As of March 21, 2014, this montage will no longer be available on Pod-O-Matic. It can be heard or downloaded from the Internet Archive at the following address:
pcast144-Playlist.pdf
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Last year
as part of some of our Organ posts, I featured works by the French-Belgian composer Cesar Franck, and discussed where Franck sat within the “pecking
order” of the French music scene – which has always included a strong
teaching and apprentice component to it.
Because he
was born in Belgium, though he had lived and worked in France for all his adult
life, he had to apply for French citizenship in 1872 in order to be granted a
faculty position at the Paris Conservatoire. Many of his original circle of
students had studied or were studying at the Conservatoire, among the most
notable in later life were Vincent d'Indy, Ernest Chausson, Louis Vierne, and
Henri Duparc. This group became increasingly tight-knit in their mutual esteem
and affection between teacher and pupils. d'Indy relates that independently but
unanimously each new student came to call their professor Père Franck.
On the
other hand, Franck experienced some tensions in his faculty life: he tended to
teach composition as much as he did organ performance and improvisation; he was
considered unsystematic in his teaching techniques ("Franck never taught
by means of hard and fast rules or dry, ready-made theories"), with an
offhand attitude towards the official texts and books approved by the
Conservatoire; and his popularity among some students provoked some jealousy
among his fellow professors and some counter-claims of bias on the part of
those professors when judging Franck's pupils for the various prizes, including
the Prix de Rome.
Because of
his prowess as an organist and improviser, Franck is best remembered for his
organ compositions. The most brilliant of 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.
One of his
most ambitious works, Psyché—a vast "symphonic poem" for chorus and
orchestra in seven movements—was composed in at his vacation retreat at
Combs-la-Ville-Quincy over the summer of 1886, the orchestration was completed
the following summer..
The story
is drawn from the second century Metamorphoses (often translated as The Golden
Ass) of Lucius Apuleius which tells of Eros' nocturnally veiled love for the
mortal Psyche, Psyche's wish to behold her lover face to face, and the lovers'
parting and reconciliation. In Franck's retelling, Psyché first dreams of Éros,
then is carried by zephyrs to Éros' secret garden, where the orchestra enacts a
rapturous love duet. Rarely performed in its original form, the main orchestral
sections are often presented as a “suite” – as is the case in today’s montage.
One of the
glitterati of the French music scene, Louis Diémer (1843-1919) had taken the
piano part in Franck's Victor Hugo-inspired Les Djinns, for piano and
orchestra, on March 15, 1885; he earned for the composer a rare positive review
from the press. Franck was delighted and credited his success to Diémer's brilliant
playing which he promised to reward with "a little something." Good to
his word, Franck dedicated his orchestration of the Variations symphoniques to
Diémer.
Today
viewed as a masterpiece of French orchestral repertoire, the three-movement
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.
I think you will love this music too.
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