Franck: Piano Music. The example of Bach was an affirmation that secular music could still retain a spiritual identity in an abstract form. In fact it is significant that the further Franck moved away from specifically sacred music (his liturgical works are particularly lifeless) the clearer and more pure his spiritual vision seemed to. Beethoven died when Franck was only five years old; as a boy he learned to play Hummel's piano concerto while Hummel was still alive; he survived Liszt by four. Works that were his masterpieces: the Piano Quintet, the Symphonic Variations, the Violin Sonata, the Prelude, Chorale, and Fugue, the String Quartet, and the. Program Notes. Sir Adrian Boult, conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, championed Bax's symphonic works; but his songs, choral works, and chamber music were rarely heard. Only now, in the early years of the 21st century, are audiences coming to appreciate these works of great beauty and enduring quality.

• Franck Piano Quintet Imslp
• Piano Quintet Youtube
• Piano Quintet Music

César Franck's Piano Quintet in F minor is a quintet for piano, 2 violins, viola, and cello. The work was composed in 1879 and has been described as one of Franck's chief achievements alongside his other late works such as Symphony in D minor, the Symphonic Variations, the String Quartet, and the Violin Sonata.^[1]

The work was premiered with Camille Saint-Saëns playing the piano part, which Franck had written out for him with an appended note: 'To my good friend Camille Saint-Saëns'. A minor scandal ensued when at the piece's completion, Saint-Saëns walked off stage leaving the score open at the piano, a gesture which was interpreted as mark of disdain.^[2]

The work has been described as having a 'torrid emotional power', and Édouard Lalo characterized it as an 'explosion'.^[2] Other critics have been less positively impressed: Roger Scruton has written of the quintet's 'unctuous narcissism'.^[3]

Structure[edit]

There are three movements:

1. Moltomoderato quasi lento – Allegro
2. Lento con molto sentimento
3. Allegronon troppo ma con fuoco

The music has a cyclical character whereby a motto theme of two four-bar phrases, used 18 times in the first movement, recurs at strategic point later in the work.^{[1][failed verification]}

References[edit]

Franck Piano Quintet Imslp

1. ^ ^abBasil Smallman (1996). The Piano Quartet and Quintet: Style, Structure, and Scoring. Oxford University Press. p. 99. ISBN978-0-19-816640-5.
2. ^ ^abJames M. Keller (2011). Chamber Music: A Listener's Guide. Oxford University Press. pp. 200–. ISBN978-0-19-538253-2.
3. ^Spencer, Piers (2009). 'The Aesthetics of Music by Roger Scruton. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. £35.00, 530 pp'. British Journal of Music Education. 15 (2): 216. doi:10.1017/S0265051700009384.

External links[edit]

• Piano Quintet (Franck, César): Scores at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)

The Sonata in A major for Violin and Piano by César Franck is one of his best-known compositions, and is considered one of the finest sonatas for violin and piano ever written.^[1] It is an amalgam of his rich native harmonic language with the Classical traditions he valued highly, held together in a cyclic framework.

Background[edit]

The Violin Sonata in A was written in 1886, when César Franck was 63, as a wedding present for the 31-year-old violinist Eugène Ysaÿe.^[1] Twenty-eight years earlier, in 1858, Franck had promised a violin sonata for Cosima von Bülow. This never appeared; it has been speculated that whatever work Franck had done on that piece was put aside, and eventually ended up in the sonata he wrote for Ysaÿe in 1886.^[2]

Franck was not present when Ysaÿe married, but on the morning of the wedding, on 26 September 1886 in Arlon, their mutual friend Charles Bordes presented the work as Franck's gift to Ysaÿe and his bride Louise Bourdeau de Courtrai. After a hurried rehearsal, Ysaÿe and Bordes' sister-in-law, the pianist Marie-Léontine Bordes-Pène,^[3] played the Sonata to the other wedding guests.^[4]

The Sonata was given its first public concert performance on 16 December of that year,^[2] at the Musée Moderne de Peinture (Museum of Modern Painting) in Brussels.^[5] Ysaÿe and Bordes-Pène were again the performers.^[2][6] The Sonata was the final item in a long program which started at 3pm. When the time arrived for the Sonata, dusk had fallen and the gallery was bathed in gloom, but the museum authorities permitted no artificial light whatsoever. Initially, it seemed the Sonata would have to be abandoned, but Ysaÿe and Bordes-Pène decided to continue regardless. They had to play the last three movements from memory in virtual darkness. When the violinist Armand Parent remarked that Ysaÿe had played the first movement faster than the composer intended, Franck replied that Ysaÿe had made the right decision, saying 'from now on there will be no other way to play it'. Vincent d'Indy, who was present, recorded these details of the event.^[7][8]

Ysaÿe kept the Violin Sonata in his repertoire for the next 40 years of his life, with a variety of pianists, like Théo Ysaÿe, Ernest Chausson, Ferruccio Busoni, Vincent d'Indy, Raoul Pugno, Camille Decreus, Arthur De Greef, Leopold Godowsky, Yves Nat, and many others. His championing of the Sonata contributed to the public recognition of Franck as a major composer.^[9] This recognition was quite belated; Franck died within four years of the Sonata's public première, and did not have his first unqualified public success until the last year of his life (on 19 April 1890, at the Salle Pleyel, where his String Quartet in D was premiered).^[10]

The Sonata in A regularly appears on concert programs and on recordings, and is in the core repertoire of all major violinists. Jascha Heifetz played it at his final recital in 1972.^[11]

The piece is further notable for the difficulty of its piano part, when compared with most of the chamber repertoire. Its technical problems include frequent extreme extended figures—the composer himself having possessed huge hands—and virtuoso runs and leaps, particularly in the second movement (though some passages can be facilitated by employing a spare hand to cover some notes).

Structure[edit]

The work is cyclic in nature, all the movements sharing common thematic threads. Themes from one movement reappear in subsequent movements, but usually transformed. Franck had adapted this technique from Franz Liszt—his friend, and Cosima von Bülow's father.^[7] Vincent d'Indy described the Sonata as 'the first and purest model of the cyclical use of themes in sonata form', and referred to it as 'this true musical monument'.^[2]

The movements alternate between slow and fast.^[6]

• I. Allegretto ben moderato, ⁹
  ₈
  • This gentle and sweetly reflective rocking theme, introduced by the violin after a short introduction by the piano, is the thematic core of the entire work. Franck originally intended it as a slow movement, but Ysaÿe preferred a slightly quicker tempo, and convinced Franck to mark it Allegretto.^[9]
• II. Allegro
  • This turbulent movement is sometimes considered the real opening movement, with the Allegretto ben moderato serving as a long introduction.
• III. Ben moderato: Recitativo-Fantasia
  • This is improvisatory in nature, and free in both structure and expression.
• IV. Allegretto poco mosso
  • The main melody is heard in canonic imitation between the instruments, and recurs in a rondo-like manner to a triumphant and soaring conclusion. James Harding described the movement as 'a magnificent example of canonic writing, simple, majestic and irresistible in its ample, beautifully wrought proportions'.^[2]

Transcriptions[edit]

The Violin Sonata in A exists in versions for cello; viola; double bass; flute; alto saxophone; tuba; organ with choir; violin and strings; and violin and orchestra (recorded by Leonid Kogan).^[11] A version for piano duet by the pianist and composer Alfred Cortot has been recorded several times. Cortot also made a (for pianists even more challenging) version for solo piano, which has been played occasionally.

The setting for cello and piano was the only alternative version sanctioned by Franck.^[12] This was created by the renowned cellist Jules Delsart. After thorough historical study based on reliable documents, Delsart's transcription for cello (the piano part remains the same as in the violin sonata) was published by G. Henle Verlag as an Urtext edition.^[13] Based on oral history (Pablo Casals)^[14] and written document (letter written by Antoine Ysaye, Eugène Ysaÿe's son),^[14] it has often been speculated that the work was first conceived as a sonata for cello and piano, and only later reset for violin and piano when the commission from Eugène Ysaÿe arrived.^[4]

Piano Quintet Youtube

Recordings[edit]

The Violin Sonata in A by César Franck has been recorded by many great violinist/pianist duos. Among them are:

Piano Quintet Music

• Joshua Bell with Jean-Yves Thibaudet; Renaud Capuçon with Lilya Zilberstein; Kyung-wha Chung with Radu Lupu; Isabelle Faust with Alexander Melnikov; Christian Ferras with Pierre Barbizet; Zino Francescatti with Robert Casadesus; Erick Friedman with André Previn; Ivry Gitlis with Martha Argerich; Arthur Grumiaux (multiple recordings); Jascha Heifetz with Arthur Rubinstein and with Brooks Smith; Sergey Khachatryan with Luisine Khachatryan; Shlomo Mintz with Yefim Bronfman; Anne-Sophie Mutter with Lambert Orkis; Takako Nishizaki with Jenő Jandó; David Oistrakh with Lev Oborin, also with Sviatoslav Richter, and with Vladimir Yampolsky; Elmar Oliveira with Jonathan Feldman; Itzhak Perlman with Martha Argerich and with Vladimir Ashkenazy; Ossy Renardy with Eugene List; Vadim Repin with Nikolai Lugansky; Aaron Rosand with Seymour Lipkin; Gil Shaham with Gerhard Oppitz; Isaac Stern with Alexander Zakin; Josef Suk with Jan Panenka; Henryk Szeryng with Mindru Katz; Gerhard Taschner with Walter Gieseking; Jacques Thibaud with Alfred Cortot.^[11][15]

Among the recordings of the version for cello and piano are:

• Jacqueline du Pré with Daniel Barenboim (du Pré's very last recording); Ofra Harnoy with Cyprien Katsaris; Steven Isserlis with Pascal Devoyon; Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott; Mischa Maisky with Martha Argerich; Leonard Rose with Leonid Hambro.

The flute and piano version has been recorded by James Galway and Martha Argerich, as well as by Sharon Bezaly and Vladimir Ashkenazy.

This site shows details of over 150 recordings of the Sonata in A major, including in its various transcriptions.

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abMusic Web International
2. ^ ^abcdeColorado Public Radio
3. ^'Gerhard Taschner: The Early 78RPM Recordings'(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on 2011-07-18. Retrieved 2011-07-18.Cite uses deprecated parameter dead-url= (help); Cite web requires website= (help)
4. ^ ^abClassical Archives
5. ^Jason Sundram's Web Palette
6. ^ ^ab'gotomidori.com'. Archived from the original on 2007-03-01. Retrieved 2007-03-01.Cite uses deprecated parameter dead-url= (help); Cite web requires website= (help)
7. ^ ^abWolfgang David.com
8. ^Gramophone, February 1938
9. ^ ^ab'Hollywood Bowl'. Archived from the original on 2011-07-12. Retrieved 2011-07-12.Cite uses deprecated parameter dead-url= (help); Cite web requires website= (help)
10. ^Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed, 1954, ed. Eric Blom, Franck, César, vol. III, p. 467
11. ^ ^abcViolinist.com
12. ^Peter Jost (11 November 2013). ''Pour Piano et Violon ou Violoncelle' – Is there a cello sonata by César Franck?'. Henle Verlag. Retrieved 13 March 2014.Cite web requires website= (help)
13. ^(Editor) Peter Jost (2014). 'Cesar Franck Sonata in A major, Edition for Violoncello, Urtext Edition'. Henle Verlag. Retrieved 13 March 2014.Cite web requires website= (help)CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
14. ^ ^abOxford, W. T. (2001). 'PH.D. thesis: A Transcription of Cesar Franck's Sonata in A Major for the Baritone Saxophone'(PDF). University of Texas at Austin. pp. 15–16. Retrieved 27 March 2014.Cite web requires website= (help)
15. ^Classical.net

External links[edit]

• Sonata in A major for Violin and Piano: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)