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Variations symphoniques for Piano and Orchestra

Csar Franck

n a sense, Csar Franck was both an early

and a late bloomer. He probably qualified as
a child prodigy, if not on a level with Mozart
or Mendelssohn, and most of his major works
were created near the end of his life, principally in his final decade. Francks father (a
sometimes unemployed but always ambitious
clerk) seized on his sons precocity and enrolled him at the Lige Conservatory several
months before the boys eighth birthday.
Within two years Franck had earned top prizes
there, and his father began exploiting him as a
pianist on the concert circuit, often in tandem
with a brother who also displayed talent.
Before long Franck was enrolled at the Paris
Conservatoire, this time amassing academic
distinctions in piano, counterpoint, and fugue.
He completed his education there at the age
of 20 and embarked on a performing career
that advanced only fitfully. He found stability
in the employ of the church, most enduringly
as organist at the Basilica of Sainte-Clotilde in
Paris, from 1858 until his death. In 1872 he
succeeded his own former teacher, Franois
Benoist, as organ professor at the Paris Conservatoire. Although he did not officially teach
composition there, his organ seminars served
as the de facto training ground for a generation of Frances leading lights, including Vincent dIndy, Ernest Chausson, Henri Duparc,
Guy Ropartz, Gabriel Piern, Louis Vierne,
and Guillaume Lekeu.
Through all this, Franck quietly honed his
own craft as a composer. His works might
have gone all but unnoticed if his adoring
students had not taken it upon themselves to
promote his music. Critic Charles Bordes
summed up the situation when he remarked,
Father Franck is the offspring of his pupils.
Several of them were involved in the formation
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of the influential Socit Nationale de

Musique (with its famous motto Ars Gallica),
to provide a forum for works by contemporary French composers. The Socit presented
Francks early Trio de Salon No. 2 in its very first
program, in 1871, and went on to premiere
many of the masters new compositions, including the Variations symphoniques. When, in
1886, Camille Saint-Sans resigned as the Socits president as a protest against including
foreign works in the groups programs, Franck
took over as its leader, to be succeeded on his
death by his most ardent disciple, dIndy. By
that time Franck had achieved considerable respect in most quarters. In 1885 he was honored with the cross of the Lgion dhonneur,

IN SHORT
Born: December 10, 1822, in Lige, in the
Walloon district of the Low Countries
(Netherlands, now in Belgium)
Died: November 8, 1890, in Paris
Work composed: 1885
World premiere: May 1, 1886, at the Salle Pleyel
in Paris on a concert of the Socit Nationale de
Musique, with the composer as conductor, Louis
Dimer (the works dedicatee) as soloist
New York Philharmonic premiere: December 19,
1905, Walter Damrosch conducting the New
York Symphony (a forebear of the New York
Philharmonic), Raoul Pugno, soloist
Most recent New York Philharmonic
performance: November 20, 1984, Sir Andrew
Davis, conductor, Alicia De Larrocha, soloist
Estimated duration: ca. 15 minutes

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and in 1887 a high-profile, all-Franck festival

concert was given at the Cirque dHiver.
Among the works on the Cirque dHiver
program was Francks Variations symphoniques
for Piano and Orchestra, which was receiving
its second performance torpedoed, in the
event, by the inept conducting of Jules Pasdeloup. The work had been warmly received
at its world premiere a year earlier, when the
composer conducted, and it would go on to
be applauded as one of his signal masterpieces. The works genealogy goes back to
Francks Les Djinns (1884), a symphonic poem
with a difficult obbligato piano part that was
played at its premiere by Louis Dimer, who
was acclaimed for deep musicality and a tendency to underplay dazzling effects of virtuosity. At the time, Franck had promised to
compose another little something for
Dimer. The resultant Variations symphoniques
is, in effect, a piano concerto compressed
into a single movement consisting of an

ultra-serious introduction, a middle section

of variations cast in conversational style between the piano and the orchestra, and, following a long trill in both hands of the piano
part, a telescoped sonata-form finale (Allegro
non troppo) with a glittering coda. The whole
is knit together through the pervasive use of
themes presented in the opening measures
a stentorian, rather angry figure in the strings,
and the mournful, drooping melody with
which the piano responds as well as the
introduction, by pizzicato strings, of more
formal variations of the central section.
Instrumentation: two flutes, two oboes,
two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two
trumpets, timpani, and strings, in addition to
the solo piano.
This note originally appeared in the programs of
the Oklahoma City Philharmonic and is used
with permission. James M. Keller

Claiming Franck
Csar-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was born in 1822 in
Lige (also known as Lige), in the French-speaking area of the Walloon district of the Low Countries (or Netherlands), and died in 1890
in Paris. Questions predictably arise about which country gets to
claim him. Belgium did not exist as an independent country at the
time of his birth; it was officially established as a kingdom distinct
from the Low Countries only in 1830, at which point Lige fell within
Belgian borders. As a result of these political changes, Franck is
sometimes identified as Belgian, sometimes as Walloon, in both
cases legitimately so and one could similarly call him Netherlandish without peril, although nobody seems to. But Franck was also
French by training, by long-standing residence, and ultimately even
by nationality, since he was granted French citizenship in 1871.

Csar Franck

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