Quintet for piano and strings

Composed in 1879 and premiered in relative indifference on 17 January 1880 at the Société Nationale de Musique by the Marsick Quartet with Camille Saint-Saëns at the piano, Franck’s Quintet has now become a monument of the genre’s French repertoire. The work strikes us above all by its sonic power, linked in part to Franck’s experience as an organist, and by the breadth of its architecture, where he deploys his typical compositional technique: the cyclic form – a large-scale unifying principle for the whole work. The first movement opens with an introduction to the theme of a rare intensity, played by the first violin and supported by tense chords from the rest of the quartet, answered by a gentle statement by the piano in triplets. The dialogue between these elements leads to passionate chromaticisms, enlivened by breathless rhythms and tempo accelerations. The end of the exposition is followed by a fleeting return of the cyclic theme heard in the first movement. The Allegro non troppo begins with rustling strings that state a nagging motif accompanied by mysterious chords in the piano’s lower register, from which gradually emerges the first theme of this sonata form. The cyclic phrase already heard twice then serves as the second theme, in a varied rhythmic form. The development section superimposes both elements and, after a cheerful coda, the work ends on a powerful, jubilant unison.