Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 05/08/2013, uploaded on 10/28/2013

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Franck is remembered today as one of the greatest composers for the organ, thanks to several pieces which have entered the standard repertoire for that instrument, but he was a pianist before learning the organ.  In fact, some contemporaries insisted he was always a better pianist.  This piece, written in 1884, has remained one of Franck’s best-known keyboard works.  According to his pupil Vincent d’Indy, Franck’s original plan was to write a Prelude and Fugue, the venerable form made immortal by Bach, which sharply contrasted the plethora of virtuoso pieces that were so popular at the time.  The decision to include a Chorale linking the Prelude and Fugue came later.  This central section is the emotional core of the piece and contains the main theme which is used as a symbol of redemption and as the unifying melody at the climax of the fugue.  While Saint-Saëns made the complaint that “the chorale is not a chorale and the fugue is not a fugue,” he missed the point completely as the forms here have become symbolic.  Alfred Cortot aptly described the Fugue as “emanating from a psychological necessity rather than from a principle of musical composition.”  Indeed, the Fugue was the only way Franck could find a voice to fully express the hesitant sobs of the Prelude and the anguished lament of the Chorale.     Heidi Hau

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Prelude, Chorale and Fugue      César Franck

At a time when much of the musical world was preoccupied with the music of Wagner, César Franck composed his Prélude, choral et fugue—a clear embracing of an archaic, and frankly dead, form written in the headwind of the musical trends of the latter part of the 19^th century. Franck himself was an organist of great skill, and though his harmonic language certainly shows the influence of Wagner, was an admirer of Bach, to whom the work’s title obviously alludes. Yet, the deeply moving and profound work was not ushered out of a random moment of inspiration but brought about by the marvelous performances of a young rising pianist. Marie Poitevin was taking the Parisian music scene by storm, winning first prize at the prestigious Paris Conservatoire, and stunning audiences and critics alike with her flawless technique and “all too rare artistic conscience.” And, not only did she champion the compositions of Franck and Chabrier, she effortlessly performed the works of Bach, which still were not yet a staple of the piano repertoire. Franck, inspired by these latter performances, was struck by the muse to compose his Prélude, choral et fuge which appeared in 1884, dedicated to and premiered by Poitevin, and published that same year by Enoch.

To the archaic prelude and fugue, Franck added his signature cyclical form by recalling aspects of the prelude within the fugue, and thus making the work a child of two different centuries. Originally, the piece existed without the intervening chorale, placing the agitated prelude directly alongside the melodramatic and grandiose fugue. While in this orientation the piece certainly could have work, it cannot be denied that Franck’s judgment was correct in determining the necessity of an intervening movement, separating the two highly dramatic movements already in place. Thus came into existence the elaborate chorale. Adding a sense of placidity and solemnity, it forms an effective transition from the closing measures of the prelude to the fugue’s ominous introduction reminiscent of Beethoven.  However, all darkened emotions are dispersed in the fugue’s joyous and triumphant conclusion.      Joseph DuBose

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.