Classical Music

SONATAS FOR VIOLIN & PIANO

Classical Music

The Eliot Quartet offers a reminiscence of C�sar Franck, the magician of sound, on it's new GENUIN album in co-production with SWR. To mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Belgium's greatest composer, the multinational ensemble has combined Franck's only string quartet with his celebrated piano quintet. The friendship between the quartet and pianist Dmitry Ablogin bears musical fruit on this release, as the five musicians weave an intense web of sound between keyboard and strings in the Piano Quintet. Both works on this album testify C�sar Franck's mastery and ability to conjure vast sweeping lines in the most harmonically and melodically refined late Romantic garb!

Classical Music

"World premiere recording! Cesar Franck's first opera – staged for the first time! Known mainly for the few transcendent, harmonically adventurous instrumental works of his later years, Cesar Franck's first opera was composed when he was barely twenty years of age. Orchestrated by composer Luc Van Hove, from the autographic piano score manuscript. Paolo Arrivabeni conducts the Orchester & Chorus of the Opéra Royal de Wallonie. Stage direction by Jaco van Dormael."

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Cesar Franck’s significance for French musical life in the period of High Romanticism was considerable. He came to be regarded as one of the greatest of his time, as performer, composer, and, in due course, as professor of organ at the conservatory in Paris. Through his friendship with Liszt, Franck was encouraged to study the music of Beethoven, Bach and Wagner- three composers who each clearly left their mark on his compositions. It was especially after 1859 that Franck found his distinct voice: the new Cavaille-Coll organ, which had just been installed in the basilica of Saint Clotilde, was an important source of inspiration for the recently appointed “titulaire.” The first decades of the 19th century saw a decline for the organ in France. The abundant repertoire of 18th century French organ music had all but sunk into oblivion. What one heard for the most part was improvisation, often based on music that was popular at the time, opera in particular, and, above all, Rossini. When French music began to turn away from its hitherto one-sided focus on opera and towards chamber music and symphonic works of the 1870s, Franck was a central source of inspiration. This album features some of Franck’s greates torgan works, performed by Bjorn Boysen on the Kuhn organ in Uranienborg Church.

Classical Music