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1847 Farrenc Symphony No. 3 in G minor

1847	Louise Farrenc (1804-1875)		Symphony No. 3 in G minor
Instrumentation		Strings, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, timpani
Movements		I: Adagio – Allegro (g) II: Adagio cantabile (Eb) III: Scherzo: Vivace (g) IV: Finale: Allegro (g) Listen to whole symphony with score
Overview		Farrenc was a celebrated pianist, showing such early promise she started studying composition at the age of 15 with Anton Reicha, a professor from the Paris Conservatoire. She could not enrol formally as his student, however, as women were forbidden from taking lessons in this subject. She flourished as a pianist and so successful that she was appointed as professor of piano at the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 38. She married a flautist with whom she collaborated on establishing a publishing house that concentrated on editions of piano music, although it also published most of her works. In her early career she wrote only for piano but graduated in the 1830s to chamber and orchestral music. She received both critical acclaim (from the writer Fetis to the composer Schumann) and various accolades including prizes from the Academie des Beaux-Arts. Farrenc’s work as a composer did not get sufficient traction to be remembered much after her death, partly because of her gender and partly because she did not write any opera, which was the pre-eminent genre of her time. Her third and last symphony is a work that easily stands its ground against similar contemporaries, such as the work of Mendelssohn or Schumann. However, the French musical world saw symphonies as a German genre, so it was difficult to get performances of such works by French composers (Berlioz, for example, had to organise and sometimes bankroll performances of his symphonic music.
Essay Points
B) 1^st mov. / sonata		The first movement is by turns intense and lyrical. It follows the outlines of sonata form but the journey is animated by some unusual harmonic twists and turns (including Db major in the transition and Gb major in the codetta) as well as frequent syncopations that develop on Beethoven’s style and perhaps anticipate the rhythmic style of Brahms. Example 1 – Opening Allegro: Example 2 – Modulation in transition:
C) 2^nd mov.		The Eb major second movement begins with a long, lyrical melody on the Clarinet that is accompanied just by bassoons, horns and timpani, one of many interesting orchestrations that fully exploit woodwind timbres in this work. Example 3 – Opening of second movement:
D) 3^rd mov.		The Scherzo takes the fast and furious Beethovenian road, complete with some rhythmic and metrical instabilities. Example 4 – Opening of Scherzo: The real stand-out feature of this movement is the way the woodwind-dominated trio section contrasts with the stormy G minor of the Scherzo. The lightness of touch and rhythmic energy, complete with pizzicato violins accompanying the woodwind, are more reminiscent of Mendelssohn than Beethoven. Example 5 – Opening of Trio:
E) Finale		Farrenc’s finale is a weighty movement and, unlike Beethoven and many of his successors, it does not ‘resolve’ the minor key into a major triumph. The movement has a lot of contrasting light and shade but tends towards the dramatic, right from its unison opening. Example 6 – Opening of finale: There is some real contrapuntal turmoil in the development. Example 7 – Counterpoint in development : The drama pushes through right to the peremptory final G minor chords. Example 8 – End of finale:
F) Orchestration		Farrenc only uses a small orchestra, with the horns the only brass represented, but she wrings every last drop of contrast and interest out of her small forces. Her background as a chamber composer can be seen in her subtle use of woodwind sonorities, particularly in the inner movements.
G) Harmony and tonality		The harmony is fairly standard early Romantic vocabulary, but her use sudden tonal shifts is much more interesting, a trait we see also in Mendelssohn and Schubert. Examples are the digressions to Db (a tritone away from the tonic) in the exposition of the first movement, and both the codetta and coda of the last movement. Such modulations are often brief and quite subtle but create a much more dynamic and colourful sense of tonality. Shifts to a distant key are sometimes more dramatic, for example in the sudden modulation to B minor at the beginning of the development of the finale.