Chamber Music [CD]

This chamber music recording features two important anniversaries - the 150th anniversary of the death of French composer Louise Farrenc, who died on 15 September 1875 after a successful career in Paris and the 75th birthday of her Russian colleague Elena Firsowa, who was born on 21 March 1950 in Leningrad in the late-Stalinist Soviet Union. She had every reason to be glad at the "mercy of a late birth", since she was among the rebellious who bristled against the long-established standard-bearers very early on. Her piano quartet, now ten years old, is the centrepiece of this recording. Louise Farrenc once again demonstrates her impressive creative powers with her first piano quintet, and her compatriot Mel (anie) Bonis (1858-1937) deserves admiration for her first quartet, whose almost Art Nouveau-like melodies and sonorities are without question some of the most beautiful chamber music written after the turn of the century.