César-Auguste Franck
(Liege, Belgium, 1822-Paris, 1890) Belgian composer, organist and pedagogue, naturalized French.César Franck occupies a privileged place in the history of French music not only because of the unquestionable value of his production, but, above all, because of his decisive influence on a whole generation of composers.An organ professor at the Paris Conservatoire since 1872, he had as students the musicians who constituted the nucleus of the modern French instrumental school, among them Vincent d'Indy, Ernest Chausson, Henri Duparc and Louis Vierne.
César Franck
A child prodigy, César Franck had made himself known at an early age in his native Belgium as an organist and pianist.A student at the Paris Conservatory since 1837, at this institution he discovered the music of J.S.Bach, whose imprint was to be decisive in his later work.Definitively established in the French capital since 1843, in 1858 he was appointed organist of the church of Santa Clotilde, a position in which he remained until his death.
Although recognized as one of the most prominent organ performers of his time, his acceptance as a composer was late: if his first important work, the oratorio Ruth , dates from 1845, It was not until the 1870s that he began to be valued, not without controversy, as something more than an organist who also composed.The oratorios Redemption (1875) and The beatitudes (1879), the symphonic poems The Cursed Hunter (1883) and Les Djinns (1885), the Sonata for violin and piano (1886) and the Symphony in D minor (1889) are some of the most outstanding compositions of his not very extensive catalog.
In all of them, Franck boasts a harmonious language of accentuated chromaticism that, although it refers to Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt, has its true origin in Bach, as does his cultivation of counterpoint.Another element that should be highlighted is respect for the forms inherited from tradition and the introduction of the cyclical form, whereby the repetition of one or more themes throughout the entire score ensures their unity.
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