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Read on for a guide to the important 19th-century French composer Louise Farrenc, composer of three vivid, energetic Romantic symphonies<\/a><\/strong>, some beautiful chamber music<\/a><\/strong> and much more.<\/p> Louise Farrenc is a major musical personality hiding in plain sight. Composer, pianist, researcher, editor and educator, she was praised by the likes of Berlioz<\/strong><\/a> and Schumann<\/a><\/strong>; she became the Paris Conservatoire\u2019s only 19th-century female professor of piano; she fought for equal pay as a woman, and won it. <\/p> Born in the year Napoleon crowned himself Emperor, when Beethoven\u2019<\/a><\/strong>s epoch-making Eroica<\/a><\/em><\/strong> Symphony was contemporary music, she lived to see the devastation of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 and the birth of Saint-Sa\u00ebns<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Nationale de Musique. Most significantly, her music \u2013 too long neglected \u2013 is seriously good. So good, in fact that we named Louise Farrenc one of the world’s most famous female composers<\/a> <\/strong>and one of the best French composers of all time.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>Who was Louise Farrenc?<\/strong><\/h2>