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    Franck-Variations Symphoniques For Piano and Orchestra

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    Alexandra Mgz
    César Franck was a composer born in 1822 in Liège, which was part of the Low Countries at the time. He displayed musical talent from a young age and studied at the Paris Conservatoire. Franck spent much of his career as an organist at churches in Paris. Though he composed throughout his life, many of his major works were written later in his career. His Variations symphoniques for Piano and Orchestra was composed in 1885 and premiered the following year, going on to be regarded as one of his masterworks.

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    Franck-Variations Symphoniques For Piano and Orchestra

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    Alexandra Mgz
    187 views2 pages
    César Franck was a composer born in 1822 in Liège, which was part of the Low Countries at the time. He displayed musical talent from a young age and studied at the Paris Conservatoire. Franck spent much of his career as an organist at churches in Paris. Though he composed throughout his life, many of his major works were written later in his career. His Variations symphoniques for Piano and Orchestra was composed in 1885 and premiered the following year, going on to be regarded as one of his masterworks.

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    Franck-Variations Symphoniques for Piano and Orchestra

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    César Franck was a composer born in 1822 in Liège, which was part of the Low Countries at the time. He displayed musical talent from a young age and studied at the Paris Conservatoire. Franck spent much of his career as an organist at churches in Paris. Though he composed throughout his life, many of his major works were written later in his career. His Variations symphoniques for Piano and Orchestra was composed in 1885 and premiered the following year, going on to be regarded as one of his masterworks.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    187 views2 pages

    Franck-Variations Symphoniques For Piano and Orchestra

    Uploaded by

    Alexandra Mgz
    César Franck was a composer born in 1822 in Liège, which was part of the Low Countries at the time. He displayed musical talent from a young age and studied at the Paris Conservatoire. Franck spent much of his career as an organist at churches in Paris. Though he composed throughout his life, many of his major works were written later in his career. His Variations symphoniques for Piano and Orchestra was composed in 1885 and premiered the following year, going on to be regarded as one of his masterworks.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 2

    04-24 Davis_Layout 1 4/9/14 9:16 AM Page 28

    Variations symphoniques for Piano and Orchestra


    Csar Franck

    n a sense, Csar Franck was both an early


    and a late bloomer. He probably qualified as
    a child prodigy, if not on a level with Mozart
    or Mendelssohn, and most of his major works
    were created near the end of his life, principally in his final decade. Francks father (a
    sometimes unemployed but always ambitious
    clerk) seized on his sons precocity and enrolled him at the Lige Conservatory several
    months before the boys eighth birthday.
    Within two years Franck had earned top prizes
    there, and his father began exploiting him as a
    pianist on the concert circuit, often in tandem
    with a brother who also displayed talent.
    Before long Franck was enrolled at the Paris
    Conservatoire, this time amassing academic
    distinctions in piano, counterpoint, and fugue.
    He completed his education there at the age
    of 20 and embarked on a performing career
    that advanced only fitfully. He found stability
    in the employ of the church, most enduringly
    as organist at the Basilica of Sainte-Clotilde in
    Paris, from 1858 until his death. In 1872 he
    succeeded his own former teacher, Franois
    Benoist, as organ professor at the Paris Conservatoire. Although he did not officially teach
    composition there, his organ seminars served
    as the de facto training ground for a generation of Frances leading lights, including Vincent dIndy, Ernest Chausson, Henri Duparc,
    Guy Ropartz, Gabriel Piern, Louis Vierne,
    and Guillaume Lekeu.
    Through all this, Franck quietly honed his
    own craft as a composer. His works might
    have gone all but unnoticed if his adoring
    students had not taken it upon themselves to
    promote his music. Critic Charles Bordes
    summed up the situation when he remarked,
    Father Franck is the offspring of his pupils.
    Several of them were involved in the formation
    28 | NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC

    of the influential Socit Nationale de


    Musique (with its famous motto Ars Gallica),
    to provide a forum for works by contemporary French composers. The Socit presented
    Francks early Trio de Salon No. 2 in its very first
    program, in 1871, and went on to premiere
    many of the masters new compositions, including the Variations symphoniques. When, in
    1886, Camille Saint-Sans resigned as the Socits president as a protest against including
    foreign works in the groups programs, Franck
    took over as its leader, to be succeeded on his
    death by his most ardent disciple, dIndy. By
    that time Franck had achieved considerable respect in most quarters. In 1885 he was honored with the cross of the Lgion dhonneur,

    IN SHORT
    Born: December 10, 1822, in Lige, in the
    Walloon district of the Low Countries
    (Netherlands, now in Belgium)
    Died: November 8, 1890, in Paris
    Work composed: 1885
    World premiere: May 1, 1886, at the Salle Pleyel
    in Paris on a concert of the Socit Nationale de
    Musique, with the composer as conductor, Louis
    Dimer (the works dedicatee) as soloist
    New York Philharmonic premiere: December 19,
    1905, Walter Damrosch conducting the New
    York Symphony (a forebear of the New York
    Philharmonic), Raoul Pugno, soloist
    Most recent New York Philharmonic
    performance: November 20, 1984, Sir Andrew
    Davis, conductor, Alicia De Larrocha, soloist
    Estimated duration: ca. 15 minutes

    04-24 Davis_Layout 1 4/9/14 9:16 AM Page 29

    and in 1887 a high-profile, all-Franck festival


    concert was given at the Cirque dHiver.
    Among the works on the Cirque dHiver
    program was Francks Variations symphoniques
    for Piano and Orchestra, which was receiving
    its second performance torpedoed, in the
    event, by the inept conducting of Jules Pasdeloup. The work had been warmly received
    at its world premiere a year earlier, when the
    composer conducted, and it would go on to
    be applauded as one of his signal masterpieces. The works genealogy goes back to
    Francks Les Djinns (1884), a symphonic poem
    with a difficult obbligato piano part that was
    played at its premiere by Louis Dimer, who
    was acclaimed for deep musicality and a tendency to underplay dazzling effects of virtuosity. At the time, Franck had promised to
    compose another little something for
    Dimer. The resultant Variations symphoniques
    is, in effect, a piano concerto compressed
    into a single movement consisting of an

    ultra-serious introduction, a middle section


    of variations cast in conversational style between the piano and the orchestra, and, following a long trill in both hands of the piano
    part, a telescoped sonata-form finale (Allegro
    non troppo) with a glittering coda. The whole
    is knit together through the pervasive use of
    themes presented in the opening measures
    a stentorian, rather angry figure in the strings,
    and the mournful, drooping melody with
    which the piano responds as well as the
    introduction, by pizzicato strings, of more
    formal variations of the central section.
    Instrumentation: two flutes, two oboes,
    two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two
    trumpets, timpani, and strings, in addition to
    the solo piano.
    This note originally appeared in the programs of
    the Oklahoma City Philharmonic and is used
    with permission. James M. Keller

    Claiming Franck
    Csar-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was born in 1822 in
    Lige (also known as Lige), in the French-speaking area of the Walloon district of the Low Countries (or Netherlands), and died in 1890
    in Paris. Questions predictably arise about which country gets to
    claim him. Belgium did not exist as an independent country at the
    time of his birth; it was officially established as a kingdom distinct
    from the Low Countries only in 1830, at which point Lige fell within
    Belgian borders. As a result of these political changes, Franck is
    sometimes identified as Belgian, sometimes as Walloon, in both
    cases legitimately so and one could similarly call him Netherlandish without peril, although nobody seems to. But Franck was also
    French by training, by long-standing residence, and ultimately even
    by nationality, since he was granted French citizenship in 1871.

    Csar Franck

    APRIL 2014 | 29

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