebrated Josef Joachim and others performed in Paris in 1850, one critic wrote, “If she had been born in Germany, she would be the object of the most flattering ovations.” 6 It seems that the author could not help referring to Germany out of his eagerness to make the best French music known to audiences there. In 1856, however, Farrenc’s husband tried in vain to have her music performed in Frankfurt and Leipzig.7
Gender played a significant role in Farrenc’s life, as it did with most other women composers. Considering the difficulties women faced at that time, such as fewer opportunities for education, employment and publication as well as prejudice against women’s creativity, Farrenc was fortunate in both her cultural upbringing and her marriage to a supportive husband. Still, she was not immune to the disadvantages of her gender: she had to fight against salary discrimination at the Paris Conservatoire, where she had been teaching piano since 1842. She was the first woman to be granted a full professorship, except for a few in the voice department. It was not until 1850, when Farrenc made her second appeal to the director, Daniel-François-Esprit Auber, for fair treatment in salary that she was granted salary equity with her male colleagues. This happened long after her symphonies had been performed in Paris, Brussels and Geneva, her Etudes had been incorporated into the curriculum of the Conservatoire, and her reputation as a teacher, as well as a composer and pianist, had been secured.
In addition, events in her personal life were not always favorable to her career; for example, her musical activity ceased when her talented daughter, Victorine, became seriously ill with tuberculosis and eventually died at age 32 in 1859. Farrenc did not resume her career for three years, while Aristide continued his work. The hiatus may have been caused by the psychological stress of her daughter’s fatal illness.8 Thereafter, Farrenc cooperated with Aristide in editing a historical anthology of 300 years of keyboard music, Le Trésor des pianistes (1861-74). After Aristide’s death in 1865, she completed the publication herself and performed many of the works. As one of the few reliable sources in its field, Le Trésor’s significance is indisputable. Perhaps her concentrated effort on completing the anthology, in addition to her role as a mother, contributed to her decision to abandon composing and promoting her own works in her later years.
As mentioned above, the situation for women in France changed as a result of the French defeat in 1871 in the Franco-Prussian War and the subsequent promotion of nationalism. This movement worked against ambitious women. The loss of power by the French was ascribed, in part, to the assumed results of the emancipation of women: the reduced birthrate and the diminished sense of gender roles. The surge of nationalism lessened somewhat in the 1890s, but rose again at the turn of the century. At about the same time, misogyny became prevalent in Europe, stimulated by both the pseudo-scientific theories that claimed women’s recessiveness and the backlash against women who wished to enter male-dominated public activities. Those who denounced the admittance of women to the Prix de Rome competition were part of this trend.9 In 1912 a critic referred the advancement of women in musical careers as “pink peril,” which meant “a challenge not just to male privilege but to French culture itself.”10 Masculinity was required in art as well as in politics. Thus, “true French art” was a political issue about which both the right and the left argued in favor of masculinity.
One obvious change is that pictures of women, which often appeared in concert programs as symbolic of music, were replaced by male images around the turn of the century in France.11 This may have been yet another attempt to masculinize the musical world.
German-centered symphonic music was welcomed in France, which is quite significant in this context. Vincent d’Indy, one of the most influential composers among the French nationalists, believed that because “France represented one aspect of a universal tradition...the entry of another strain of this great tradition, even from outside France, could have a salutary influence upon French culture.”12 Thus the German symphonic tradition was appropriated to strengthen and masculinize French culture. Women were not considered the equal of men, who welcomed the perception of a woman as a femme fragile, one who was not capable of composing anything other than innocuous salon music.
The attitude toward contemporary women was adopted for women of the past as well; thus the achievements of women tended to be neglected based solely on gender. When misogyny became a strong force (partially coinciding with the women’s movement), women were lumped together as inferior, while masculinity was regularly celebrated. Once misogyny took hold, the individual achievements of women were perceived as exceptions, at best.
In music histories written in the 20th century, very few women were mentioned. The great-composer approach was the norm, and history was determined by innovations of musical styles and remarkable originality that deserved to be handed down to posterity. Originality was considered a masculine quality, while imitation was associated with women, some of whom supposedly tried to act like men. Thus the works of women composers were excluded at various stages in the selection of great works. As a result of the male-centeredness of music history, it is plausible that another reason Farrenc was forgotten was because she had no famous male composers in her family, as did Clara Schumann and Fanny Hensel. Since professional lineage was traced among men, women, except for those who had male counterparts, tended to be ignored.
In French art music of the late 19th century, the works of Farrenc and her contemporaries were set aside, deemed as too cosmopolitan. The juste milieu, which critics such as Fétis and Blanchard—both admirers of Farrenc—had promoted in the middle of the century, was now out-of-date.13 It seems ironic that Farrenc’s style was perceived as old-fashioned at a time when the music and ideals of composers of the 18th century, such as Rameau, were being revived. The concept behind this revival was the belief in progress, which was linked to the French tradition. Thus the past was used to reinvigorate the present and direct the future.14 The outstanding features of Farrenc’s music are consistent with ideals of French tradition: structural balance, moderation and clarity. Nevertheless, her music was not appreciated as such within the nationalistic/misogynist context.
Post-nationalism is now proclaimed as the leading movement in France, yet the era of nationalism has not completely ended, and we should not become overly optimistic that post- nationalism will reject misogyny. The situation, however, is not hopeless. In last decades there have been challenges to both music history as great-male-composer history, and to the obsession with innovation and originality, the predominant values in art long associated with masculinity. The gendered issues embedded within these challenges should not be overlooked.
A revival of the music of Louise Farrenc is now ongoing. Critical editions of selected works appeared at the turn of the 21st century.15 Interest in her music was stimulated by various celebrations in connection with the 200th anniversary of her birth in 2004. In Japan, for example, an entire concert was devoted to her compositions. An international symposium, “Louise Farrenc and the Reception of Classicism in France,” was held in May 2004 in Bremen, Germany, at the Sophie Drinker Institute. Recordings of her symphonies and many of her other works are available, and Farrenc’s music is now receiving increasing attention in concert programs.
1. Quoted in Bea Friedland, Louise Farrenc, 1804-1875: Composer, Performer, Scholar (Ann Arbor, 1980), 47. It originally appeared in La Revue des deux mondes or L’Ordre between 1851 and 1854.
2. Norbert Dufourcq, La musique française (Paris, 1949), 252.
3. F.-J. Fétis, Biographie universelle des musiciens, 2nd ed., vol. 3 (Paris, 1874. Reprint. Brussels, 1963), 185-88.
4. Larousse de la musique, vol. 1 (Paris, 1957), 329. Encyclopedie de la musique et dictionnaire du Conservatoire, vol. 2 (Paris: Fasquelle, 1959), 26.
5. Antoine François Marmontel, “Madame Farrenc,” Les pianistes célèbres: Silhouettes et Médaillons (Paris, 1878), 168-75.
6. Quoted in Friedland, Louise Farrenc, 42: unsigned article in La France Musicale, May 12, 1850.
7. Ibid., 46. It is unclear, however, if her being French contributed to this failure. For Aristide’s situation in this attempt and the composer’s interest in the performance of her symphonies in Leipzig, see Christin Heitmann, Die Orchester- und Kammermusik von Louise Farrenc: vor dem Hintergrund der zeitgenössischen Sonatentheorie (Wilhelmshaven, 2004), 41-44.
8. On Friedland’s statement that Farrenc undertook the responsibility for her daughter’s care, Heitmann comments that there is neither evidence for nor against it, while pointing out that Victorine probably died at a sanatorium. See Friedland, Louise Farrenc, 40; Heitmann, Die Orchester- und Kammermusik, 269n.
9. Annegret Fauser, “La Guerre en dentelles: Women and the Prix de Rome in French Cultural Politics,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 51/1 (Spring 1998): 83-127.
10. Annegret Fauser, “Gendering the Nations; The Ideologies of French Discourse on Music (1870-1914),” Musical Constructions of Nationalism (Cork, 2001): 72-103.
11. Jann Pasler, “Concert Programs and their Narratives as Emblems of Ideology,” International Journal of Musicology 2 (1993): 249-308.
12. Jane F. Fulcher, French Cultural Politics & Music: from the Dreyfus Affair to the First World War (New York, 1999), 32.
13. Katharine Ellis mentions Farrenc in the context of the juste milieu. See her Music Criticism in Nineteenth-Century France: La Revue et Gazette musicale de Paris, 1834-1880 (Cambridge, 1995), 161-64.
14. For the concept of “progress as a spiral” that Vincent d’Indy represented, see Jann Pasler, “Paris: Conflicting Notions of Progress,” The late Romantic era from the mid 19th century to World War I, ed. Jim Samson (London, 1991), 389-416 (p. 402).
15. Louise Farrenc: Kritische Ausgabe der Orchester- und Kammermusik sowie Ausgewählte Klavierwerke, 14 vols. Edited by Freia Hoffmann, Katharina Herwig and Christin Heitmann (Wilhelmshaven: Noetzel, 1999-2003).
Taeko Nishizaka is a librarian at the Kunitachi College of Music Library and a member of Women and Music Study Forum (Japan). She developed this article from her program notes for a commemorative concert on the 200th anniversary of Farrenc’s birth that was held by the latter organization in Tokyo on October 30, 2004.