César Franck - Complete Chamber Music (Various Artists)

Information

Composer: César Franck

CD1

• Grand trio pour violon, violoncelle et piano in C Minor, CFF 108
• Piano Trio in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 1 No. 1, CFF 111
• Piano Trio in B-Flat Major, Op. 1 No. 2, CFF 112

CD2

• Piano Trio in B Minor, Op. 1 No. 3, CFF 113
• Piano Trio in B Minor, Op. 2, CCF 114
• Andantino quietoso in E-Flat Major, Op. 6, CFF 115
• Solo de piano avec accompagnement de quintette à cordes, Op. 10, CFF 116

CD3

• Premier duo concertant pour piano et violon sur des motifs de "Gulistan", Op. 14, CFF 117
• Morceau de lecture, CFF 120
• Piano Quintet in F Minor, CFF 121
• Violin Sonata in A Major, CFF 123

CD4

• Mélancolie, CFF 122
• Violin Sonata in A Major, CFF 123 (arr. Jules Delsart)
• String Quartet in D Major, CFF 124

Leon Blekh, Augustin Dumay, Anna Agafa Egholm, Lorenzo Gatto & Shuichi Okada, violin

Miguel da Silva, viola

Ari Evan, Gary Hoffman & Stéphanie Huang, cello

Philippe Cormann, double bass

Frank Braley, Alexandre Chenorkian, Jonathan Fournel, Salih Can Gevrek, Julien Libeer & Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden, piano

Quartetto Adorno

Trio Ernest

Karski Quartet

Compilation: 2022

Label: Fuga Libera

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Review

‘Pater Seraphicus’ was the nickname bestowed on César Franck by his devoted pupils, the so-called bande à Franck. Genteel sensibilities were duly appalled when Franck descended from the organ loft to unleash the superheated, post-Wagnerian passions of his late chamber music (Saint-Saëns famously stormed from the stage in disgust after the premiere of the Piano Quintet). But what this striking new set of his complete chamber music demonstrates, with some conviction, is that Franck’s torrid late eruption was anything but out of character. It was latent in his music from the start, if not so forcefully expressed.

And yes, that includes his three often-overlooked Piano Trios, Op 1, written while he was a student at the Paris Conservatoire and which emerge here – in performances by Frank Braley, Anna Agafia Egholm and Ari Evan – as works of sweeping and utterly characteristic emotional intensity. Intégrales of Franck’s chamber music are not as common as one might expect; the most recent that I could find was a set produced with in-house musicians by La Monnaie in Brussels in 2012 (Cypres, 5/13). The bicentenary year is clearly the pretext for this new box, another Belgian-led project produced by the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in collaboration with Palazzetto Bru Zane – two names that both promise high standards.

That’s certainly the case here, and if one function of a ‘complete works’ is to prompt an overall reappraisal of a composer, this one succeeds magnificently. True, Franck produced his share of juvenilia and salon music, and pieces such as the Grand Trio of 1834 (composed when he was 12) and the (rather fun) Duo concertant on Themes by Dalayrac are treated with the same seriousness and panache as the imposing Trio concertant, Op 2 (originally a truly colossal finale to Op 1 No 3) or the torrential, quasi-symphonic Solo de piano avec accompagnement de quintette à cordes. Although the repertoire is shared between a roster of 26 different artists, there’s a striking unanimity of approach – a gravity, a symphonic ‘bigness’ of vision and tone. There isn’t a throwaway performance in the set.

Naturally, though, the attention is tugged towards the three late masterpieces – Piano Quintet, String Quartet and A major Sonata – that form the climax of the four discs (and of Franck’s chamber music career). This new set scores over the Monnaie box by including both versions of the Sonata, with the distinctly starry pairing of Lorenzo Gatto and Julian Libeer in the violin version: Libeer’s limpid, responsive pianism provides an atmospheric grounding for Gatto’s ardent, intensely focused reading. Stéphanie Huang plays with a gloriously articulate, wide-grained tone in Jules Delsart’s (Franck-sanctioned) cello version; her pianist is Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden and together they make a tender, eloquent case for what might, after all, have been Franck’s original conception of this endlessly fascinating work.

As for the Piano Quintet and String Quartet; well, you can probably guess by now. These are virtuoso accounts that combine a windswept grandeur with moments of reflective intimacy, never locked rigidly into the symphonic argument but keenly aware of the piece as a whole (no small feat with a composer whose grasp of structure was as sophisticated as Franck’s). Perhaps the central Lento of the Quintet might have melted and whispered a little more caressingly, though the candour and purpose of the playing here is seductive in a different way. These are interpretations (and pieces) that pull you in and drag you under. The sweep and the intoxication are what you remember but there are sudden instances of magic, too, like the flickering, dancing playing of the Quartetto Adorno in the Scherzo of the Quartet. A set to persuade doubters, then; more than that, one to revisit with real enjoyment.

— Richard Bratby

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César Franck (10 December 1822 – 8 November 1890) was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life. As an organist he was particularly noted for his skill in improvisation. Franck is considered by many the greatest composer of organ music after Bach. Franck exerted a significant influence on music. He helped to renew and reinvigorate chamber music and developed the use of cyclic form. He became professor at the Paris Conservatoire in 1872, his pupils included Vincent d'Indy, Ernest Chausson, Louis Vierne, Charles Tournemire, Guillaume Lekeu and Henri Duparc.

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