Cesar Cantu

Cui, a member of the original Russian 'Five', was a dedicated encourager of the other members of the group (and indeed of all living Russian composers) to aim at less imitation of the West; and instead to write, without inhibition, more obviously independent Russian-style music. Nevertheless, he seemed to exempt himself from the encouragement, tending to write his own music in a pretty well accepted western European mould.

The gifted Belgian Quatuor Danel turn to two masterpieces by César Franck: his passionate Piano Quintet and the String Quartet. The three-movement Quintet, like Brahms’s op. 34 an expansion of the Schumannian model, is one of Franck’s most infamous works. It immediately established itself, and a second performance with the pianist Marie Poitevin, the later dedicatee of the Prélude, Choral et Fugue, convinced the members of the Société Nationale. Franck’s String Quartet, his last major work, was similarly acclaimed by its first listeners. After its first performance in April 1890, with tears in his eyes, César Franck is said to have told his pupil Vincent d’Indy, “Now you see: at long last the public is beginning to understand me.”

César Cui, one of the group of five nationalist Russian composers of the second half of the 19th century known as The Five or The Mighty Handful, was the son of a French officer who had remained in Russia after the retreat of Napoleon in 1812. In common with other composers of his generation and background, he had a career apart from music, in his case as a professor at the Academy of Military Engineering, an expert in fortification. This did not prevent him from ambitious activity as a composer and an important career as a critic, often harsh and intolerant in his judgements. He is best known for his colourful short piano pieces.

Chandos presents the premiere recording of the one-act opera 'A Feast in Time of Plague', Three Scherzos, Op.82 and three songs for solo voice and orchestra. César Cui is the least-known member of the group of five Russian nationalist composers (with Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky and Borodin) who together became known as 'The Mighty Handful'. He was considered to be the most dramatic of these composers. His music is highly tuneful and approachable, full of the colour we expect from the Russian romantic tradition.