Cesar Franck

Many people who listen to any type of classical music or any type of orchestral symphonies may have always listened to the greats such as Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart but do not get a chance to enjoy the other works of other great composers such as Cesar Franck. Just for your info, Cesar Franck was only five years old when Bach had passed away, so even though he was younger than him only means he had the opportunity to critique on his music.(Hitomi Kato) Franck was most famous for his chamber music. Chamber music was written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. (Britannica) Cesar Franck is an important composer from the second half of the nineteenth century, particularly in the areas of symphonic, chamber, organ and piano music. His stage works were consistently unsuccessful, even though his choral compositions were rather better. (Arkiv Music) He was a big composer of the Romanticism Era. Franck was had strong religious passions throughout his life, which often motivated him to compose his music based on some biblical texts and on some other church sources. (Arkiv Music) Cesar Franck was born on December 10. 1822 in Liege, which is a very gorgeous city located in Belgium, even though it has mistaken that he was born in a French territory. (Hitomi Kato) And for your information, his full name is Cesar Auguste Jean Guillaume Hubert Franck. His parents were Nicholas-Joseph Franck and Marie-Catherine-Barbe Frings Franck, who was of German descent. His father always visioned him to be a young prodigy in playing the piano and composing music, especially after the approach of Franz Liszt and Sigismond Thalberg, who brought fame and wealth to his family. His father became obsessed with making money to the point where he would push his son to be a good music prodigy. (Hitomi Kato) At an early age, Cesar had a wonderful talent for music. In the year of 1830, Nicholas-Joseph had enrolled César in the Royal Conservatoire of Liege, which was school of higher education for the gifted in music and theater (University-Directory), where he quickly gained a first place prize for solfege, which is technique for the teaching of sight-singing in which each note of the score is sung to a special syllable (Britannica), in 1832 and piano in 1834. In 1834, Nicholas-Joseph had to plan a tour all over Belgium, including a place called Brussels, where the King Leopold heard Cesar play. The concerts did not produce anything for his father, since Cesar was uneven against a mixture of well-known artists. On these concerts, it was usual for a child to perform his own compositions, if time allowed it. Cesar’s earliest compositions show no indication of the prediction that he was more likely to be a composer than a performer. He produced a couple of sets of Variations Brilliantes in the accepted fashion of the day, a “Grand Rondo”, some variations on a theme from Hérold’s Pre-aux-Clercs, a Concerto classified as Opus 2, two ambitious sounding sonatas for the piano, and also a number of other fantasias and trios. It was Nicholas-Joseph who classified his compositions. (Hitomi Kato) When he was a Paris, he met a Bohemian professor of composition by the name of Antonin Reicha. Cesar developed in his religious compositions Redemption and Les Beatitudes because of the influence from Reicha. Eventually he died in 1836 and then in 1840, Cesar became the Professor of the Organ at the Royal Conservatoire. His father then later on became disappointed in him and moved his family. (Hitomi Kato) Throughout his life, Cesar eventually became mentally ill. He was teaching music in order to support his family around 1844. In 1846, he had got engaged to one of his students by the name of Felicite Saillot. He became an organist, a teacher, and a devoted husband and father. With his prior arrangement as organist of the newly completed basilica of Sainte-Clotilde in the early year of 1858, a new period of Franck’s career began. By the time he was at the age of thirty seven, Franck was in command of a magnificent organ. He started to compose his own music again and become successful. At the time of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Cesar started working on Les Beatitudes, a project which was to take up his thoughts for at least twelve more years. On October 15, 1871, success came all of a sudden with the restoration of his oratorio called Ruth. After having made some important adjustments and perfections, the public had happily received the performance. (Hitomi Kato) Through the years, Franck was getting some of the credit he finally deserved. The last pieces of music Cesar Franck had written were the Three Chorales for the organ in 1890. His respect for the classical forms never weakens, and it is this form, the chorale, where Franck added in his Prelude, Chorale, and Fugue. The Three Chorales, although the idea may have started in the Prelude, Chorale, and Fugue, was an attempt to letting the people know about his belief in that his composing was equal to J.S Bach. The trend towards Bach was finally realized in the Three Chorales. Cesar Franck eventually died in Paris on November 8, 1890. (Hitomi Kato)