Franck Piano Quintet Program Notes Theatre Rating: 3,7/5 9740 reviews
Chausson's music, at all stages, could be called psychological in its vaulting gamut of expression -- from blackest melancholy to mercurially manic high spirits -- traversed with startling suddenness by an unexpected modulation, a subtle nuance, a brilliant coup de théâtre. Indeed, the latter occur more often in his orchestral and chamber works than in his grand opera, Le roi Arthus, lending them a constant effect of shimmer between articulate darkness and blithe radiance. In the first decade of his maturity, in such things as the Poème de l'amour et de la mer (1882-1890) and the Symphony (1889-1890), this bipolar oscillation is tinged with a certain morbidity checked only by the application of formal procedures inspired by Franck. But from the mid-1890s, as Chausson entered his forties, a new prehension -- a hectically fraught serenity (or hyper-aesthetic twist on the 'serene anxiety' of his mentor, César Franck) -- comes into play. Form and content, too, dovetail more deftly. The handful of works from this period are no less intense, impassioned, or volatile, but suffused with a new assurance that calls to mind Yeats' lines in his 1939 poem 'Lapis Lazuli,' reminding all that great actors 'Do not break up their lines to weep./They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay; /Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.' In this sense, the works of Chausson's last broken-off period have about them a tragic gaiety. One thinks of the Serres chaudes cycle of mélodies, the great Poème for violin and orchestra, the Quelques danses for piano, and -- pre-eminently -- of the sublime Piano Quartet. In marked contrast to the slow, agonizing gestation of many of his other works, the Piano Quartet was composed in a mere five weeks between July and September 1897. The cascading pentatonic theme that opens the work provides most of the first movement's Animé melodic material, with its peremptory head phrase and nether phrases lyrically shaped for contrast. Although the movement is written in orthodox sonata-allegro form, listeners are reminded, in a fine turn on Franck's 'cyclic' practice, that it all originates from one long-breathed melody. Rapidly and with constant modulations, this unity in multiplicity unfurls its transformative fabric in coruscating brilliance. Marked Très calme, the second movement offers an orison-like lied, passionately worked, yielding to an imploring, insistently contrasting middle section before the lied returns with an air of wan melancholy. The brief third movement, woven around a folk-like tune, passes -- Simple et sans hâte -- with sad, balletic grace. A tempestuous Animé burst announces the final, long, balancing movement largely given to languishing, dreamlike evocations -- albeit dramatically rippled -- of themes from the preceding movements to conclude with a recall of the lied and an oracular reminiscence of the work's opening cascading melody. While the Concert for piano, violin, and string quartet (1892), among Chausson's chamber works, has achieved something like popularity, critics and connoisseurs rate the seldom-heard Piano Quartet a far finer work, and not merely because of its unintentionally valedictory geste.
The ensemble of NSO musicians offer a mix of playfulness and melancholy in its spring concert with Beethoven's Duo with Two Obbligato Eyeglasses for Viola and Cello, Mozart's String Quintet in G minor, and Franck's Piano Quintet. IT IS a strange paradox that while organists comment how Franck wrote for the organ like a pianist, pianists point out how 'organ like' his piano music is. She was to become his wife and, in her colourful, theatrical parents, he found new friends and a warm, family atmosphere where he could escape from the wearying.
Parts/Movements
Animé
Très calme
Simple et sans hâte
Animé
Appears On
Cesar Franck Piano Quintet In F Minor
Year
Title
Label
Catalog #
2016
Chandos
CHAN 10914
2013
Zebralution
ZBL D6759394
2009
Dorian
90908
2009
Aeon
0540
2008
Alphée / Zebralution
2007
Talent Records
381006/07
2007
Harmonia Mundi
2908250
2006
Ottavo
305091
2006
MDG
6441351
2005
Virgin Classics
482061-2
2005
Virgin Classics
2000
Quicksilva
6241
1997
Hyperion
66907
1992
Harmonia Mundi
1901115
FNAC Music
592194
SNE
552
Piano Quintet Music
LIBRARY
Piano Sheet music Quintet : Piano, 2 Violins, Viola, Cello Cesar Franck