Louise Farrenc 1804-75

[vicharris]

Earlier on this forum mention has been made speculating as to whether Louise Farrenc had written a piano concerto, and I found a biography by Bea Friedland of Farrenc (perhaps a dissertation) that included information that there was a piano concerto in B minor left in manuscript with two completed movements and a few piano sketches and violin lines after the composer's notation "Dopo una piccola pausa s'attacca subito il Finale". It is supposed to be in the Farrenc documents at the Bibliothèque Nationale. The manuscript bears no date, nor is it mentioned in Farrenc's or her husband Aristide's writings, but Ms. Friedland feels "the work's technical polish and its poetic temper, coupled with an engaging spontaneity, strongly suggest that it postdates the symphonies". How I wish I had the wherewithal to commission someone to pursue this, since to me, even an incomplete piece (and especially a piano concerto!) by this very accomplished composer would be great to hear. But I have neither where nor withal, and so there it will be, maybe for someone else to be intrigued by...
Another quote from Ms. Friedland regarding the second completed movement, a Larghetto in G major: "This hauntingly melancholy piece, and the abortive fragment that follows, might stand as a symbol for Mme. Farrenc's life as a creative artist--cut short, en route to its richest expression". (She had essentially ceased composing after her daughter's early death a decade before her own)
Just thought this might be of interest to a few of you.

[Double-A]

The book by Friedland is indeed a dissertation.  I read it about two years ago.  Now that you mention it I remember the passage about the piano concerto I had forgotten.  A first step might be to try and find out if the BNF has an inventory of the Farrenc documents on line (the Theodor Fröhlich estate and the Xaver Schnyder von Wartensee estate have such an inventories for example) to confirm its existence.  if you could hunt down Friedland (she ought to be still alive) she might tell you how she got access to it, but this will be hard to do; a simple Google search turned up nothing useful for me (I had hoped she would be an academic somewhere and have a larger publication record by now--maybe she does but I couldn't find it).

[khorovod]

I thought it had been established that the concerto score had turned out to be a copy of a Hummel concerto and not an original piece, I'm sure I read that somewhere as I was listening to her symphonies this week (so maybe in the liner notes ).

[vicharris]

Say it ain't so, Joe!!