Beethoven Septet & Louise Farrenc Nonet | New Perspectives

It’s not easy to write for a combination of winds and strings, to get the balance right and to give every instrument its due.

Beethoven did it beautifully, of course, in his Septet of 1800, an early, charming work that took a popular musical form and made it entirely his own. Fifty years later Louise Farrenc, an acclaimed pianist and the second-ever female piano professor at the Paris Conservatory, took up Beethoven’s mantle with her rich, exquisite Nonet, a brilliant gem of a work that reinforced her reputation as one of Europe’s leading musical forces.

• Louise Farrenc: Nonet in E flat major, Op.38 (1849) [35mins]

• Interval [20 mins]

• Beethoven: Septet in E flat major, Op.20 (1800) [45 mins]