US TARIFFS UPDATE | August 2025 | No impact expected on your Presto orders | Read full details
Special offer. Farrenc: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3
Insula Orchestra, Laurence Equilbey
Awards:
-
Presto Recording of the Week, 9th July 2021
-
Gramophone Magazine, October 2021, Editor's Choice
-
Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2021
-
International Classical Music Awards, 2022, Nominated - Symphonic Music
post-Beethovenian works that show Farrenc at her distinctive best.
Special offer. Farrenc: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3
Insula Orchestra, Laurence Equilbey
Purchase product
Awards:
-
Presto Recording of the Week, 9th July 2021
-
Gramophone Magazine, October 2021, Editor's Choice
-
Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2021
-
International Classical Music Awards, 2022, Nominated - Symphonic Music
post-Beethovenian works that show Farrenc at her distinctive best.
About
Laurence Equilbey, conducting her period-instrument Insula Orchestra, champions the composer Louise Farrenc, a prominent and pioneering figure in 19th century Paris. This album presents two of Farrenc’s three symphonies, No. 1 in C minor, first heard in 1845, and No. 3 in G minor, premiered in 1849. “The score is so well written that it deserves a prominent place in the history of the early Romantic symphony,” wrote the Financial Times after a performance of the Symphony No 3 in London, marking International Women’s Day 2018. “Equilbey and the Insula orchestra gave it a fleet, fiery performance. Their crusading spirit lived up to the day’s billing.” The Daily Telegraph observed that the symphony “was full of engaging inventions … It’s clearly a fine piece; all it needs now is to be heard, many times.”
Contents and tracklist
Spotlight on this release
-
An error occurred.
Try watching this video on www.youtube.com, or enable JavaScript if it is disabled in your browser.
-
An error occurred.
Try watching this video on www.youtube.com, or enable JavaScript if it is disabled in your browser.
-
Laurence Equilbey on Louise Farrenc
26th Jul 2021
Following her release in early July of a recording of two symphonies by Louise Farrenc, conductor Laurence Equilbey digs further into the life and work of a unique French composer.
-
Farrenc from the Insula Orchestra and Laurence Equilbey
9th Jul 2021
The French orchestra begins its planned cycle of the symphonic works of Louise Farrenc with her Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3.
Awards and reviews
-
Presto Recording of the Week9th July 2021
-
Gramophone MagazineOctober 2021Editor's Choice
-
Presto Recordings of the YearFinalist 2021
-
International Classical Music Awards2022Nominated - Symphonic Music
December 2021
post-Beethovenian works that show Farrenc at her distinctive best.
Nov/Dec 2021
It would be hard to imagine better performances, a better sounding recording, or better advocacy for Farrenc than we receive here from Laurence Equilbey and her period instrument chamber orchestra, the Insula Orchestra.
October 2021
In their lucidity, colour and feeling for the music’s architecture, with climaxes unerringly prepared and clinched, these performances would be hard to better.
9th July 2021
It’s a delight to hear woodwind textures used so generously...The Adagio cantabile [of No. 3] – a masterclass in elegant lyricism that is definitely my favourite movement on the album – opens with a beautiful cantilena for clarinet accompanied by rich low woodwind. Lest one think that the wind have all the fun, though, the Scherzo’s rushing semiquavers and trills put the strings through their paces – it’s credit to the players’ agility that the touch remains light, and Equilbey is clearly keen to keep the pace up.
24th July 2021
For the woodwind writing alone, brilliant and unusual, this music stands out from the symphonic crowd, played here with style.
