Forgotten Music
“I really don’t know whether any place contains more pianists than Paris, or whether you can find anywhere more asses and virtuosos. Is there a difference?”
Probably my favorite quote from Chopin, he’s talking about how many virtuoso pianists were living in Paris at the time he moved there in 1830. It’s regarded today as the flying trapeze school of piano playing, since all the pianists at the time were fixated on who could play the fastest, hit the piano the loudest, and preform all kinds of tricks and stunts for vying audiences. Chopin, obviously wanted nothing to do with this.
It was customary at the time for a virtuoso pianist to not only play other peoples work, but also compose their own. It’s surprising how much of this music has been forgotten. Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, some Mendelssohn, everyone else’s piano pieces from around this time are hardly ever played, if ever played at all; and probably for good reason, as a lot of the music was likely bad. But it makes you wonder if there are any hidden gems out there.
Manuscript of Fanny Hensel’s Das Jahr - December
My favorite “forgotten” piece of music from this time is Fanny Hensel’s Das Jahr (The Year). Written in 1841, it consists of twelve pieces named after each month of the year. For various family reasons, and prejudice against women composers during this time, she never published the work and we didn’t even know it existed until 1989, 150 years after it was written! Even now, you can only find a few pianists who have recorded it, which is a shame, because it’s an incredible piece, dwarfing anything her famous brother wrote for the instrument.
Another female composer I’ve been listening to from around this time is Louise Farrenc. I first heard her through Sharon Su who recorded one of her etudes last year.
Drawing of Louise Farrenc
Wanting to hear more of Farrenc’s work, I scrolled through her list of compositions on Wikipedia, though it was difficult to actually hear them, as a lot have never been recorded. There aren’t even videos on YouTube of people playing these pieces at home.
It’s an interesting experience taking the sheet music and playing through them on piano. Since there aren’t any recordings, you have no idea what it sounds like until you start playing the notes. But there’s something special about playing through a piece written 150 years ago that’s never been recorded. You sort of feel like an archeologist digging up ancient remains of a dinosaur, and can’t help but wonder “when was the last time someone actually heard this music?”
I wonder.