CESAR FRANCK Symphony in D Minor CLAUDE DEBUSSY Nocturnes
THE HOUSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Sergiu COMMISSIONA, conductor Women of the Houston Symphony Chorale
CESAR FRANCK (1822-1890) SYMPHONY IN D MINOR 1. Lento – Allegro non troppo 2. Allegretto 3. Allegro non troppo CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918) NOCTURNES 4. Nuages 5. Fêtes 6. Sirènes HOUSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Women of the Houston Symphony Chorale (Sirènes) SERGIU COMISSIONA, Conductor
Cesar Franck (1822-1890) was born in Liège, Belgium, and pursued his early studies there. But at 15, he entered the Paris Conservatoire, and remained in France for the rest of his life. There, as a professor at the Conservatoire during his later years, he influenced either directly (as a teacher) indirectly (as a prominent and successful composer and organist) a generation of French composers that includes Duparc, Vierne, Chausson & and D’Indy. His legacy includes a body of magnificently textured organ work the Symphonic Variations, and some lovely chamber pieces – but only a single full-fledged symphony, the Symphony in D minor. Franck composed the work (which is dedicated to Duparc) at the age of 65.and it was given its premiere, under the auspices of the Societe des Concerts due Conservatoire, in February 1889. The response to the work, after that first performance, was not heartening. The celebrated composer Charles Gounod. for instance, told a Parisian newspaper that he considered the work for example, an "affirmation of incompetence, pushed to dogmatic lengths." Seen from today's perspective, the work hardly shows evidence of incompetence in the handling of orchestral materials; rather, it shows a taste for daring innovation within a fairly traditional context. Structurally, it does have some unusual characteristics. It is, for instance, set in three movements rather than four (by this point in the 19th century a traditional minimum). But then, there was a certain amount of economy in Franck's method, for the second movement, an Allegretto, can actually be seen as embodying a Scherzo.
The work begins with a Lento introduction, the theme of which is carried. in a transformed version, into the Allegro. Using his thematic material in this way violated the traditional rules of symphonic writing, and Franck's critics took him to task for it. What they found even more objectionable, in that movement, was the composer's rather free-ranging modulations, which took him from the home key of d minor to several unrelated ones before returning to the home tonality and bringing the movement to a close, conservatively enough, in D major. The Allegretto is in the key of B-flat, another deliberately odd key choice for a D minor work; and it begins with a lovely plucked theme. The centerpiece of the movement, though, is an English horn solo, a touch that horrified the more conservative listeners at the time. The finale, an Allegro, is in D major--as traditional concluding key as you can choose for a D minor work. As in the first movement, though, Franck modulates freely: but along the way, he provides a brilliant synopsis of the work, recalling the English horn solo of the Allegretto a couple of times, as well as several of the other themes that had been introduced earlier in the work. Amid the controversy surrounding the Franck Symphony, one voice that was raised on Franck's behalf was that of Claude Debussy (1862-1918). who admired much in the work (and in Franck's music generally). Of course. Debussy himself was expanding the rules of harmony and orchestration, and around the time Franck was embarking on his symphonic experiment, his younger colleague was working to create the shimmering fabric of sound and the misty washes of color that would soon come to be regarded as the hallmarks of Impressionism.
Debussy began work on the Nocturnes in 1893, four years after the premiere of the Franck, but the three movement work did not take its final form until 1899. The first of the Nocturnes, entitled Nuages, offers a slowly shifting evocation of the clouds making their way, gently, across the sky. Here Debussy takes a leaf from the middle movement of the Franck, overlaying against this tranquil scene a gorgeous English horn solo that, detached from the "cloud music," puts Debussy's pictorial vision in perspective. The second Nocturne, Fetes, is high-spirited, colorfully orchestrated, and full of lively rhythmic interplay. The scene, as Debussy described it, is a "visionary pageant, passing through and blending with the revelry: but the background of the uninterrupted festival persists, luminous dust participating in the universal rhythm," In the third, Sirènes, Debussy paints a picture of an evening seascape, through which we hear the legendary songs of the Sirens--captured in the form of a women's chorus singing an evocative, wordless text. --Allan Kozinn
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