Göteborgs Konserthus Hits from Two Centuries

A musical journey with hits from two centuries. Louise Farrenc was a success in 19th-century Paris with her ingenious piece for nine musicians. Carl Nielsen takes us to the elegant 1920s, before landing in Penderecki’s cheeky clarinet display from 1993.

If you want to experience outstanding music by a female pioneer, Louise Farrenc is the name to look for. She was a celebrated composer of her time and wrote passionate and virtuosic chamber music. She was the only female professor at the Paris College of Music, and had some 40 works published. The lively work for nine instruments, a nonet, was a success at its premiere in 1849 and helped make Farrenc famous in Europe.

On the other side of the turn of the century, we meet Carl Nielsen, the Danish national composer who is sensitive and grand at the same time. The wind quintet with five instruments “conversing with each other” is one of his most popular works alongside the symphonies.

Polish modernist Krzysztof Penderecki became one of the late 20th century’s most played composers. In 1993 he dedicated his clarinet quartet to the Concert Hall manager in Stockholm, Åke Holmquist. Here we first get a mysterious and calm first movement, and then a display of swinging clarinet playing accompanied by assertive strings that want to quickly enter the future.

With us on the journey through time are wind and string musicians from the Gothenburg Symphony.

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