Cesar Franck

Unusually the liner note deserves a mention ahead of the music: the fine pianist Jeremy Denk, half of this regular duo, manages to encapsulate the elusiveness of French romantic music with such insight in a few sharp sentences, his words almost shape the way we listen to this superbly played disc. Saint-Saëns' wistful and emotional Sonata No 1 and Ravel's bluesy, ironic sonata have a whipped, airy quality. Joshua Bell plays with fire and finesse, with Denk a powerful ally. Franck's dark-light violin sonata, mysterious, ardent and far more than the sum of its parts when played as majestically as here, forms the centrepiece of this seriously beguiling disc.

César Franck gradually abandoned his career as a virtuoso pianist as he completed his training under various Parisian masters, one of whom was the organist François Benoist. Franck then served as organist in various important Parisian churches from 1853 onwards before accepting a position at Sainte-Clotilde, where he benefited from Cavaillé-Coll's brand new instrument. He composed works for the organ as well as in other genres that became part of the apotheosis of what is now termed Le Renouveau français. Franck also composed pieces specifically intended for the harmonium. We are proud to mark the bicentenary of his birth with a reissue of his complete works for organ and for harmonium, in which Joris Verdin's fascinating interpretations have incorporated Franck’s own recently discovered metronome markings.

Given the paucity of César Franck's piano music on disc, Nikolai Lugansky's focus on this composer is to be commended. On his third release for harmonia mundi, the Russian pianist reveals an organ master strongly attached to the musical forms inherited from J.S. Bach: the prelude, the fugue, and the chorale. Translated to the piano keyboard, Franck's music, with its expansively conceived structures, requires a completely fresh approach that puts the greatest performers to the test: here, Lugansky took on an additional challenge by preparing his own transcription (a brilliant one, at that!) of Franck's celebrated Choral pour grand orgue No.2.

This CD features two quite lovely piano quintets, beautifully played by a quartet of players from the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra with Clifford Curzon at the piano. The first piece is by Antonin Dvorak, who composed two piano quintets. The first of these is a relatively early work that Dvorak composed in 1872 when he was 31. The second of his quintets was composed only 15 years later and remains one of his most popular chamber works. The other piece on the CD is by César Franck and, along with his other major chamber works - the violin sonata and the string quartet - reminds the listener of the atmosphere of Franck's best known work, the symphony in d minor.

The most brilliant of Belgian composer César Franck's compositions were written during the final decade of his life; the Symphonic Variations for piano and orchestra, the famous Violin Sonata, the D major String Quartet, and, perhaps most important, the Symphony in D minor are all the products of a single, remarkable five-year period. The Symphony, by no means an immediate success with critics or audiences, has nevertheless become so fused with the popular image of César Franck that it is nearly impossible to think of him without also thinking of this 40-minute orchestral juggernaut. And yet the work is by no means an empty audience-pleaser: as with all of his final compositions, the Symphony shows a superb synthesis of Franck's own uniquely rich harmonic language and cyclic themes with the traditions of Viennese Classicism that he had come to revere later in life (principally through the music of ).

César Franck: Symphony / Igor Stravinsky: Pétrouchka
Chicago Symphony Orchestra / Boston Symphony Orchestra / Pierre Monteux
SACD ISO (2.0/MCH): 3,00 GB | 24B/88,2kHz Stereo FLAC: 1,28 GB | Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: RCA Red Seal "Living Stereo" # 82876-67897-2 | Country/Year: Europe 2005, recorded 1959/1961
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic, Early 20th Century

"…An amazing SACD. As interpretations, both of these are in a class of their own, the Franck having strong claims of being the best ever performance of this greatest French late romantic orchestral work. Almost certainly they will never be equalled let alone bettered on SACD." ~SA-CD.net

César Franck: Symphony / Igor Stravinsky: Pétrouchka
Chicago Symphony Orchestra / Boston Symphony Orchestra / Pierre Monteux
SACD ISO (2.0/MCH): 3,00 GB | 24B/88,2kHz Stereo FLAC: 1,28 GB | Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: RCA Red Seal "Living Stereo" # 82876-67897-2 | Country/Year: Europe 2005, recorded 1959/1961
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic, Early 20th Century

"…An amazing SACD. As interpretations, both of these are in a class of their own, the Franck having strong claims of being the best ever performance of this greatest French late romantic orchestral work. Almost certainly they will never be equalled let alone bettered on SACD." ~SA-CD.net

A little-known Franck: Legend has it that César Franck (1822-1890) did not really find himself until the 1870s. This would be to ignore a huge part of his career as a composer! Barely younger than his model and mentor Franz Liszt (1811-1886), whom he met in 1837, he began, like Liszt, to experiment with new musical forms at a very early age, and throughout his life he let his inspiration speak for itself without limit. His chamber music is, in this respect, one of the most fascinating markers of his artistic trajectory, the essence of which has yet to be rediscovered.