Louise Farrenc’s final notes

For a period in his career, Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos explored what the outcome might be of composing music for a high and low instrument together. He composed the duet for flute and cello entitled The Jet Whistlewhile visiting New York in 1950, and the three short movements can be seen as a musical jest which, through Villa-Lobos’ colourful imagery, plays with the potential and properties of the instruments. 

Just over 80 years earlier, the French pianist and composer Louise Farrenc wrote her very last chamber music piece – a trio for flute, cello and piano. Farrenc’s life work as a composer fell into obscurity after her death, but she is now receiving well-deserved recognition at last.

The music is performed by three musicians from the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, who will also perform a trio by Bohuslav Martinu from 1944, and the piece Cendresby Kaija Saariaho from 1998 for alto flute, cello and piano – a piece in which she worked with both merging the instruments, and allowing them to act individually.