César Franck’s early piano works: documenting the implicit

Lipka, J. M. (2025) César Franck’s early piano works: documenting the implicit. Doctoral thesis, Royal College of Music.

Abstract

The discovery of César Franck’s Op. 7 Souvenirs d’Aix-la-Chapelle (1843) encourages a fresher, more complete understanding of his early piano works. A look at other solo piano works from this period — the Op. 3 Églogue (1842), Op. 5 Caprice (1843) and the Op. 9 Ballade (1844) —allows a re-assessment of his compositional processes. Elements of compositional practice found in the young César Franck’s output can be seen in his late period, often implied but never adequately presented in previous scholarship. The ‘musical style’ of César Franck will be addressed, as found in literature and through personal research, with several elements of his compositional habits compartmentalised, defined and located in both early and late piano works. Using the terms created for this thesis, a detailed examination will be made of the aforementioned four early piano works, with location of elements such as Cathedral of Sound (large registral sonority, inactivity of harmony and loose rhythmic pulse) and Infinite Melody (static tonality, repetition of scalic phrases from a weak beat). It will be discovered that certain aspects of assumed stylistic tendencies in César Franck are misinterpreted, such as his idiosyncratic use of basses misconstrued as originating from his time at the organ, or at least misinformed, such as the quarrelling opposing sides regarding the dilemma of his character in music, whether spiritual or erotic. While the early piano works never elevated to the level of his late triptychs, their transparency in harmonic and formal processes as well as treatment of thematic material allows for clear dissection of his compositional style, many elements of which can then be transferred to his final works for a more holistic approach to his output.

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