César Franck - "Symphonic Variations"

 

César Franck

 (10 December 1822 – 8 November 1890)

was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life.

 

 

"Symphonic Variations"

 

Piano: Darlene Cusick
Conducted by Salvador Brotons

 Vancouver Symphony Orchestra

 

 

프랑크의 "교향적 변주곡"은 피아노와 관현악을 위한 교향곡풍, 나아가서는 협주곡풍의 변주곡이다. 1885년 여름부터 그해 말에 걸쳐서 작곡 되었고 1886년 5월 1일 파리(국민 음악협회 )에서 루이 디에메의 피아노와 프랑크 자신의 지휘로 초연 되었다. 프랑크는 이작품에서 교향적 변주곡을 의도했으며 협주곡적인 뜻을 피하고 있다. 이렇게 부름으로써 한편으로는 교향시가 가진 자유스러운 형식에 접근하고, 다른 한편으로는 피아노와 오케스트라의 대화로 전통적 협주곡 형식에서 멀어지려 한 것이다. 피아노는 독주악기로써의 역할이 아니라 음색 구축적 발전에 직접 가담한다. 이 곡은 두개의 병열적 이고 서로 강한 대조를 보여주는 주제에 의해 구성된다. 이 주제는 서두에서 제시되며 오케스트라에 의한 남성적이고 격렬한 리듬을 가진 것과, 피아노에 의해 연주되는 애원하거나 슬퍼하는 듯한 주제이다. 곡은 두부분으로 나누어지며 각 부분은 각각 따로 주제를 가지고 있다. 음색의 변화, 다채로운 리듬, 그리고 변주로 다양한 분위기(꿈을 꾸는 것 같은, 때로는 격렬하고 때로는 시적인)를 낳고 있다. 그리고 마지막 코다에서, 그에게는 드물게 누르기 어려운 해방적 기쁨의 작열과 함께 전곡이 끝난다. [

Kim's Sound]

 

Britanee Hwee

University of Washington Symphony Orchestra.

 

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Petya Hristova
Concert in Sofia, 2010, conductor Martin Klepetko

 

Variations Symphoniques [Symphonic Variations], for Piano & Orchestra, M. 46, written in 1885.

00:00 - 01. Poco Allegro
01:48 - 02. L'istesso tempo
02:14 - 03. Poco più lento
03:18 - 04. Allegro
04:39 - 05. Allegretto
09:03 - 06. Molto più lento
12:37 - 07. Allegro non troppo
14:29 - 08. Un pochettino ritenuto
15:10 - 09. Tempo I

One of the glitterati of the French music scene, Louis Diémer (1843-1919) had taken the piano part in Franck's Victor Hugo-inspired Les Djinns, for piano and orchestra, on 15 March 1885; he earned for the composer a rare plaudit from the press: "interesting work... for the direct originality of its thought and the admirable polish of its style." The Ménestral's critic continued: "As I listened to the fine logic of these developments and the arresting effects of the blending of the piano with the orchestra, I was struck by the thought of how sad it is that the name of this eminent musician is so rarely seen on programs, too little honored at a time when he is one of the masters of our epoch, and will indubitably remain one."

This proved prophetic. Franck was delighted and credited his success to Diémer's brilliant playing -- sec, léger, and articulated with lightning precision -- which he promised to reward with "a little something." Good to his word, Franck dedicated his orchestration of the Variations Symphoniques to Diémer. He began work in the summer of 1885, and completed it on 12 December. In his ultimate, old master phase, Franck transformed everything he touched. The orchestral highlighting of pianistic virtuosity -- heard in such works of his youth as the Variations brillantes sur l'air du Pré aux clercs (1834) or the Variations brillantes sur le ronde favorite de Gustave III (1834-35) -- or the Lisztian heroics of the soloist locked in combat with the orchestra are left behind in the Variations Symphoniques in favor of the deft dovetailing of piano and orchestra. This use of the piano as a concertante instrument would be taken up by Vincent d'Indy in his Symphonie sur un chant montagnard française (1886) and in turn, be adopted as far afield as Ferruccio Busoni's massive five-movement Piano Concerto (1904).

The strings open with a menacing dotted figure in unison, answered by the piano with a plaintively drooping phrase whose dialogue gives way to a second theme introduced by pizzicato woodwinds and strings. An appasionato development leads shortly to six seamless variations on the second theme through which the piano decorates, comments, alludes, and accompanies, as the mood shifts from triumphant assertion to mystical absorption and languishing, muted sighs. A sudden trill in both hands, two octaves apart, prompts the orchestra to begin the extensive, rhapsodic finale in which the thematic material of the preceding is wrought to an incandescent apotheosis. Without doubt, the irresistible, surefire breeziness of this finish has insured the Variations Symphoniques first place in popularity among Franck's works.

Curiously, the première, at the annual orchestral concert of the Société Nationale de Musique, 1 May 1886, with Diémer at the piano, passed almost without mention. At the second performance, an all-Franck concert on 30 January of the following year -- again featuring Diémer -- the surefire misfired as the aging conductor, Jules Pasdeloup, miscued the orchestra's entrance.

The Symphonic Variations are dedicated "à Monsieur Louis Diémer".

[2015. 2. 2]