The Franck family’s favourite portrait of the composer was a painting of him by Madame Jeanne Rongier. It shows him at the console of the Cavaillé-Coll organ in Ste Clotilde, of which he became titular organist in 1858, when both the basilica and the organ were new. Franck held this position for the rest of his life, and it is as an organist that he gained most recognition. In 1872 he became Professor of Organ at the Paris Conservatoire. When Franck, belatedly, received the ribbon of a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, in 1885, the citation said only ‘Franck (César), Professor of Organ’. When he died in 1890, partly of the consequences of being struck in the side by the pole of an omnibus, there was no official representation at his funeral – the Director of the Conservatoire, Ambroise Thomas, according to Franck’s disciple Vincent d’Indy, ‘quickly took to his bed when he heard that a member of Franck’s family had come to invite him to the funeral’. Musical officialdom was never happy in its dealings with Franck, and gave little recognition to his achievements as a composer. His fame was to be largely posthumous, and was greatly helped by the championship of his pupils, the ‘Franckistes’, among whom were Duparc, Chausson, Guy Ropartz and d’Indy himself. They regarded themselves as ‘a vigorous symphonic school, such as France had never before produced’, and gave tribute to Franck’s example and teaching.
Franck’s single symphony is the one composition of his which appears regularly in orchestra’s programs. Occasional performances of the Symphonic Variations for piano and orchestra don’t alter this generalization. The distinguished French pianist Michel Dalberto recalls being taken aside at the beginning of his career by the record producer Walter Legge. ‘Let me give you some advice that may be useful,’ said Legge. ‘There are two works for piano and orchestra which are rarely performed, but which always succeed when they are: Richard Strauss’ Burleske, and César Franck’s Symphonic Variations. You should take them into your repertoire.’ Dalberto did, and Legge’s advice proved good. Even the Symphony, in spite of its popularity, has had a mixed press from the critics. A representative sample: ‘This Symphony, which owes its unquestionable popularity to the beauty and eloquence of its themes, is marred for many people by the extreme rigidity of the cyclic structure.’ Debussy said of it, ‘I could do with fewer four-bar phrases. But what splendid ideas!’
A typical organist-composer?
Even in the Symphony Franck’s reputation as an organist is used as a stick with which to beat him: ‘The convulsive and at times noisy scoring bears all the signs of Franck’s preoccupation with the sustained sonority of the organ and its sudden changes of registration.’ The Rongier portrait has been interpreted this way, as showing the master ‘marking time with his left hand and pedals while with his right hand he manipulates the cumbrous stop-knobs.’ A typical organist-composer, then, with all the defects this implies. Yet there is an irony here. César Franck’s published works for organ are few – enough to fill only two CDs. And even his fanatical admirers admit that the sacred compositions, of this musician who spent the last 30 years of his life in the faithful and near-daily service of the Church, are inferior to the best of his other music. Even his Mass for Three Voices, with its pendant, the Panis angelicus for tenor which seems to typify the sweetly devotional tone of 19th century Catholic church music, before it was reformed, does not escape the strictures of such as Vincent d’Indy. It was a pity, he thinks, that Franck was not exposed earlier to the pure music of Palestrina and the Gregorian chant. His disciples made up for this, forming in 1896, after Franck’s death, the Schola Cantorum, high among its aims the reformation of church music by means of a return to the great models of the past. They were inspired in this aim less by Franck’s sacred music than by his music for the concert hall and the organ recital.
A work Debussy found ‘thrilling’
Franck’s reputation as a composer rests in fact on a handful of works, all dating from the last years of his life. Vincent d’Indy instances the Violin Sonata (1886), the Symphony (1886-88), the String Quartet (1889) and the three Chorales for organ (1890). He doesn’t mention the Piano Quintet (1879), one of Franck’s most enduringly popular works – one which Debussy at one time found ‘thrilling’. There is a story behind this. D’Indy’s 1906 book César Franck, a piece of discriminating hagiography, relied on biographical information from the composer’s family. For them the Quintet held bad memories. Its strikingly passionate musical language could be suspected of carrying an erotic charge, a suspicion confirmed by the knowledge that at the time of writing it Franck was stirred out of his usual asceticism by the attractions of his blonde and statuesque pupil, the pianist and composer Augusta Holmès. Mme Franck was unhappy, and the Piano Quintet became an equivocal piece in the legacy. It is one of Franck’s best works, nevertheless, for all that it doesn’t conform with the image of the otherworldly Pater Seraphicus, the Angelic Father, the affectionate name given Franck by his disciples, who took it from Goethe’s Faust.
To complete the list, add the symphonic poems Psyche, for orchestra and chorus (1887-88), and Les Djinns, for piano and orchestra (1884). These make very rare appearances in concert programs, regrettably, as the poetic and often delicate conception of these works balances the impression given by the Symphony. ‘That damned huntsman’, as the symphonic poem Le Chasseur maudit (1882) has been called, makes slightly more frequent appearances, when conductors can’t resist its bombast. All in all, this suggests two conclusions for the concert-goer beginning a discovery of Franck. First, that familiarisation with his best music is a manageable project, though little of it is likely to be encountered in a concert. For starters, it might be suggested, after the symphony, try the Piano Quintet, then the Violin Sonata. In spite of d’Indy’s admiration for the String Quartet (which he saw as the first since Beethoven to build creatively on that master’s example in his late quartets), that should perhaps be left until last. Those who have no aversion to organ music – or perhaps especially those who have – should try one of the organ Chorales, perhaps the first, and one of the late works in which Franck renewed the tradition of French piano music: the Prelude, Chorale and Fugue (1884). Then the orchestral excerpts from Psyche…
Matters of temperament
What the explorer will find is a musical legacy hardly ever suggesting the stuffiness and pedantry prejudice puts in the organ loft. Franck’s chromaticism and his tendency to shift from key to key have been attributed to the habits of the organ improviser, and the linking of musical parts of the church service in different keys. It certainly was ingrained in Franck, as the story suggests of Debussy’s apprenticeship in Franck’s organ class. ‘Modulate!’ Franck exhorted Debussy, who retorted, ‘Why should I? I’m quite happy where I am.’ But Franck found these aspects of his musical language in Liszt, and even in Wagner. Though regarded as the saviour of French music from the excesses of ‘Wagnerism’, Franck, who scribbled across his score of Tristan and Isolde the word ‘poison’, nevertheless studied Wagner ardently at one time of his life. He never made the pilgrimage to Bayreuth, pleading lack of funds, but his reaction against Wagner, as against the more flamboyant side of Liszt, was at root a matter of temperamental incompatibility.
His family were right – Franck was happiest up there at the back of the church, out of sight, at his organ console. Here he improvised, renewing contact with the inspiration of Johann Sebastian Bach and Beethoven. Franck’s playing of his own compositions in Ste Clotilde led Liszt to exclaim, ‘These poems have their place beside the masterpieces of Sebastian Bach!’ Franck was diffident, the worst of self-promoters, and didn’t play to be heard. No doubt he was reacting to his childhood as a driven prodigy, whose Belgian father moved the whole family to Paris so that his two sons could gain adulation as professional performers. The long years of service to the church in Ste Clotilde gave Franck much opportunity for the contemplation that suited his personality, so gentle yet sure of its artistic preferences. The handful of his pieces that will live forever are those of a late developer, and are utterly distinctive. The fingerprints in the Symphony will be recognised in all the other late works. The preoccupation with formal problems which led Franck to develop the cyclic treatment of his themes which he traced back to Beethoven, through Liszt – this was unusual in a French composer. So were the spiritual qualities of the man, as sensed in his music, which his admirers found full of ‘goodness’, ‘love’, ‘faith’. Exploring beyond the Symphony, we may be seized by some of the fascination this composer of genius exerted on his followers. From the organ loft came ‘Father Franck’s’ demonstration that there can be as much music in a quintet, a sonata or a symphony as in the whole of an opera. Not just a new emphasis and new path for French music, but something worthy of contemplation in itself.
First published 2005