César Franck
Encyclopedia
César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck (10 December 1822 – 8 November 1890) was a composer
, pianist
, organist
, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life.
He was born in Liège
, where he gave his first concerts in 1834. He studied privately in Paris from 1835, where his teachers included Anton Reicha
. After a brief return to Belgium, and a disastrous reception to an early oratorio Ruth, he moved to Paris, where he married and embarked on a career as teacher and organist. He gained a reputation as a formidable improviser, and travelled widely in France to demonstrate new instruments built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll
.
In 1858 he became organist at Sainte-Clotilde, a position he retained for the rest of his life. He became professor at the Paris Conservatoire in 1872; he took French nationality, a requirement of the appointment. His pupils included Vincent d'Indy
, Ernest Chausson
, Louis Vierne
, and Henri Duparc. In the 1870s Franck took up composition again, and subsequently wrote several works that have entered the standard classical repertoire, including symphonic, chamber
, and keyboard
works.
Franck was born in Liège
, then part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
(from 1830 part of Walloon
-speaking Belgium
) to Nicholas-Joseph Franck, whose family came from the German-Belgian border, and Marie-Catherine-Barbe Frings Franck, who was from Germany
. Although young César-Auguste, as he was known in his early years, showed both drawing and musical skills, Nicholas-Joseph envisioned him as a young prodigy pianist-composer, after the manner of Franz Liszt
or Sigismond Thalberg
, who would bring fame and fortune to his family. His father entered Franck at the Royal Conservatory of Liège, studying solfège
, piano, organ, and harmony with Joseph Daussoigne-Méhul
and other faculty members. César-Auguste gave his first concerts in 1834, one before Leopold I of the newly-formed Kingdom of Belgium.
In 1835, his father resolved that the time had come for wider audiences, and brought César-Auguste and his younger brother Joseph to Paris, to study privately: counterpoint with Anton Reicha
and piano with Pierre Zimmermann
. Both men were also professors at the Paris Conservatoire
. When Reicha died some ten months later, Nicholas-Joseph sought to enter both boys into the Conservatoire. However, the Conservatoire would not accept foreigners; Nicholas-Joseph was obliged to seek French citizenship, which was granted in 1837. In the interval, Nicholas-Joseph promoted concerts and recitals in Paris featuring one or both boys playing popular music of the period, to mostly good reviews.
Young Franck and his brother entered the Conservatoire in October, 1837, César-Auguste continuing his piano studies under Zimmerman and beginning composition with Aimé Leborn. He took the first prize in piano at the end of his first year (1838) and consistently maintained that level of performance. His work in counterpoint was less spectacular, taking successively third, second, and first prizes between 1838 and 1840. He added organ studies with François Benoist
, which included both performance and improvisation, taking second prize in 1841, with the aim of competing for the Prix de Rome
in composition in the following year. However, for reasons that are not explicit, he made a "voluntary" retirement from the Conservatoire on 22 April 1842.
His withdrawal may have been at his father's behest. While César-Auguste was pursuing his academic studies, he was, at his father's demand, also teaching privately and giving concerts. "It was a hard life for him, . . . and not made easier by the ill-tempered and even vindictive behavior of his father . . . ." Concerts performed by young Franck (some with his brother on the violin, some including Franck's own compositions) were at first received well, but increasingly Nicholas-Joseph's commercial promotion of his sons antagonized the Parisian musical journals and critics. César-Auguste's technical abilities as a pianist were acknowledged; his abilities as a composer were (probably justly at this point) felt to be wanting. The whole situation was aggravated by what in the end became a feud between Nicholas-Joseph and Henri Blanchard, the principal critic of the Revue et Gazette musicale, who lost no opportunity to castigate the aggressive pretensions of the father and to mock the "imperial" names of the elder son. This animosity, "undoubtedly personal", may well have caused Nicholas-Joseph to decide that a return to Belgium was in order, and in 1842 "a peremptory order" to young Franck compelled the latter to leave the Conservatoire and accompany him.
Yet there were long-term benefits for young Franck. For it was from this period, extending back into his last Conservatoire years and forward beyond his return to Paris, that his first mature compositions emerged, a set of Trios (piano, violin, cello); these are the first of what he regarded as his permanent work. Liszt saw them, offered encouragement and constructive criticism, and performed them some years later in Weimar. In 1843, Franck began work on his first non-chamber work, the oratorio Ruth. It was privately premiered in 1845 before Liszt, Meyerbeer, and other musical notables, who gave moderate approval and constructive criticism. However, a public performance in early 1846 met with public indifference and critical snubs for the oratorio’s artlessness and simplicity. The work was not performed again until 1872, after considerable revision.
In reaction, César-Auguste essentially retired from public life to one of obscurity as a teacher and accompanist, in which his father reluctantly concurred. Young Franck had commissions both in Paris and in Orléans
for these activities, and for the composition of songs and small works. He had offered some compositions to celebrate and strengthen the new Second Republic
of 1848; the public received some of them with interest, but as the Republic gave way to the Second Empire
under Louis-Napoléon, they dropped out of use. In 1851 he attempted an opera, Le Valet de Ferme, with a libretto of "abysmal literary quality" and a hastily sketched score. Franck himself was to say towards the end of his career that "it is not worth printing." All in all, however, this obscurity may have been restful for him after his previous life in the spotlight: “Franck was still very much in the dark as to what his vocation was.” However, two crucial changes in these years were to shape the remainder of his life.
The first was an almost complete disruption of relations with his parents. The proximate cause was his friendship and later love for one of his private piano pupils, Eugénie-Félicité-Caroline Saillot (1824–1918), whose parents were members of the Comédie-Française
company under the stage name of Desmousseaux. He had known her from his years at the Conservatoire, and for young Franck Félicité Desmousseaux’s family home had become something of a refuge from his overbearing father. When in 1846 Nicholas-Joseph found a composition dedicated to “Mlle. F. Desmousseaux, in pleasant memories” among César-Auguste’s papers, he tore it up in the latter’s presence. César-Auguste went directly to the Desmousseauxs’, wrote out the piece from memory, and presented it to Félicité with the dedicatory line. Relations with his father worsened, his father forbidding any thought of betrothal and marriage (which French law permitted a father to do for a son under age 25), accusing him of distressing his mother (whose role is unclear: she was either mildly supportive of her son or stayed completely out of the conflict) and shouting at him about a then notorious husband-wife poisoning case as the most likely outcome of any match by his son. On a Sunday in July, César-Auguste walked out of his parents’ house for the last time with nothing but what he could carry, and moved to the Desmousseauxs’, where he was welcomed. From that time on, young Franck termed himself and signed his papers and works as César Franck or plain C. Franck. “It was his intention to make a clean break with his father and to let it be known he had done so . . . . He was determined to become a new person, as different as possible from the other.”
Under Félicité’s parents’ friendly if vigilant eyes, he continued to court her. As soon as he turned 25 in 1847, he informed his father of his intention to marry the lady, and in fact did so on 22 February 1848, the month of the Paris revolt. To get to the church, the party had to climb over the barricades set up by the revolutionaries – with, d’Indy says, “the willing help of the insurgents who were massed behind this improvised fortification.” The elder Francks were sufficiently reconciled to the marriage that they attended the ceremony and signed the register at what had become César’s parish church, Notre-Dame-de-Lorette.
It was the second great change that made Notre-Dame-de-Lorette Franck's parish church: his appointment there as assistant organist in 1847, the first of a succession of increasingly more important and influential organ posts. Although young Franck had never shone at the Conservatoire as organist in the manner that he had as pianist, he had wanted an organist’s position, not least because it provided a steady income. He now had occasion to match his Roman Catholic devotion with learning the skills needed for accompanying public worship, as well as the occasional opportunity to fill in for his superior, Alphonse Gilbat. In this position he won the favorable attention of the church’s Abbé Dancel, who in 1851 moved to the new church of Saint-Jean-Saint-François-au-Marais as curé and two years later invited Franck to assume the position of titulaire, or primary organist. Franck’s new church possessed a fine new organ (1846) by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll
, who had been making a name for himself as an artistically gifted and mechanically innovative creator of magnificent new instruments. “My new organ,” Franck said, “it’s like an orchestra!” Franck’s improvisatory skills were now in much demand, since liturgical practice of the time required the ability to take the plainsong music sung for the Mass or the Office and to develop from it organ music fitting into the service between texts sung or spoken by the choir or clergy. Furthermore, Franck’s playing ability and his love of the Cavaillé-Coll instruments led to his collaboration with the builder to demonstrate the latter’s instruments, Franck travelling to towns throughout France to show off older instruments or play inaugural concerts on new ones.
At the same time, a revolutionary change was occurring in the techniques of French organ performance. The German organist Adolf Hesse
(1809–1863), a student of Bach’s biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel
, had demonstrated in 1844 in Paris the pedal technique which (together with a German-style pedal board) made possible the performance of Bach’s works. This was totally outside the scope of the kind of playing which Franck had learned from Benoist at the Conservatoire; most French organs did not have the pedal board notes required for such work, and even France’s own great classical organ tradition dating from the period of the Couperin
s was at that time neglected in favor of the art of improvisation. Hesse’s performances might have been treated simply as a short sensation for their dazzling virtuosity, but that Hesse’s pupil Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens
(1823–1881) came to Paris in 1852 and again in 1854. Lemmens was then professor of organ at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels
, and was not only a virtuoso performer of Bach but a developer of organ teaching methods which all organists could learn in order to play with precision, clarity, and legato phrasing. Franck appeared on the same inaugural concert program as Lemmens in 1854, much admiring not only the classic interpretation of Bach but also the rapidity and evenness of Lemmens's pedal work. Vallas states that Franck, pianist before he was organist, "never wholly acquired the legato style himself"; nevertheless he realized the expansion of organ style made possible by the introduction of such techniques and set about the task of mastering them.
taking over as choirmaster and assistant organist. The impact of this organ on Franck's performance and composition cannot be overestimated; together with his early pianistic experience it shaped his music-making for the remainder of his life. Norbert Dufourcq described this instrument as "unquestionably the constructor's masterpiece up to this time". Franck himself told the curé of Sainte-Clotilde: "If you only knew how I love this instrument . . . it is so supple beneath my fingers and so obedient to all my thoughts!". To prepare himself for this organ's capabilities (including its thirty-note pedal), Franck purchased a practice pedalboard from Pleyel et Cie
for home practice to improve his pedal technique, as well as spending many hours at the organ keyboard. The beauty of its sound and the mechanical facilities provided by the instrument assisted his reputation as improviser and composer, not only for organ music but in other genres as well. Pieces for organ, for choir, and for harmonium
began to circulate, among the most notable of which is the Messe à 3 voix (1859). The quality of the movements in this work, composed over a number of years, is uneven, but from it comes one of Franck's most enduring compositions, the communion anthem "Panis angelicus
". More notable still is the set of Six Pièces for organ, written 1860–1862 (although not published until 1868). These compositions, (dedicated to fellow organists and pianists, to his old master Benoist, and to Cavaillé-Coll), remain part of modern organ repertory and were, according to Rollin Smith, the first major contribution to French organ literature in over a century, and "the most important organ music written since Mendelssohn's
." The group includes two of his best-known organ works, the "Prélude, Fugue, et Variation", op. 18 and the "Grande Pièce Symphonique", op. 17.
His increasing reputation as both performer and improviser continued to make Franck much in demand for inaugural or dedicatory recitals of new or rebuilt Cavaillé-Coll organs: Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wély
's new instrument at Saint-Sulpice (1862) and later for organs at Notre-Dame, Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, and La Trinité; for some of these instruments, Franck had acted (by himself or with Camille Saint-Saëns
) as consultant. At his own church, people began to come to hear the improvisations for the Mass and the Office. In addition, Franck began to give "organ-concerts" or recitals at Sainte-Clotilde of his own works and those of other composers. Perhaps his most notable concert arose from the attendance at a Sunday Mass in April 1866 of Franz Liszt, who sat in the choir to listen to Franck's improvisations and afterward said "How could I ever forget the man who wrote those trios?" To which Franck is supposed to have murmured a little sadly, "I fancy I have done rather better things since then.". Liszt organized a concert at Sainte-Clotilde to promote Franck's organ works later that month, which was well received by its listeners and well reported in the musical journals. Despite his comment about the trios, Franck was pleased to hear that not only Liszt but Hans von Bülow
was including them in concerts in Germany on a regular basis. Franck reinforced his understanding of German organ music and how it should be played by hearing Anton Bruckner
at Notre-Dame in 1869. He began to have a regular circle of pupils, who were there ostensibly for organ study but showed increasing interest in Franck's compositional techniques.
Franck continued to write compositions for use by choir in this period; most were never published. As was then common even for Conservatoire-trained musicians, he had never become familiar with the polyphonic music of earlier centuries. Franck composed his liturgical works in the then-current style, which Davies characterizes as "secular music with a religious bias". Nevertheless, he was encouraged to begin work (1869) on a major choral work, Les Béatitudes
, which was to occupy him for more than ten years, the delay partly due to the interruptions of the Franco-Prussian War
. The War, as had the 1848 Revolution, caused many of his pupils to disappear, either because they left Paris or were killed or disabled in the fighting. Again he wrote some patriotic pieces which, in the harshness of the times, were not then performed. He and his family experienced economic hardships as his income dropped and food and fuel became scarce. The Conservatoire was closed for the academic year 1870–1871. But a change was coming in how French musicians regarded their own music; particularly after the war they were looking for an Ars Gallica that would be distinctly French. This term became the motto of the newly-founded Société Nationale de Musique
, of which Franck became the oldest member; his music appeared on its first program in November 1871.
Many of his original circle of students had studied or were studying at the Conservatoire. Among the most notable in later life were Vincent d'Indy
, Ernest Chausson
, Louis Vierne
, and Henri Duparc. This group became increasingly tight-knit in their mutual esteem and affection between teacher and pupils. d'Indy relates that independently but unanimously each new student came to call their professor Père Franck, "Father Franck". On the other hand, Franck experienced some tensions in his faculty life: he tended to teach composition as much as he did organ performance and improvisation; he was considered unsystematic in his teaching techniques ("Franck never taught by means of hard and fast rules or dry, ready-made theories"), with an offhand attitude towards the official texts and books approved by the Conservatoire; and his popularity among some students provoked some jealousy among his fellow professors and some counter-claims of bias on the part of those professors when judging Franck's pupils for the various prizes, including the Prix de Rome
. Vallas says that Franck, "with his simple and trusting nature was incapable of understanding . . . how much back-chat of the nastier kind there could be even in a Conservatoire whose atmosphere he himself always found kindly disposed towards him."
He was now in a position to spend time composing works for which ideas had been germinating for years. He interrupted his work on Les Béatitudes
to produce (among many shorter works) the oratorio Rédemption (1871, revised 1874), the secular cantata Les Éolides (1876), the Trois Pièces for organ (1878), and the piano Quintet (1879). Les Béatitudes itself finally saw its first performance in 1879. As with many other premiers of Franck's larger choral and orchestral works, it was not successful: the work was highly sectionalized and lent itself to performance of excerpts rather than as a whole. There was no orchestra available, and those sections that were performed were accompanied by piano. Further, even d'Indy points out that Franck seemed incapable of musically expressing an evil contrasting to the virtues expressed in the Gospel beatitudes: "This personification of ideal evil--if it is permissible to link these terms—was a conception so alien to Franck's nature that he never succeeded in giving it adequate expression." The resulting "impression of monotony", as Vallas puts it, caused even Franck's devoted pupils to speculate on Les Béatitudes viability as a single unified work.
Franck was finding, in the 1880s, that he was caught between two stylistic advocates: his wife Félicité, who did not care for changes in Franck's style from that to which she had first become accustomed; and his pupils, who had a perhaps surprising influence over their teacher as much as he over them. Vincent d'Indy is quoted as saying "When [Franck] was hesitating over the choice of this or that tonal relation or over the progress of any development, he always liked to consult his pupils, to share with them his doubts and to ask their opinions." In turn, one of Franck's students recounts that Mme Franck remarked (with some truth) that "It is you pupils who have aroused all the hostility shown against him." In addition, there were some discords within the Société Nationale, where Saint-Saëns had put himself increasingly at odds with Franck and his pupils.
How exactly all of this turmoil may have played out in the composer's mind is uncertain. It is certain that a number of his more "advanced" works appeared in this time period: the symphonic poems Le Chasseur Maudit (1882) and Les Djinns (1883–1884), the Prelude, Chorale, and Fugue for piano (1884), the Variations Symphonique (1885), and the opera Hulda (1886). Many met with indifferent success or none, at least on their first presentations during Franck's lifetime; but the Quintet of 1879 (one of Saint-Saëns's particular dislikes) had proven itself an attention-getting and thought-provoking work (critics described it as having "disturbing vitality" and an "almost theatrical grimness"). In 1886 Franck composed the Violin Sonata
as a wedding gift for the Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe
. This became a resounding success; Ysaÿe played it in Brussels, in Paris, and took it on tour, often with his brother Théo Ysaÿe
at the piano. Vallas, writing in the mid-twentieth century, says that the Sonata had "become Franck's most popular work, and, in France at least, the most generally accepted work in the whole repertoire of chamber music."
The continuing ambiguity of esteem in which Franck was held may be shown in the award which Franck's circle had thought long delayed in its presentation. On 4 August 1885, Franck was made a Chevalier of the French Légion d'honneur
. His supporters were indignant: d'Indy writes that "it would be wrong to suppose that this honor was bestowed upon the musician, the creator of the fine works which do honor to French art. Not in the least!". Instead the citation was simply as "professor of organ" having completed more than ten years in that post. Vallas goes on to state: "Public opinion made no similar mistake on this score" and quotes a journal usually opposed to Franck as saying that the award was "above all things an act of homage paid justly if a little tardily to the distinguished composer of Rédemption and Les Béatitudes."
The dissension between Franck's family and his circle of students reached a new height when Franck published Psyché (written 1886–88), a symphonic poem based on the Greek myth. The controversy (not confined to Franck's immediate acquaintances) was not over the music, but over the philosophical and religious implications of the text (based on a poetic sketch by a certain Sicard and Louis de Fourcaud). Franck's wife and son found the work too sensual, and wanted Franck to concentrate on music wider and more popular in appeal "and altogether more commercial". d'Indy, on the other hand, speaks of its mystical significance, saying that it has "nothing of the pagan spirit about it, . . . but, on the contrary, is imbued with Christian grace and feeling . . . . The discussions became a quarrel. Further controversy arose with the publication of Franck's only symphony, that in D minor (1888)
. The work was badly received: the Conservatoire orchestra opposed, the audience "ice-cold", the critics bewildered (the reactions ranged from "unreserved enthusiasm" to "systematic disparagement"), and many of Franck's fellow composers completely out of countenance towards a work "which by its general style and even certain details" (for example, use of an English horn) "outraged the formalist rules and habits of the stricter professionals and amateurs." Franck himself, on being asked whether the symphony had any basis in a poetic idea, told Louis de Serres, a pupil, that "no, it is just music, nothing but pure music.". According to Vallas, much of its style and technique (both good and not so good) can be attributed directly to the centrality of the organ in Franck's thinking and artistic life, and Franck profited from the experience. "He confided in his pupils that from thence on he would never write like that again."
In 1888, Franck tried his hand again at another opera, Ghiselle. It was more sketched out than composed and Franck never completed it. In contrast, a massive Quartet for strings was completed and performed in April 1890, and was well-received by public and critics. There had been other recent successes, including his own performances as concert pianist in and around Paris, an enthusiastic reception of a revival of Psyché of a couple of years earlier, and performances of works by various of his pupils. In addition, he was still playing Sunday improvisations to usually large congregations at Sainte-Clotilde. He had in mind major works for organ and possibly a sonata.
In early May, 1890, Franck was riding in a cab which was struck by a horse-drawn trolley, injuring his head and causing a short fainting spell. There seemed to be no immediate after-effects; he completed his trip and he himself considered it of no import. However, walking became painful and he found himself increasingly obliged to absent himself first from concerts and rehearsals, and then, beginning in July, to give up his lessons at the Conservatoire. He took his vacation as soon as he could in Nemours
, where he hoped to work on the proposed organ pieces as well as some commissioned works for harmonium
. He was able to start on both projects while on vacation, and to continue when he returned to Paris. Franck could not complete the harmonium collection, but the organ pieces were finished in August and September 1890. They are the Trois Chorales, of which Vallas says "Their beauty and importance are such that they may be properly considered as a kind of musical last will and testament." They are among the great treasures of organ literature and form a regular part of the repertory today.
Franck started the new term at the Conservatoire in October, but caught a cold mid-month. This turned into pleurisy
complicated by pericarditis
. After that, his condition rapidly worsened and he died on 8 November. (A pathologist writing in 1970 observed that, while Franck's death in November has traditionally been linked to his injury in May, and there may have been a connection, the respiratory infection by itself could have led to a terminal illness. Given the then lack of antibiotics, this "could not be considered an unusual pattern for pneumonia in a man in his seventh decade.")
Franck's funeral mass was held at Sainte-Clotilde, attended by a large congregation including Léo Delibes
(officially representing the Conservatoire), Saint-Saëns, Eugène Gigout
, Gabriel Fauré
, Alexandre Guilmant
, Charles-Marie Widor
(who succeeded Franck as professor of organ at the Conservatoire), and Édouard Lalo
. Emmanuel Chabrier
spoke at the original gravesite at Montrouge. Later, Franck's body was moved to its current location at Montparnasse Cemetery
in Paris, into a tomb designed by his friend, architect Gaston Redon
. A number of Franck's students, led by Augusta Holmès
, commissioned a bronze medallion from Auguste Rodin
, a three-quarter bust of Franck, which in 1893 was placed on the side of the tomb. In 1904, a monument to Franck by Alfred-Charles Lenoir, César Franck at the Organ, was placed in the Square Samuel-Rousseau across the street from Sainte-Clotilde.
", a method of achieving unity among several movements in which all of the principal themes of the work are generated from a germinal motif. The main melodic subjects, thus interrelated, are then recapitulated in the final movement. Franck's use of "cyclic form" is best illustrated by his Symphony in D Minor (1888). His music is often contrapuntally complex, using a harmonic language
that is prototypically late Romantic
, showing a great deal of influence from Franz Liszt
and Richard Wagner
. In his compositions, Franck showed a talent and a penchant for frequent, graceful modulations
of key. Often these modulatory sequences, achieved through a pivot chord or through inflection of a melodic phrase, arrive at harmonically remote keys. Indeed, Franck's students report that his most frequent admonition was to always "modulate, modulate." Franck's modulatory style and his idiomatic method of inflecting melodic phrases are among his most recognizable traits.
Franck had huge hands, capable of spanning twelve white notes on the keyboard. This allowed him unusual flexibility in voice-leading between internal parts in fugal composition, and in the size of the repeated chords which are a feature of much of his keyboard music.
The key to his music may be found in his personality. His friends record that he was "a man of utmost humility, simplicity, reverence and industry." Louis Vierne
, a pupil and later organist titulaire of Notre-Dame, wrote in his memoirs that Franck showed a "constant concern for the dignity of his art, for the nobility of his mission, and for the fervent sincerity of his sermon in sound. . . . Joyous or melancholy, solemn or mystic, powerful or ethereal: Franck was all those at Sainte-Clotilde." That appraisal applies well to all Franck's approach to music.
(1886–88), the Symphonic Variations
for piano and orchestra (1885), the Prelude, Chorale and Fugue
for piano solo (1884), the Sonata for Violin and Piano in A major
(1886), the Piano Quintet in F minor (1879), and the symphonic poem Le Chasseur maudit (1883). The Symphony was especially admired and influential among the younger generation of French composers and was highly responsible for reinvigorating the French symphonic tradition after years of decline. One of his best known shorter works is the motet setting Panis Angelicus
, which was originally written for tenor solo with organ and string accompaniment, but is also arranged for other voices and instrumental combinations.
As an organist he was particularly noted for his skill in improvisation
, and on the basis of merely twelve major organ works, Franck is considered by many the greatest composer of organ music after J. S. Bach
. His works were some of the finest organ pieces to come from France in over a century, and laid the groundwork for the French symphonic organ style. In particular, his Grande Pièce Symphonique, a 25 minute work, paved the way for the organ symphonies of Charles-Marie Widor
, Louis Vierne
, and Marcel Dupré
.
César Franck exerted a significant influence on music. He helped to renew and reinvigorate chamber music
and developed the use of cyclic form. Claude Debussy
and Maurice Ravel
remembered and employed the cyclic form, although their concepts of music were no longer the same as Franck's. Relating Franck as organist and composer to his place in French music, Smith states that "the concept of César Franck as organist and undisputed master of nineteenth-century French organ composition pervades nearly every reference to his works in other media.
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
, organist
Organist
An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists...
, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life.
He was born in Liège
Liège
Liège is a major city and municipality of Belgium located in the province of Liège, of which it is the economic capital, in Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium....
, where he gave his first concerts in 1834. He studied privately in Paris from 1835, where his teachers included Anton Reicha
Anton Reicha
Anton Reicha was a Czech-born, later naturalized French composer. A contemporary and lifelong friend of Beethoven, Reicha is now best remembered for his substantial early contribution to the wind quintet literature and his role as a teacher – his pupils included Franz Liszt and Hector Berlioz...
. After a brief return to Belgium, and a disastrous reception to an early oratorio Ruth, he moved to Paris, where he married and embarked on a career as teacher and organist. He gained a reputation as a formidable improviser, and travelled widely in France to demonstrate new instruments built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll
Aristide Cavaillé-Coll
Aristide Cavaillé-Coll was a French organ builder. He is considered by many to be the greatest organ builder of the 19th century because he combined both science and art to make his instruments...
.
In 1858 he became organist at Sainte-Clotilde, a position he retained for the rest of his life. He became professor at the Paris Conservatoire in 1872; he took French nationality, a requirement of the appointment. His pupils included Vincent d'Indy
Vincent d'Indy
Vincent d'Indy was a French composer and teacher.-Life:Paul Marie Théodore Vincent d'Indy was born in Paris into an aristocratic family of royalist and Catholic persuasion. He had piano lessons from an early age from his paternal grandmother, who passed him on to Antoine François Marmontel and...
, Ernest Chausson
Ernest Chausson
Amédée-Ernest Chausson was a French romantic composer who died just as his career was beginning to flourish.-Life:Ernest Chausson was born in Paris into a prosperous bourgeois family...
, Louis Vierne
Louis Vierne
Louis Victor Jules Vierne was a French organist and composer.-Life:Louis Vierne was born in Poitiers, Vienne, nearly blind due to congenital cataracts, but at an early age was discovered to have an unusual gift for music. Louis Victor Jules Vierne (8 October 1870 – 2 June 1937) was a French...
, and Henri Duparc. In the 1870s Franck took up composition again, and subsequently wrote several works that have entered the standard classical repertoire, including symphonic, chamber
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
, and keyboard
Musical keyboard
A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument, particularly the piano. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, shorter keys that repeats at the...
works.
Child and student (1822–1842)
Liège
Liège is a major city and municipality of Belgium located in the province of Liège, of which it is the economic capital, in Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium....
, then part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
(from 1830 part of Walloon
Walloon language
Walloon is a Romance language which was spoken as a primary language in large portions of the Walloon Region of Belgium and some villages of Northern France until the middle of the 20th century. It belongs to the langue d'oïl language family, whose most prominent member is the French language...
-speaking Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
) to Nicholas-Joseph Franck, whose family came from the German-Belgian border, and Marie-Catherine-Barbe Frings Franck, who was from Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. Although young César-Auguste, as he was known in his early years, showed both drawing and musical skills, Nicholas-Joseph envisioned him as a young prodigy pianist-composer, after the manner of Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
or Sigismond Thalberg
Sigismond Thalberg
Sigismond Thalberg was a composer and one of the most distinguished virtuoso pianists of the 19th century.- Descent and family background :...
, who would bring fame and fortune to his family. His father entered Franck at the Royal Conservatory of Liège, studying solfège
Solfege
In music, solfège is a pedagogical solmization technique for the teaching of sight-singing in which each note of the score is sung to a special syllable, called a solfège syllable...
, piano, organ, and harmony with Joseph Daussoigne-Méhul
Joseph Daussoigne-Méhul
Joseph Daussoigne-Méhul was a French composer and music educator. He served as the first director of the Royal Conservatory of Liège from 1826-1862; having been appointed to that post by William I of the Netherlands. In addition to his duties as director, he also taught courses in harmony and...
and other faculty members. César-Auguste gave his first concerts in 1834, one before Leopold I of the newly-formed Kingdom of Belgium.
In 1835, his father resolved that the time had come for wider audiences, and brought César-Auguste and his younger brother Joseph to Paris, to study privately: counterpoint with Anton Reicha
Anton Reicha
Anton Reicha was a Czech-born, later naturalized French composer. A contemporary and lifelong friend of Beethoven, Reicha is now best remembered for his substantial early contribution to the wind quintet literature and his role as a teacher – his pupils included Franz Liszt and Hector Berlioz...
and piano with Pierre Zimmermann
Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann
Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann, , known as Pierre Zimmerman and Joseph Zimmermann, was a French pianist, composer, and music teacher.Zimmermann was born in Paris, the son of a piano maker...
. Both men were also professors at the Paris Conservatoire
Conservatoire de Paris
The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France...
. When Reicha died some ten months later, Nicholas-Joseph sought to enter both boys into the Conservatoire. However, the Conservatoire would not accept foreigners; Nicholas-Joseph was obliged to seek French citizenship, which was granted in 1837. In the interval, Nicholas-Joseph promoted concerts and recitals in Paris featuring one or both boys playing popular music of the period, to mostly good reviews.
Young Franck and his brother entered the Conservatoire in October, 1837, César-Auguste continuing his piano studies under Zimmerman and beginning composition with Aimé Leborn. He took the first prize in piano at the end of his first year (1838) and consistently maintained that level of performance. His work in counterpoint was less spectacular, taking successively third, second, and first prizes between 1838 and 1840. He added organ studies with François Benoist
François Benoist
François Benoist was a French organist, composer, and pedagogue.Benoist was born in Nantes. He studied music at the Conservatoire de Paris and won the Prix de Rome in 1815 for his cantata Œnone. In 1819, he became organist and professor of organ at the Conservatoire; he held the latter post for...
, which included both performance and improvisation, taking second prize in 1841, with the aim of competing for the Prix de Rome
Prix de Rome
The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...
in composition in the following year. However, for reasons that are not explicit, he made a "voluntary" retirement from the Conservatoire on 22 April 1842.
His withdrawal may have been at his father's behest. While César-Auguste was pursuing his academic studies, he was, at his father's demand, also teaching privately and giving concerts. "It was a hard life for him, . . . and not made easier by the ill-tempered and even vindictive behavior of his father . . . ." Concerts performed by young Franck (some with his brother on the violin, some including Franck's own compositions) were at first received well, but increasingly Nicholas-Joseph's commercial promotion of his sons antagonized the Parisian musical journals and critics. César-Auguste's technical abilities as a pianist were acknowledged; his abilities as a composer were (probably justly at this point) felt to be wanting. The whole situation was aggravated by what in the end became a feud between Nicholas-Joseph and Henri Blanchard, the principal critic of the Revue et Gazette musicale, who lost no opportunity to castigate the aggressive pretensions of the father and to mock the "imperial" names of the elder son. This animosity, "undoubtedly personal", may well have caused Nicholas-Joseph to decide that a return to Belgium was in order, and in 1842 "a peremptory order" to young Franck compelled the latter to leave the Conservatoire and accompany him.
Teacher and organist (1842–1858)
This return to Belgium lasted less than two years. Profitable concerts did not arise; the critics were indifferent or scornful; patronage from the Belgian court was not forthcoming (although the King later sent César-Auguste a gold medal) and there was no money to be made. As far as Nicholas-Joseph was concerned, the excursion was a failure, and he brought his son back into a regime of teaching and family concerts in Paris, which Laurence Davies characterizes as rigorous and low-paying.Yet there were long-term benefits for young Franck. For it was from this period, extending back into his last Conservatoire years and forward beyond his return to Paris, that his first mature compositions emerged, a set of Trios (piano, violin, cello); these are the first of what he regarded as his permanent work. Liszt saw them, offered encouragement and constructive criticism, and performed them some years later in Weimar. In 1843, Franck began work on his first non-chamber work, the oratorio Ruth. It was privately premiered in 1845 before Liszt, Meyerbeer, and other musical notables, who gave moderate approval and constructive criticism. However, a public performance in early 1846 met with public indifference and critical snubs for the oratorio’s artlessness and simplicity. The work was not performed again until 1872, after considerable revision.
In reaction, César-Auguste essentially retired from public life to one of obscurity as a teacher and accompanist, in which his father reluctantly concurred. Young Franck had commissions both in Paris and in Orléans
Orléans
-Prehistory and Roman:Cenabum was a Gallic stronghold, one of the principal towns of the Carnutes tribe where the Druids held their annual assembly. It was conquered and destroyed by Julius Caesar in 52 BC, then rebuilt under the Roman Empire...
for these activities, and for the composition of songs and small works. He had offered some compositions to celebrate and strengthen the new Second Republic
French Second Republic
The French Second Republic was the republican government of France between the 1848 Revolution and the coup by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte which initiated the Second Empire. It officially adopted the motto Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité...
of 1848; the public received some of them with interest, but as the Republic gave way to the Second Empire
Second French Empire
The Second French Empire or French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France.-Rule of Napoleon III:...
under Louis-Napoléon, they dropped out of use. In 1851 he attempted an opera, Le Valet de Ferme, with a libretto of "abysmal literary quality" and a hastily sketched score. Franck himself was to say towards the end of his career that "it is not worth printing." All in all, however, this obscurity may have been restful for him after his previous life in the spotlight: “Franck was still very much in the dark as to what his vocation was.” However, two crucial changes in these years were to shape the remainder of his life.
The first was an almost complete disruption of relations with his parents. The proximate cause was his friendship and later love for one of his private piano pupils, Eugénie-Félicité-Caroline Saillot (1824–1918), whose parents were members of the Comédie-Française
Comédie-Française
The Comédie-Française or Théâtre-Français is one of the few state theaters in France. It is the only state theater to have its own troupe of actors. It is located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris....
company under the stage name of Desmousseaux. He had known her from his years at the Conservatoire, and for young Franck Félicité Desmousseaux’s family home had become something of a refuge from his overbearing father. When in 1846 Nicholas-Joseph found a composition dedicated to “Mlle. F. Desmousseaux, in pleasant memories” among César-Auguste’s papers, he tore it up in the latter’s presence. César-Auguste went directly to the Desmousseauxs’, wrote out the piece from memory, and presented it to Félicité with the dedicatory line. Relations with his father worsened, his father forbidding any thought of betrothal and marriage (which French law permitted a father to do for a son under age 25), accusing him of distressing his mother (whose role is unclear: she was either mildly supportive of her son or stayed completely out of the conflict) and shouting at him about a then notorious husband-wife poisoning case as the most likely outcome of any match by his son. On a Sunday in July, César-Auguste walked out of his parents’ house for the last time with nothing but what he could carry, and moved to the Desmousseauxs’, where he was welcomed. From that time on, young Franck termed himself and signed his papers and works as César Franck or plain C. Franck. “It was his intention to make a clean break with his father and to let it be known he had done so . . . . He was determined to become a new person, as different as possible from the other.”
Under Félicité’s parents’ friendly if vigilant eyes, he continued to court her. As soon as he turned 25 in 1847, he informed his father of his intention to marry the lady, and in fact did so on 22 February 1848, the month of the Paris revolt. To get to the church, the party had to climb over the barricades set up by the revolutionaries – with, d’Indy says, “the willing help of the insurgents who were massed behind this improvised fortification.” The elder Francks were sufficiently reconciled to the marriage that they attended the ceremony and signed the register at what had become César’s parish church, Notre-Dame-de-Lorette.
It was the second great change that made Notre-Dame-de-Lorette Franck's parish church: his appointment there as assistant organist in 1847, the first of a succession of increasingly more important and influential organ posts. Although young Franck had never shone at the Conservatoire as organist in the manner that he had as pianist, he had wanted an organist’s position, not least because it provided a steady income. He now had occasion to match his Roman Catholic devotion with learning the skills needed for accompanying public worship, as well as the occasional opportunity to fill in for his superior, Alphonse Gilbat. In this position he won the favorable attention of the church’s Abbé Dancel, who in 1851 moved to the new church of Saint-Jean-Saint-François-au-Marais as curé and two years later invited Franck to assume the position of titulaire, or primary organist. Franck’s new church possessed a fine new organ (1846) by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll
Aristide Cavaillé-Coll
Aristide Cavaillé-Coll was a French organ builder. He is considered by many to be the greatest organ builder of the 19th century because he combined both science and art to make his instruments...
, who had been making a name for himself as an artistically gifted and mechanically innovative creator of magnificent new instruments. “My new organ,” Franck said, “it’s like an orchestra!” Franck’s improvisatory skills were now in much demand, since liturgical practice of the time required the ability to take the plainsong music sung for the Mass or the Office and to develop from it organ music fitting into the service between texts sung or spoken by the choir or clergy. Furthermore, Franck’s playing ability and his love of the Cavaillé-Coll instruments led to his collaboration with the builder to demonstrate the latter’s instruments, Franck travelling to towns throughout France to show off older instruments or play inaugural concerts on new ones.
At the same time, a revolutionary change was occurring in the techniques of French organ performance. The German organist Adolf Hesse
Adolf Friedrich Hesse
Adolf Friedrich Hesse was a German organist and composer.-Life:Hesse studied in Breslau with the organists Friedrich Wilhelm Berner and Ernst Köhler. In 1831, he became the First Organist at the Bernhardinkirche in his hometown...
(1809–1863), a student of Bach’s biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel
Johann Nikolaus Forkel
Johann Nikolaus Forkel , was a German musician, musicologist and music theorist.-Biography:...
, had demonstrated in 1844 in Paris the pedal technique which (together with a German-style pedal board) made possible the performance of Bach’s works. This was totally outside the scope of the kind of playing which Franck had learned from Benoist at the Conservatoire; most French organs did not have the pedal board notes required for such work, and even France’s own great classical organ tradition dating from the period of the Couperin
Couperin
The Couperin family were a musical dynasty of professional composers and performers. They were the most prolific family in French musical history, active during the Baroque era...
s was at that time neglected in favor of the art of improvisation. Hesse’s performances might have been treated simply as a short sensation for their dazzling virtuosity, but that Hesse’s pupil Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens
Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens
Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens , was an organist and composer for his instrument.Born at Zoerle-Parwijs, near Westerlo, Belgium, Lemmens took lessons from François-Joseph Fétis, who wanted to make him into a musician capable of renewing the organ-player's art in Belgium...
(1823–1881) came to Paris in 1852 and again in 1854. Lemmens was then professor of organ at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels
Royal Conservatory of Brussels
The Royal Conservatory of Brussels is a drama and music college in Brussels, Belgium. An academy for acting and the arts, it has been attended by many of the top actors and actresses in Belgium such as Josse De Pauw, Luk van Mello and Luk De Konink....
, and was not only a virtuoso performer of Bach but a developer of organ teaching methods which all organists could learn in order to play with precision, clarity, and legato phrasing. Franck appeared on the same inaugural concert program as Lemmens in 1854, much admiring not only the classic interpretation of Bach but also the rapidity and evenness of Lemmens's pedal work. Vallas states that Franck, pianist before he was organist, "never wholly acquired the legato style himself"; nevertheless he realized the expansion of organ style made possible by the introduction of such techniques and set about the task of mastering them.
Titulaire of Sainte-Clotilde (1858–1872)
In this he was both challenged and stimulated by his third and last change in organ posts. On 22 January 1858, he became organist and maitre de chapelle at the newly-consecrated Sainte-Clotilde (from 1896 the Basilique-Sainte-Clotilde), where he remained until his death. Eleven months later, the parish installed a new three-manual Cavaillé-Coll instrument, whereupon he was made titulaire, Théodore DuboisThéodore Dubois
François-Clément Théodore Dubois was a French composer, organist and music teacher.-Biography:Théodore Dubois was born in Rosnay in Marne. He studied first under Louis Fanart and later at the Paris Conservatoire under Ambroise Thomas. He won the Prix de Rome in 1861...
taking over as choirmaster and assistant organist. The impact of this organ on Franck's performance and composition cannot be overestimated; together with his early pianistic experience it shaped his music-making for the remainder of his life. Norbert Dufourcq described this instrument as "unquestionably the constructor's masterpiece up to this time". Franck himself told the curé of Sainte-Clotilde: "If you only knew how I love this instrument . . . it is so supple beneath my fingers and so obedient to all my thoughts!". To prepare himself for this organ's capabilities (including its thirty-note pedal), Franck purchased a practice pedalboard from Pleyel et Cie
Pleyel et Cie
Pleyel et Cie is a French piano manufacturing firm founded by the composer Ignace Pleyel in 1807. In 1815, he was joined by his son, Camille, as a business partner. The firm provided pianos to Frédéric Chopin, and also ran a concert hall, the Salle Pleyel, where Chopin performed his first — and...
for home practice to improve his pedal technique, as well as spending many hours at the organ keyboard. The beauty of its sound and the mechanical facilities provided by the instrument assisted his reputation as improviser and composer, not only for organ music but in other genres as well. Pieces for organ, for choir, and for harmonium
Harmonium
A harmonium is a free-standing keyboard instrument similar to a reed organ. Sound is produced by air being blown through sets of free reeds, resulting in a sound similar to that of an accordion...
began to circulate, among the most notable of which is the Messe à 3 voix (1859). The quality of the movements in this work, composed over a number of years, is uneven, but from it comes one of Franck's most enduring compositions, the communion anthem "Panis angelicus
Panis Angelicus
Panis angelicus is the penultimate strophe of the hymn Sacris solemniis written by Saint Thomas Aquinas for the Feast of Corpus Christi as part of a complete liturgy of the Feast including prayers for the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours....
". More notable still is the set of Six Pièces for organ, written 1860–1862 (although not published until 1868). These compositions, (dedicated to fellow organists and pianists, to his old master Benoist, and to Cavaillé-Coll), remain part of modern organ repertory and were, according to Rollin Smith, the first major contribution to French organ literature in over a century, and "the most important organ music written since Mendelssohn's
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
." The group includes two of his best-known organ works, the "Prélude, Fugue, et Variation", op. 18 and the "Grande Pièce Symphonique", op. 17.
His increasing reputation as both performer and improviser continued to make Franck much in demand for inaugural or dedicatory recitals of new or rebuilt Cavaillé-Coll organs: Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wély
Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wely
Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wely was a French organist and composer.-Short Biography:Lefébure-Wely played a major role in the development of the French symphonic organ style and was a close friend of the organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, inaugurating many new Cavaillé-Coll organs.He began to...
's new instrument at Saint-Sulpice (1862) and later for organs at Notre-Dame, Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, and La Trinité; for some of these instruments, Franck had acted (by himself or with Camille Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
) as consultant. At his own church, people began to come to hear the improvisations for the Mass and the Office. In addition, Franck began to give "organ-concerts" or recitals at Sainte-Clotilde of his own works and those of other composers. Perhaps his most notable concert arose from the attendance at a Sunday Mass in April 1866 of Franz Liszt, who sat in the choir to listen to Franck's improvisations and afterward said "How could I ever forget the man who wrote those trios?" To which Franck is supposed to have murmured a little sadly, "I fancy I have done rather better things since then.". Liszt organized a concert at Sainte-Clotilde to promote Franck's organ works later that month, which was well received by its listeners and well reported in the musical journals. Despite his comment about the trios, Franck was pleased to hear that not only Liszt but Hans von Bülow
Hans von Bülow
Hans Guido Freiherr von Bülow was a German conductor, virtuoso pianist, and composer of the Romantic era. He was one of the most famous conductors of the 19th century, and his activity was critical for establishing the successes of several major composers of the time, including Richard...
was including them in concerts in Germany on a regular basis. Franck reinforced his understanding of German organ music and how it should be played by hearing Anton Bruckner
Anton Bruckner
Anton Bruckner was an Austrian composer known for his symphonies, masses, and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, complex polyphony, and considerable length...
at Notre-Dame in 1869. He began to have a regular circle of pupils, who were there ostensibly for organ study but showed increasing interest in Franck's compositional techniques.
Franck continued to write compositions for use by choir in this period; most were never published. As was then common even for Conservatoire-trained musicians, he had never become familiar with the polyphonic music of earlier centuries. Franck composed his liturgical works in the then-current style, which Davies characterizes as "secular music with a religious bias". Nevertheless, he was encouraged to begin work (1869) on a major choral work, Les Béatitudes
Les Béatitudes
Les Béatitudes, M. 53, is a French oratorio written by César Franck from 1869 to 1879 and scored for orchestra, chorus, and soloists. The text is a poetic meditation on the eight beatitudes of Jesus, from the Gospel of Matthew, by Joséphine Colomb. It was first performed, in reduced form, on...
, which was to occupy him for more than ten years, the delay partly due to the interruptions of the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
. The War, as had the 1848 Revolution, caused many of his pupils to disappear, either because they left Paris or were killed or disabled in the fighting. Again he wrote some patriotic pieces which, in the harshness of the times, were not then performed. He and his family experienced economic hardships as his income dropped and food and fuel became scarce. The Conservatoire was closed for the academic year 1870–1871. But a change was coming in how French musicians regarded their own music; particularly after the war they were looking for an Ars Gallica that would be distinctly French. This term became the motto of the newly-founded Société Nationale de Musique
Société Nationale de Musique
The Société Nationale de Musique was founded on February 25, 1871 to promote French music and to allow young composers to present their music in public...
, of which Franck became the oldest member; his music appeared on its first program in November 1871.
"Père Franck", Conservatory professor, composer (1872–1890)
Franck's reputation was now widespread enough, through his fame as performer, his membership in the Société, and his smaller but devoted group of students, that when Benoist retired as professor of organ at the reopening of the Paris Conservatoire in 1872, Franck was proposed as successor. There is some uncertainty as to who made the nomination to the government; at different times Saint-Saëns and Theodore Dubois claimed responsibility, as did Cavaillé-Coll. What is certain is that Franck's name was at the head of the list of nominees—and that the nomination exposed the embarrassing fact that Franck was not a French citizen, a requirement for the appointment. It turned out that Franck did not know that when his father, Nicholas-Joseph, became a naturalized French citizen in order to enter his sons into the Conservatoire as students, they were counted as citizens only until age twenty-one, when they were obliged to declare their allegiance to France as adults. Franck had always regarded himself as French from the time of his father's naturalization. In fact, he had unknowingly reverted to his birth nationality of Belgian at his majority. Franck went through the naturalization process at once; his original appointment on 1 February 1872 was regularized in 1873.Many of his original circle of students had studied or were studying at the Conservatoire. Among the most notable in later life were Vincent d'Indy
Vincent d'Indy
Vincent d'Indy was a French composer and teacher.-Life:Paul Marie Théodore Vincent d'Indy was born in Paris into an aristocratic family of royalist and Catholic persuasion. He had piano lessons from an early age from his paternal grandmother, who passed him on to Antoine François Marmontel and...
, Ernest Chausson
Ernest Chausson
Amédée-Ernest Chausson was a French romantic composer who died just as his career was beginning to flourish.-Life:Ernest Chausson was born in Paris into a prosperous bourgeois family...
, Louis Vierne
Louis Vierne
Louis Victor Jules Vierne was a French organist and composer.-Life:Louis Vierne was born in Poitiers, Vienne, nearly blind due to congenital cataracts, but at an early age was discovered to have an unusual gift for music. Louis Victor Jules Vierne (8 October 1870 – 2 June 1937) was a French...
, and Henri Duparc. This group became increasingly tight-knit in their mutual esteem and affection between teacher and pupils. d'Indy relates that independently but unanimously each new student came to call their professor Père Franck, "Father Franck". On the other hand, Franck experienced some tensions in his faculty life: he tended to teach composition as much as he did organ performance and improvisation; he was considered unsystematic in his teaching techniques ("Franck never taught by means of hard and fast rules or dry, ready-made theories"), with an offhand attitude towards the official texts and books approved by the Conservatoire; and his popularity among some students provoked some jealousy among his fellow professors and some counter-claims of bias on the part of those professors when judging Franck's pupils for the various prizes, including the Prix de Rome
Prix de Rome
The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...
. Vallas says that Franck, "with his simple and trusting nature was incapable of understanding . . . how much back-chat of the nastier kind there could be even in a Conservatoire whose atmosphere he himself always found kindly disposed towards him."
He was now in a position to spend time composing works for which ideas had been germinating for years. He interrupted his work on Les Béatitudes
Les Béatitudes
Les Béatitudes, M. 53, is a French oratorio written by César Franck from 1869 to 1879 and scored for orchestra, chorus, and soloists. The text is a poetic meditation on the eight beatitudes of Jesus, from the Gospel of Matthew, by Joséphine Colomb. It was first performed, in reduced form, on...
to produce (among many shorter works) the oratorio Rédemption (1871, revised 1874), the secular cantata Les Éolides (1876), the Trois Pièces for organ (1878), and the piano Quintet (1879). Les Béatitudes itself finally saw its first performance in 1879. As with many other premiers of Franck's larger choral and orchestral works, it was not successful: the work was highly sectionalized and lent itself to performance of excerpts rather than as a whole. There was no orchestra available, and those sections that were performed were accompanied by piano. Further, even d'Indy points out that Franck seemed incapable of musically expressing an evil contrasting to the virtues expressed in the Gospel beatitudes: "This personification of ideal evil--if it is permissible to link these terms—was a conception so alien to Franck's nature that he never succeeded in giving it adequate expression." The resulting "impression of monotony", as Vallas puts it, caused even Franck's devoted pupils to speculate on Les Béatitudes viability as a single unified work.
Franck was finding, in the 1880s, that he was caught between two stylistic advocates: his wife Félicité, who did not care for changes in Franck's style from that to which she had first become accustomed; and his pupils, who had a perhaps surprising influence over their teacher as much as he over them. Vincent d'Indy is quoted as saying "When [Franck] was hesitating over the choice of this or that tonal relation or over the progress of any development, he always liked to consult his pupils, to share with them his doubts and to ask their opinions." In turn, one of Franck's students recounts that Mme Franck remarked (with some truth) that "It is you pupils who have aroused all the hostility shown against him." In addition, there were some discords within the Société Nationale, where Saint-Saëns had put himself increasingly at odds with Franck and his pupils.
How exactly all of this turmoil may have played out in the composer's mind is uncertain. It is certain that a number of his more "advanced" works appeared in this time period: the symphonic poems Le Chasseur Maudit (1882) and Les Djinns (1883–1884), the Prelude, Chorale, and Fugue for piano (1884), the Variations Symphonique (1885), and the opera Hulda (1886). Many met with indifferent success or none, at least on their first presentations during Franck's lifetime; but the Quintet of 1879 (one of Saint-Saëns's particular dislikes) had proven itself an attention-getting and thought-provoking work (critics described it as having "disturbing vitality" and an "almost theatrical grimness"). In 1886 Franck composed the Violin Sonata
Violin Sonata (Franck)
The Sonata in A major for Violin and Piano by César Franck is one of his best known compositions, and considered one of the finest sonatas for violin and piano ever written...
as a wedding gift for the Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe
Eugène Ysaÿe
Eugène Ysaÿe was a Belgian violinist, composer and conductor born in Liège. He was regarded as "The King of the Violin", or, as Nathan Milstein put it, the "tzar"...
. This became a resounding success; Ysaÿe played it in Brussels, in Paris, and took it on tour, often with his brother Théo Ysaÿe
Théo Ysaÿe
Théophile Ysaÿe was a Belgian composer and pianist, born in Verviers, Belgium. His brother was the violinist and conductor Eugène Ysaÿe.-Biography:...
at the piano. Vallas, writing in the mid-twentieth century, says that the Sonata had "become Franck's most popular work, and, in France at least, the most generally accepted work in the whole repertoire of chamber music."
The continuing ambiguity of esteem in which Franck was held may be shown in the award which Franck's circle had thought long delayed in its presentation. On 4 August 1885, Franck was made a Chevalier of the French Légion d'honneur
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
. His supporters were indignant: d'Indy writes that "it would be wrong to suppose that this honor was bestowed upon the musician, the creator of the fine works which do honor to French art. Not in the least!". Instead the citation was simply as "professor of organ" having completed more than ten years in that post. Vallas goes on to state: "Public opinion made no similar mistake on this score" and quotes a journal usually opposed to Franck as saying that the award was "above all things an act of homage paid justly if a little tardily to the distinguished composer of Rédemption and Les Béatitudes."
The dissension between Franck's family and his circle of students reached a new height when Franck published Psyché (written 1886–88), a symphonic poem based on the Greek myth. The controversy (not confined to Franck's immediate acquaintances) was not over the music, but over the philosophical and religious implications of the text (based on a poetic sketch by a certain Sicard and Louis de Fourcaud). Franck's wife and son found the work too sensual, and wanted Franck to concentrate on music wider and more popular in appeal "and altogether more commercial". d'Indy, on the other hand, speaks of its mystical significance, saying that it has "nothing of the pagan spirit about it, . . . but, on the contrary, is imbued with Christian grace and feeling . . . . The discussions became a quarrel. Further controversy arose with the publication of Franck's only symphony, that in D minor (1888)
Symphony in D minor (Franck)
The Symphony in D minor is the most famous orchestral work and the only symphony written by the 19th-century Belgian composer César Franck. After two years of work, the symphony was completed 22 August 1888. It was premiered at the Paris Conservatory on 17 February 1889 under the direction of ...
. The work was badly received: the Conservatoire orchestra opposed, the audience "ice-cold", the critics bewildered (the reactions ranged from "unreserved enthusiasm" to "systematic disparagement"), and many of Franck's fellow composers completely out of countenance towards a work "which by its general style and even certain details" (for example, use of an English horn) "outraged the formalist rules and habits of the stricter professionals and amateurs." Franck himself, on being asked whether the symphony had any basis in a poetic idea, told Louis de Serres, a pupil, that "no, it is just music, nothing but pure music.". According to Vallas, much of its style and technique (both good and not so good) can be attributed directly to the centrality of the organ in Franck's thinking and artistic life, and Franck profited from the experience. "He confided in his pupils that from thence on he would never write like that again."
In 1888, Franck tried his hand again at another opera, Ghiselle. It was more sketched out than composed and Franck never completed it. In contrast, a massive Quartet for strings was completed and performed in April 1890, and was well-received by public and critics. There had been other recent successes, including his own performances as concert pianist in and around Paris, an enthusiastic reception of a revival of Psyché of a couple of years earlier, and performances of works by various of his pupils. In addition, he was still playing Sunday improvisations to usually large congregations at Sainte-Clotilde. He had in mind major works for organ and possibly a sonata.
In early May, 1890, Franck was riding in a cab which was struck by a horse-drawn trolley, injuring his head and causing a short fainting spell. There seemed to be no immediate after-effects; he completed his trip and he himself considered it of no import. However, walking became painful and he found himself increasingly obliged to absent himself first from concerts and rehearsals, and then, beginning in July, to give up his lessons at the Conservatoire. He took his vacation as soon as he could in Nemours
Nemours
Nemours is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France.-Geography:Nemours is located on the Loing and its canal, c...
, where he hoped to work on the proposed organ pieces as well as some commissioned works for harmonium
Harmonium
A harmonium is a free-standing keyboard instrument similar to a reed organ. Sound is produced by air being blown through sets of free reeds, resulting in a sound similar to that of an accordion...
. He was able to start on both projects while on vacation, and to continue when he returned to Paris. Franck could not complete the harmonium collection, but the organ pieces were finished in August and September 1890. They are the Trois Chorales, of which Vallas says "Their beauty and importance are such that they may be properly considered as a kind of musical last will and testament." They are among the great treasures of organ literature and form a regular part of the repertory today.
Franck started the new term at the Conservatoire in October, but caught a cold mid-month. This turned into pleurisy
Pleurisy
Pleurisy is an inflammation of the pleura, the lining of the pleural cavity surrounding the lungs. Among other things, infections are the most common cause of pleurisy....
complicated by pericarditis
Pericarditis
Pericarditis is an inflammation of the pericardium . A characteristic chest pain is often present.The causes of pericarditis are varied, including viral infections of the pericardium, idiopathic causes, uremic pericarditis, bacterial infections of the precardium Pericarditis is an inflammation of...
. After that, his condition rapidly worsened and he died on 8 November. (A pathologist writing in 1970 observed that, while Franck's death in November has traditionally been linked to his injury in May, and there may have been a connection, the respiratory infection by itself could have led to a terminal illness. Given the then lack of antibiotics, this "could not be considered an unusual pattern for pneumonia in a man in his seventh decade.")
Franck's funeral mass was held at Sainte-Clotilde, attended by a large congregation including Léo Delibes
Léo Delibes
Clément Philibert Léo Delibes was a French composer of ballets, operas, and other works for the stage...
(officially representing the Conservatoire), Saint-Saëns, Eugène Gigout
Eugène Gigout
Eugène Gigout was a French organist and a composer of European late-romantic music for organ.-Biography:Gigout was born in Nancy, and died in Paris....
, Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...
, Alexandre Guilmant
Alexandre Guilmant
Félix-Alexandre Guilmant was a French organist and composer.- Short biography :Guilmant was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer...
, Charles-Marie Widor
Charles-Marie Widor
Charles-Marie Jean Albert Widor was a French organist, composer and teacher.-Life:Widor was born in Lyon, to a family of organ builders, and initially studied music there with his father, François-Charles Widor, titular organist of Saint-François-de-Sales from 1838 to 1889...
(who succeeded Franck as professor of organ at the Conservatoire), and Édouard Lalo
Édouard Lalo
Édouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo was a French composer.-Biography:Lalo was born in Lille , in northernmost France. He attended that city's music conservatory in his youth. Then, beginning at age 16, Lalo studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Berlioz's old enemy François Antoine Habeneck...
. Emmanuel Chabrier
Emmanuel Chabrier
Emmanuel Chabrier was a French Romantic composer and pianist. Although known primarily for two of his orchestral works, España and Joyeuse marche, he left an important corpus of operas , songs, and piano music as well...
spoke at the original gravesite at Montrouge. Later, Franck's body was moved to its current location at Montparnasse Cemetery
Montparnasse Cemetery
Montparnasse Cemetery is a cemetery in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris, part of the city's 14th arrondissement.-History:Created from three farms in 1824, the cemetery at Montparnasse was originally known as Le Cimetière du Sud. Cemeteries had been banned from Paris since the closure, owing to...
in Paris, into a tomb designed by his friend, architect Gaston Redon
Gaston Redon
Gaston Redon was a French architect, teacher, and graphic artist. Redon was born in Bordeaux, Aquitaine to a prosperous family, the younger brother of Odilon Redon. Gaston attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in the atelier of Louis-Jules André, and took the Prix de Rome for architecture in 1883...
. A number of Franck's students, led by Augusta Holmès
Augusta Holmès
Augusta Mary Anne Holmès was a French composer of Irish descent. At first she published under the pseudonym Hermann Zenta. In 1871, Holmès became a French citizen and added the accent to her last name...
, commissioned a bronze medallion from Auguste Rodin
Auguste Rodin
François-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...
, a three-quarter bust of Franck, which in 1893 was placed on the side of the tomb. In 1904, a monument to Franck by Alfred-Charles Lenoir, César Franck at the Organ, was placed in the Square Samuel-Rousseau across the street from Sainte-Clotilde.
Music
Many of Franck's works employ "cyclic formCyclic form
Cyclic form is a technique of musical construction, involving multiple sections or movements, in which a theme, melody, or thematic material occurs in more than one movement as a unifying device. Sometimes a theme may occur at the beginning and end Cyclic form is a technique of musical...
", a method of achieving unity among several movements in which all of the principal themes of the work are generated from a germinal motif. The main melodic subjects, thus interrelated, are then recapitulated in the final movement. Franck's use of "cyclic form" is best illustrated by his Symphony in D Minor (1888). His music is often contrapuntally complex, using a harmonic language
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
that is prototypically late Romantic
Romantic music
Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....
, showing a great deal of influence from Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
and Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
. In his compositions, Franck showed a talent and a penchant for frequent, graceful modulations
Modulation (music)
In music, modulation is most commonly the act or process of changing from one key to another. This may or may not be accompanied by a change in key signature. Modulations articulate or create the structure or form of many pieces, as well as add interest...
of key. Often these modulatory sequences, achieved through a pivot chord or through inflection of a melodic phrase, arrive at harmonically remote keys. Indeed, Franck's students report that his most frequent admonition was to always "modulate, modulate." Franck's modulatory style and his idiomatic method of inflecting melodic phrases are among his most recognizable traits.
Franck had huge hands, capable of spanning twelve white notes on the keyboard. This allowed him unusual flexibility in voice-leading between internal parts in fugal composition, and in the size of the repeated chords which are a feature of much of his keyboard music.
The key to his music may be found in his personality. His friends record that he was "a man of utmost humility, simplicity, reverence and industry." Louis Vierne
Louis Vierne
Louis Victor Jules Vierne was a French organist and composer.-Life:Louis Vierne was born in Poitiers, Vienne, nearly blind due to congenital cataracts, but at an early age was discovered to have an unusual gift for music. Louis Victor Jules Vierne (8 October 1870 – 2 June 1937) was a French...
, a pupil and later organist titulaire of Notre-Dame, wrote in his memoirs that Franck showed a "constant concern for the dignity of his art, for the nobility of his mission, and for the fervent sincerity of his sermon in sound. . . . Joyous or melancholy, solemn or mystic, powerful or ethereal: Franck was all those at Sainte-Clotilde." That appraisal applies well to all Franck's approach to music.
Legacy
Unusually for a composer of such importance and reputation, Franck's fame rests largely on a small number of compositions written in his later years, particularly his Symphony in D minorSymphony in D minor (Franck)
The Symphony in D minor is the most famous orchestral work and the only symphony written by the 19th-century Belgian composer César Franck. After two years of work, the symphony was completed 22 August 1888. It was premiered at the Paris Conservatory on 17 February 1889 under the direction of ...
(1886–88), the Symphonic Variations
Symphonic Variations (Franck)
The Symphonic Variations , M. 46, is a work for piano and orchestra, written in 1885 by César Franck. It has been described as "one of Franck's tightest and most finished works", "a superb blending of piano and orchestra", and "a flawless work and as near perfection as a human composer can hope to...
for piano and orchestra (1885), the Prelude, Chorale and Fugue
Prelude, Chorale and Fugue (Franck)
Prelude, Chorale and Fugue for solo piano is a work written in 1884 by the Belgian composer César Franck.As the name implies, it comprises three movements: a prelude, a chorale and a fugue...
for piano solo (1884), the Sonata for Violin and Piano in A major
Violin Sonata (Franck)
The Sonata in A major for Violin and Piano by César Franck is one of his best known compositions, and considered one of the finest sonatas for violin and piano ever written...
(1886), the Piano Quintet in F minor (1879), and the symphonic poem Le Chasseur maudit (1883). The Symphony was especially admired and influential among the younger generation of French composers and was highly responsible for reinvigorating the French symphonic tradition after years of decline. One of his best known shorter works is the motet setting Panis Angelicus
Panis Angelicus
Panis angelicus is the penultimate strophe of the hymn Sacris solemniis written by Saint Thomas Aquinas for the Feast of Corpus Christi as part of a complete liturgy of the Feast including prayers for the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours....
, which was originally written for tenor solo with organ and string accompaniment, but is also arranged for other voices and instrumental combinations.
As an organist he was particularly noted for his skill in improvisation
Musical improvisation
Musical improvisation is the creative activity of immediate musical composition, which combines performance with communication of emotions and instrumental technique as well as spontaneous response to other musicians...
, and on the basis of merely twelve major organ works, Franck is considered by many the greatest composer of organ music after J. S. Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
. His works were some of the finest organ pieces to come from France in over a century, and laid the groundwork for the French symphonic organ style. In particular, his Grande Pièce Symphonique, a 25 minute work, paved the way for the organ symphonies of Charles-Marie Widor
Charles-Marie Widor
Charles-Marie Jean Albert Widor was a French organist, composer and teacher.-Life:Widor was born in Lyon, to a family of organ builders, and initially studied music there with his father, François-Charles Widor, titular organist of Saint-François-de-Sales from 1838 to 1889...
, Louis Vierne
Louis Vierne
Louis Victor Jules Vierne was a French organist and composer.-Life:Louis Vierne was born in Poitiers, Vienne, nearly blind due to congenital cataracts, but at an early age was discovered to have an unusual gift for music. Louis Victor Jules Vierne (8 October 1870 – 2 June 1937) was a French...
, and Marcel Dupré
Marcel Dupré
Marcel Dupré , was a French organist, pianist, composer, and pedagogue.-Biography:Marcel Dupré was born in Rouen . Born into a musical family, he was a child prodigy. His father Albert Dupré was organist in Rouen and a friend of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, who built an organ in the family house when...
.
César Franck exerted a significant influence on music. He helped to renew and reinvigorate chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
and developed the use of cyclic form. Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
and Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
remembered and employed the cyclic form, although their concepts of music were no longer the same as Franck's. Relating Franck as organist and composer to his place in French music, Smith states that "the concept of César Franck as organist and undisputed master of nineteenth-century French organ composition pervades nearly every reference to his works in other media.
Media
External links
- Free scores at the Mutopia ProjectMutopia projectThe Mutopia Project is a volunteer-run effort to create a library of free content sheet music, in a way similar to Project Gutenberg's library of public domain books.The music is reproduced from old scores that are out of copyright...
- International César Franck Society and
- Biography at DeccaDecca RecordsDecca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
Classics - Performances of works by César Franck in MP3 format at Logos Virtual Library
- L'Organiste played on virtual harmoniums
- More works by César Franck performed on virtual instruments
- César Franck at NaxosNaxos RecordsNaxos Records is a record label specializing in classical music. Through a number of imprints, Naxos also releases genres including Chinese music, jazz, world music, and early rock & roll. The company was founded in 1987 by Klaus Heymann, a German-born resident of Hong Kong.Naxos is the largest...
- Official MySpace Page
- "Panis Angelicus" sung by Chloë Agnew (includes Latin subtitles)
- "Panis Angelicus" sung by Saint Philips Boys Choir (soloists Jaymi Bandtock & Sam Harper)