The Covid pandemic of 2020 had few silver linings. Yet it could be argued that classical music was granted at least one. The year-long hiatus in live concerts inspired research and reflection upon lesser-known composers, especially those unfairly or arbitrarily excluded from the canon. The French composer/pianist Louise Farrenc (1804-1875) was a contemporary of early Romantic composers such as Berlioz, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Mendelssohn, and Wagner. But unlike these male icons, Farrenc struggled for recognition. Like her contemporary Fanny Mendelssohn, who published her work under her brother Felix’s name, the mere idea of a female composer was perceived as threatening. She fought against stereotypes, both personally and artistically. One reviewer wrote, “The dominant quality of this work, composed by a woman, is precisely what one would least expect to find. There is more power than delicacy.”
Farrenc, a virtuoso pianist, eventually achieved the rare honor of being offered a professorship at the prestigious Paris Conservatory. Yet she discovered she was being paid less than her male colleagues. Only in 1850, after her Nonet for strings and winds won great acclaim and popularity, did the school finally offer her parity in wages. Incredibly, Louise Farrenc was the only woman on the faculty of the conservatory throughout the entire nineteenth century.
In her Overture No. 1 in E minor, astute listeners may hear faint allusions to Mozart’s Magic Flute Overture. Indeed, her work looks back to classical forms as much as it looks ahead. Likewise, Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola also looks backwards to the Baroque convention of Concerti Grossi or “group” concerti featuring multiple instruments. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti for mixed instruments are the most famous example of this, but there are countless others.
By 1779, the year Mozart composed the Sinfonia Concertante’s composition, he had already written five solo violin concerti. Eager to explore new forms, this symphony-concerto hybrid was the result. The viola, an instrument Mozart himself loved to play, is elevated to soloist level virtuosity. He ingeniously structures the work as a lengthy dialogue between the two solo instruments, including a written-out cadenza. The outer movements are jovial and tuneful, but the melancholy Andante hints at grief and loss, possibly recalling the recent passing of his mother. It is a rare minor key movement, the darker side of this ebullient genius.
The Third Symphony might be regarded as the dark horse of Johannes Brahms’s symphonic output, at least judging by its infrequency of performance. Yet it contains some of the composer’s most innovative and inspired moments. Chief among them is a recurring motif: the notes F-A-F, which, in various guises, permeate the work and unite the movements. Brahms’s friend and biographer Max Kalbeck claimed these letters represented Brahms’s personal motto, frei aber froh, “free but happy.” Brahms, a lifelong bachelor who had nonetheless fallen in love several times, had finally made peace with solitude.
Brahms’s deep bonds with Robert and Clara Schumann, explored in MOSL’s Spring 2024 program, find their way into the Third Symphony. In fact, the main theme of the first movement is a direct quote from a transitional passage in Robert Schumann’s Third Symphony. Lyric melodies abound in the Brahms Third, none more memorable than in the wistful third movement. It is said that conductors avoid programming this symphony, especially as a concert closer, because it ends quietly. Indeed, all four movements conclude softly. Yet preceding these gentle endings are some of the most dramatic and turbulent bars ever written by the composer. The quiet conclusions are the logical release of such dramatic tension.
In some ways, each of Brahms’s four symphonies corresponds to the four seasons of the year. The First Symphony opens like the violent Spring described by T.S. Eliot (“April is the cruelest month”) yet ends in jubilant transformation. The composer’s Second Symphony presents a carefree pastoral Summer, and his Fourth a bleak Winter. On this late October afternoon, MOSL is thrilled to close our concert with Brahms’s autumnal masterpiece, the Third Symphony.
Roger Kaza