César Franck
César Franck was born in Belgium but established his career as a composer, organist, and influential teacher in France, most prestigiously at the Paris Conservatoire and at the church of Sainte-Clotilde. His music was heavily influenced by Liszt and Wagner, as in his Symphony in D minor, one of his most famous compositions. Franck's organ pieces are among the most celebrated Romantic works for that instrument, though his symphonic poems, chamber music (particularly the Sonata for Violin in A), and sacred choral settings are also regularly performed.
Franck was born in Liège (in the French region, which in 1830 became part of a new state, Belgium), on December 10, 1822. He was a keyboard player of extraordinary ability who had a short stint as a touring piano virtuoso before moving to Paris and throwing himself into musical studies. In addition, he was an organist at several major churches during his career, and his skills on the organ accounted in great part for his compositional interest in that instrument; his organ compositions stand at the apex of the Romantic organ repertoire. For much of his life, Franck was organist at the Paris churches of Saint-Jean-Saint-François and then Sainte-Clotilde, and in 1872 he became a professor at the Paris Conservatoire. He led a group of young composers, among them d'Indy, Duparc, and Dukas, who found much to admire in his highly individual, post-Romantic style, with its rich, innovative harmonies, sometimes terse melodies, and skilled contrapuntal writing. This group, sometimes known as "la bande à Franck," steered French composition toward symphonic and chamber music, finally breaking the stranglehold of the more conservative opera over French music.
Individual and instantly recognizable though Franck's music was, it owes a debt to Liszt and Wagner, especially to the latter's Tristan und Isolde and several other late works. He tended to use rather quick modulations, an inheritance from Wagner, and shifting harmonies. There is a Germanic ponderousness in some of his compositions and a mixture of paradoxical elements so typical of the composer, such as moments of peace and serenity that barely conceal an undercurrent of disquiet. These elements were used to great advantage in the Symphony in D minor of 1888, where Franck also adapts the Lisztian-Wagnerian predilection toward cyclical structure and melodic motto to an abstract symphonic form. Another characteristic of Franck's music is extended homophonic writing, as exemplified in his choral symphonic poem Psyché.
Franck was a man of strong religious convictions throughout his life, which often motivated him to compose works based on biblical texts or on other church sources, yet his choral works were slightly less successful than his organ works. However, his religious, solo vocal piece Panis Angelicus (1872) is highly popular and frequently recorded. Franck's most lastingly successful and recognizable composition is his Violin Sonata in A (1886), which shares characteristics with the Symphony and has been transcribed for a multitude of other instruments. Franck died in Paris on November 8, 1890. By the turn of the century, he had become the leading figure associated with the "old school" in France, while Debussy came to represent the "progressive" forces.
© TiVo Staff /TiVo
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Works by Franck, Kurtág, Previn, Schumann
Chamber Music - Released by AVIE Records on Nov 11, 2016
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Franck & Ysaÿe: Poème, Works for Violin & Piano
Classical - Released by Challenge Classics on Nov 21, 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
César Franck: 12 pièces pour grand orgue
Classical - Released by ALM Records on Mar 7, 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
In Flanders' Fields Vol. 70: Joseph Jongen / César Franck
Classical - Released by Phaedra on Sep 12, 2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
César Frank - Great Works
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on Nov 14, 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
César Franck: Essential Recordings
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on Dec 8, 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Franck and Strauss: Violin Sonatas
Chamber Music - Released by Onyx Classics on May 4, 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
MacDowell: Piano Concerto No. 2 In D Minor - Saint Saëns: Piano Concerto No. 2 In G Minor - Franck: Symphonic Variations
Earl Wild, RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra, Massimo Freccia
Classical - Released by Reader's Digest on Oct 1, 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Franck, Bloch and Krein: Music for Violin and Piano
Chamber Music - Released by MSR Classics on Oct 13, 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
César Franck - Eugène Gigout - Louis Vierne
Classical - Released by Paula on Feb 28, 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Franck, Lemmens, Boëllmann & Saint-Saëns: Organ Music
Classical - Released by Bomba-Piter on May 14, 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
César Franck: Piano Quintet in F Minor - Symphony in D Minor (Live)
Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra, Clifford Curzon
Classical - Released by RHI on Apr 15, 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ulrik Spang-Hanssen - César Franck: Les Grand Œuvres Pour Orgue
Classical - Released by CDklassisk on Apr 30, 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Franck & Lekeu: Sonates - Mathieu: Ballade, Fantaisie
Chamber Music - Released by Analekta on Mar 10, 2009
24-Bit 88.2 kHz - Stereo -
César Franck: Sonata para Violín y Piano en La Mayor - Edvard Grieg: Sonata para Violín y Piano en Sol Mayor Op. 13
Szymsia Bajour, Aldo Antognazzi
Chamber Music - Released by Irco Video on Jul 4, 1997
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
David Nadien Plays Franck, Debussy, Fauré, Rachmaninoff-Heifetz, and Prokofiev
Chamber Music - Released by Cembal d'amour CD 151 on Jul 1, 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Franck - Faure - Debussy
Dmitri Ferschtman, Mila Baslawskaya
Classical - Released by Globe on Jan 7, 1980
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Franck - Bach - Busoni - Brahms - Liszt: Variations des cimes
Classical - Released by VDE-GALLO on May 8, 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The New Goll-Organ of Marktkirche Hannover
Ulfert Smidt, Johann Sebastian Bach, Louis-Claude Daquin, César Franck, Max Reger, Olivier Messiaen
Classical - Released by Rondeau Production on Sep 12, 2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Classical Pieces
Classical - Released by Pipeline Music on Jun 9, 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Die Sauer-Orgel der Thomaskirche zu Leipzig
Ullrich Böhme, Max Reger, Eugène Gigout, Franz Liszt, César Franck, Marcel Dupré
Classical - Released by Rondeau Production on Mar 20, 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo