User Submissions:

Here's what others have had to say about this piece... Press here if you want to add to this discussion.

Name: Hoshang Dastoor
E-mail: hdastoor@vsnl.com
Date: Saturday, August 25, 2001 at 13:25:49
Text: The following is to add to what I wrote in brief on this page on Navember 22, 2000. Here goes:

It is almost a law of nature that sublime artists like Schubert or Franck or Beethoven should be untidy and dishevelled and unglamorous and homely to look at.

Franck was born a Belgian who spent most of his life in France and is one of the most important French composers of his day. He lived from 1822 to 1890 and hence was a contemporary of Liszt, Mendelssohn, Brahms et al. He was always in a hurry, forgetful, in pants that were too short and/or tight for him.

But his music is very great. He composed just one Violin Sonata, one String Quartet, one Symphony, one Piano Quintet (much other music, of course, much for organ – he also was an organist) and all these pieces are at once deeply spiritual and firmly in the Romantic tradition. Since I am only going to talk about one of them now, I choose the String Quartet.

The Quartet is romantic and mystical to the core, sighing as it does throughout with the deepest longing for union with the Holy Spirit, and is almost agonizingly beautiful at times. The first movement starts with the long slow introduction, played twice. The length of the introduction itself signifies that this is special - we are introduced to some important theme-motifs, of which the sheer variety of use in subsequent sections and movements takes our breath away.

After all, Franck was not a master of cyclic form for nothing. He keeps coming back to these themes and motifs in diverse forms and shapes and thus gives the whole work a unique wholeness and balance.

The slow introduction is followed by a solemn but nervous quick Allegro which is in full sonata form. The music throughout is sad and joyous in turns, heaving with curious emotions, mysterious and elusive. It is significantly complex, and you wonder why it couldn’t have been all said in twenty bars, after which you would have heaved a deep sigh of relief and muttered. “Thank goodness it’s all over.”

But after repeated hearings, something sinks home – Franck could not have done this in any other way. His deep devotion to God makes it necessary that the exposition of his musical ideas and structures be designed and structured and involved and convoluted in just such and such a way. Short cuts just do not make any sense. The ardent and rapturous seriousness of this music is to be heard to be believed.

The second movement is sheer magic, and it’s good that clichés like that so accurately describe the real thing. Here you are chasing the music by the tail, and it pursues you, but before you can get hold of it, it has changed into something else. If you are wondering whether this is some sort of quick scherzo, it is exactly that. To turn the analogy around and still realise that it holds true, the music’s impact on your psyche is so angular and subtle that you yourself are changed before the music reaches you, and are left in a state of dazed and vast amazement that four string instruments can yield such states of flight and paint such fleetingly beautiful, vanishing sound-pictures.

The third movement is the slow one, and is love in sound. But this is a special, slow-burning, richly glowing sort of love – one born out of the deepest gratitude and spirit of service, created in humility and nurtured in devotion. You are in a small private cathedral, profoundly lost in prayer, and it is also a vast chapel, so fashioned with the expressive content of your sound-world.

The finale is full of heroic action, but it is no ordinary battle – it is a grim struggle against adverse forces, fought without quarter and joyously withal. The movement creates a lasting impression that nothing worth achieving is gained without conflict, and in this case the significance of our victory is all the more telling for all that has gone before.

The quartet is a tremendous work. It does not make the slightest concessions to popular taste and is very, very serious. It is rarely played in live recital and is rather like one of those earnest and wonderful children that is seldom seen and almost never heard. It is one of the most genuine artifacts of creation and, to me, it stands with the Schubert Quintet, Schubert String Quartet No. 15 and the late Beethoven quartets. Now that’s something.

At the risk of being accused of borrowing from the critics’ writings, I want to say that the dominant theme of Franck’s music, which he achieves through many devices such as cyclic form, canon, distinctive orchestration, dynamics, etc., and most of all through his innate spirituality, is his sublime preoccupation with the transition from darkness to light. He is constantly reaching for ecstacy and supreme enlightenment. Again and again you find, in these compositions, that there is darkness, and then there is a sense of passage into the most gloriously incandescent light. You are left gasping, and then just when you are recovering, you are left with quite a riddle – what was the greater happening, the destination or the journey?

Name: Hoshang Dastoor
E-mail: hdastoor@vsnl.com
Date: Wednesday, November 22, 2000 at 12:11:49
Text: Profound, highly spiritual, extremely beautiful and devotional. Complexity with a noble purpose.

• César Franck Info
• Other Works by Franck

Return to the previous page