César Franck considered Les Béatitudes, for soloists, choir and orchestra, to be his greatest work. It was perhaps Johann Sebastian Bach's St. Matthew Passion that prompted him to begin a work in 1869 that too would be dominated by the voice of Christ. Franck worked on Les Béatitudes for ten years and created an original and deeply personal renewal of the oratorio form in 19th-century France. This is no simple musical depiction of a subject taken from the Gospel: Franck, a firm believer in the precepts of the Beatitudes, was here inspired to write a bold and personal work, driven by the ideal of justice that its music unforgettable portrays.

Young pianist Ariel Lanyi is already an established figure on the concert stage. After making his recording debut as part of the Royal Academy of Music Bicentenary Series and winning third prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition in 2021, he received the prestigious Prix Serdang in 2023 from Rudolf Buchbinder. In contrast to the intimacy of his Schubert album, Organ Reflections is a project on a more epic scale. Often called the 'King of Instruments', the organ has been a defining presence in classical music, inspiring composers like Bach, Brahms and Messiaen. In this album, Ariel performs works by three virtuoso organists that combine the idiomatic grandeur of the organ and the flexibility of the piano. From Mozart's serene Andante to Franck's lyrical Prelude, Aria et Final and Reger's monumental Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Bach, each piece reflects a unique blend of the sound worlds of both the organ and the piano, showcasing the enduring legacy of this most majestic instrument.

Orchestral music played a key role in the output of César Franck throughout his career. He accorded an important and innovative place to the symphonic poem, a new genre of the Romantic era: Ce qu’on entend sur la montagne actually dates from 1846, two years before Franz Liszt’s composition of the same name! As a virtuoso pianist himself, Franck also produced a number of concertante works, from early pieces written for his own performance – a few brilliant sets of variations and a youthful concerto – to the famous Symphonic Variations (1885). The Symphony in D minor of 1887 was one of the cornerstones of the renewal of the genre in France, coming between Saint-Saëns’s Third Symphony (1886) and Chausson’s Symphony (1899). The Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège presents here the first genuinely complete survey of this orchestral and concertante repertory, assembling recordings from recent years and some new productions.

REVIEW:

The year 2022 marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of César Franck. His orchestral music is not so often heard these days, so this comprehensive collection of performances from his home-town orchestra is quite timely. It would, however, have proved very welcome at any date for the Liège players not only play very well but also deliver the scores idiomatically and with real conviction. This box set usefully and enjoyably reminds us that there is plenty of pleasurable listening to be explored beyond the D minor symphony.

-- MusicWeb International

Few composers have enjoyed a late flowering to compare with that of César Franck. Many of the great works in this recording were composed during his final decades and still stand today as powerful representatives of French music in the post-Franco-Prussian War period. The influence of Wagner can be heard in the poetic evocations of Les Éolides, while the magnificent Prélude, Choral et Fugue, much admired by Liszt, reinterprets well-known Baroque-era genres into an unforgettably expressive Romantic aesthetic. Widely acknowledged as one today’s great interpreters of French music, Jean-Pierre Armengaud presents an album of rarities composed for piano by Franck and arrangements of the composer’s works by distinguished musicians from the early 20th century.

REVIEWS:

The welcome César Franck revival rumbles on...here’s an interesting collection of piano music from veteran French pianist Jean-Pierre Armengaud. Three out of five of the pieces here are transcriptions; I’d argue that the Prélude, Fugue et Variations, originally an organ work from 1863, sounds far more appealing in Harold Bauer’s piano arrangement. Armengaud’s prelude is tender and lyrical, the ensuing fugue’s lines nicely delineated. The final section’s baroque flourishes look ahead to the opening of Saint-Saens’ Piano Concerto No. 2, composed just a few years later. The tone poem Les Éolides is heard in an effective transcription by French composer Gustave Samazeuilh. Franck’s claggy harmonic language is easier to make sense of when you can hear the notes clearly, and Armengaud keeps the music moving.

The Prelude, Chorale and Fugue is marvellous...its three movements lasting around 20 minutes. Intensely chromatic and brilliantly organised, Armengaud is superb in the fugue’s radiant B major conclusion, the resonant acoustic really suiting the work. As a closer, there’s the posthumously published introduction to Ruth, Églogue biblique, a large-scale early work for voices and orchestra. Armengaud’s conviction brings it to life[.]

-- The Arts Desk

Franck wrote only two mature piano works, the splendid Prélude, Chorale et Fugue and the rather less fine Prélude, Aria et Finale. The first of these features here; otherwise, we have a collection of transcriptions, all except one by other hands.

We begin with the best-known, the version by Harold Bauer of the Prélude, Fugue et Variation, originally written for organ. Bauer did his work so skilfully that you would hardly think that this was not an original piano work, apart from a few spread chords – but then Franck used these anyway in his proper piano works. In this form it is a worthy companion to the two major piano works, and its gentle melody and limpid flow make a good contrast to the more powerful writing in those works. I liked Armengaud’s performance, in which he makes intelligent use of the Steinway third pedal, the sostenuto pedal, to sustain the deep bass notes while the melody and figuration occur above.

Les Éolides is a most attractive orchestral tone poem, inspired by a poem by Leconte de Lisle about what in English we call the Aeolids, the daughters of Aeolus, keeper of the winds in Homer. The original has an elaborate texture, which makes for complex piano writing in Samazeuilh’s piano transcription.

The sleevenote is helpful and the recording very good.

-- MusicWeb International

A towering figure in French music of the later 19th century, C�sar Franck created a distinctive fusion of German Romanticism and French Classicism, enriching the symphonic, chamber, instrumental, vocal and sacred repertoires. As a teacher and mentor he gained admiration for his modesty and generosity while exercising a powerful influence on younger disciples such as Vincent d'Indy, Henri Duparc and Ernest Chausson. The C�sar Franck Edition gathers together all his masterworks - among them the Symphony in D, Violin Sonata, Pr�lude, Fugue et Variation and, of course, 'Panis Angelicus' - in enthralling performances by musicians of the first rank. Running to 16 CDs, the collection includes a CD of transcriptions and arrangements, proving their fascination for a still greater diversity of interpreters than Franck might have imagined. The five CDs of historical recordings - dating back as far as 1907 - testify to the continuing growth of his reputation after his death in 1890, and to the vibrant performing tradition engendered by his genius.

A musician as loved as he was admired, the pianist Nicholas Angelich died in Paris in April 2022 at the age of 51. Angelich was a modest, thoughtful man who brought tremendous integrity, depth and insight to the most demanding repertoire. His association with Warner Classics lasted some 20 years, and the label pays tribute to him with this 7CD collection of previously unreleased recordings of solo, chamber and concerto repertoire. Made either in the concert hall or for radio broadcast between 1999 and 2016, they range wide, including works by Bach, Bart�k, Beethoven Berg, Brahms, Franck, Haydn, Liszt, Mussorgsky, Ravel, Rachmaninov and Zemlinsky. Appearing with Angelich are Martha Argerich, Quatuor Eb�ne, Myung-Whun Chung and the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, and Tugan Sokhiev and the Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse.

Lars Vogt (1970-2022) early recordings collected here provide a document of an artist who always remained authentic, both to himself and to music. Lars Vogt never sought absolute truth, but truthfulness instead meant all the more to him. The man and the artist were always very close, never currying favour and never detached from the world. He was, instead, open and natural. "It's incredibly gratifying when you notice that you can perhaps light a little spark, a little flame for music in people, and when music helps you to find the path to your own soul."

Kyung Wha Chung - Beau Soir (Faur�, Franck, Debussy, Elgar, works for violin & piano) The centrepiece of this French-themed recital by Kyung Wha Chung and Kevin Kenner is the splendid violin sonata by C�sar Franck. It is a work long associated with Chung, described by the Financial Times as "one of the greatest violinists of the last half-century". Newer to Chung's repertoire is Faur�'s Sonata No 1. As she told Strings magazine, each of the works constitutes "a whole portrait of life itself," and she drew a comparison with Monet's paintings: "The reflection of light has endless possibility. The same thing applies to the texture and the sound when you're playing. There are millions of sounds."

Almost 50 years after his first DG recording of Franck's symphony with the Orchestre de Paris, Barenboim now presents a new interpretation with the Berliner Philharmoniker. In the outer movements in particular, he focuses on the large, monumental sound that emphasizes the hymnal aspect of Franck's symphony which fuses the spirit of Beethoven with French elegance. CD Digipak.

His exceptional touch and sense of phrasing, his deep and personal understanding of the most varied repertoires, or even the legendary trio he formed together with Jacques Thibaud and Pablo Casals, made Alfred Cortot the greatest pianist of his time. Master of many disciples, notably the brilliant Dinu Lipatti, Samson François and Clara Haskil, Cortot also had a lasting influence on the Russian piano school through Samuil Feinberg and Heinrich Neuhaus, the latter himself being the revered teacher of Sviatoslav Richter.

All of the recordings in this set had undergone careful sound restoration in 2012, in order to respect as closely as possible the original sound. The remastering was carried out under the expert control of Mr. Guthrie Luke, a former disciple of Alfred Cortot who attended many recording sessions by Cortot. These recordings do not represent a "complete" edition: the many rolls engraved by the artist for Duo-Art, Aeolian and Pleyela labels have not been reproduced here, most of them doubling the 78-RPM repertoire. The first recordings are acoustic; and the ones with an electric microphone appeared as early as 1926.

Given the paucity of C�sar Franck's piano music on disc, Nikolai Lugansky's focus on this composer is to be commended. On his third release for harmonia mundi, the Russian pianist reveals an organ master strongly attached to the musical forms inherited from J.S. Bach: the prelude, the fugue, and the chorale. Translated to the piano keyboard, Franck's music, with it's expansively conceived structures, requires a completely fresh approach that puts the greatest performers to the test: here, Lugansky took on an additional challenge by preparing his own transcription (a brilliant one, at that!) of Franck's celebrated Choral pour grand orgue No.2.

Sonatas For Cello And Piano

Classical Music

Recorded in: Brangwyn Hall, Swansea 13,14 February 1994 Producer(s) Mike George Ralph Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ralph Couzens Richard Smoker (assistant)

FRANCK: Symphony in D Minor / Prelude, Choral et Fugue

This disc received the 1999 Cannes Classical Award for "Best Solo Instrumental or Chamber Recording - 19th Century."