César Franck

César Franck was born in Liège, then part of the Netherlands and now in Belgium, on 10 December 1822. His father, a bank clerk of German origin, ambitious and authoritarian, wanted to make him a child prodigy pianist like Liszt. César studied at the Liège Conservatory and gave his first concerts at eleven, touring with his brother Joseph, a violinist. In 1835 the family moved to Paris to launch his virtuoso career. He took lessons from Anton Reicha and, after becoming a French citizen, entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1837.

At the Conservatoire he won a first prize for piano in astonishing circumstances: in the sight-reading test he transposed the set piece down a third, amazing the jury, which awarded him a special prize. He also won an organ prize. But his father withdrew him from the Conservatoire in 1842 to tour as a virtuoso in Belgium. César then composed his first chamber works, four Piano Trios, noticed by Liszt. He later returned to Paris, earning his living by teaching and playing the organ.

In 1846 he broke with his father, who opposed his marriage to Félicité Saillot-Desmousseaux, daughter of a family of actors. The wedding took place in February 1848, in the middle of the revolution: the couple had to climb over barricades to reach the church. Franck then lived modestly, teaching piano in boarding schools and families and becoming organist of several Paris churches. He composed little in these years but deepened his knowledge of the organ.

In 1858 he was appointed organist of the new basilica of Sainte-Clotilde in Paris, which had just received a magnificent organ built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. He stayed there until his death. His improvisations drew musicians from all over Europe, including Liszt, who compared him to Bach after hearing him in 1866. In 1862 he published his Six Pieces for grand organ, which renewed French organ music and launched the symphonic organ school.

In 1871, after the Franco-Prussian War, he was one of the founding members, with Camille Saint-Saëns, of the Société nationale de musique, which aimed to promote French instrumental music. In 1872 he became professor of organ at the Paris Conservatoire. His class was in fact a true school of composition, training Vincent d’Indy, Ernest Chausson, Henri Duparc, Guillaume Lekeu and many others. His pupils, who adored him for his kindness and fervour, nicknamed him “Pater seraphicus”, the seraphic father.

The last fifteen years of his life were the most productive. Already elderly, Franck composed most of his masterpieces: the feverishly passionate Piano Quintet (1879), the Symphonic Variations for piano and orchestra (1885), the Prelude, Chorale and Fugue for piano (1884), and in 1886 the Violin Sonata, given as a wedding present to the great Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe. In these works he used “cyclic form”, in which the same themes return and are transformed from one movement to the next.

His Symphony in D minor (1888), his only symphony, was at first coldly received but became one of the most performed works in the French repertoire. He also composed the String Quartet (1889), which finally won real public success, and the famous Panis angelicus. In May 1890 he was struck by a horse-drawn omnibus. He kept working and composed his Three Chorales for organ, his musical testament. But his health declined, and he died in Paris on 8 November 1890, aged sixty-seven.