En hommage a Cesar Franck

              WESLEY CHAPEL
West Virginia Wesleyan College
November 7, 1990
8:00 P.M.
En    frommacte    &    C£SAR    FRANCK
C1822 —1890)
Choral III in A Minor
Choral II in B Minor
Choral I in E Major
J. Peter Bercovitz, Organist
In the one hundredth year of West
Virginia Wesleyan College, and on the
eve of the centennial of his death,
we pay homage to C6sar Franck.
Franck, a Belgian, was born in
Liege, on the 10th of December, 1822.
His precocity as a pianist made it
possible for his ambitious father to
launch him on a concert career by the
time he was twelve. He made his concert d6but in Paris in 1835, and in
1837 enrolled in the Paris Conservatoire, continuing until 1842. During
the years that followed he supported
himself as a teacher and as an organist in Paris.
By 1853 he was also attached as an
"artistic representative" to the firm
of Aristide Cavai116-Coll, who began
a new era in organ building during
the mid-nineteenth century. Cavai116-
Coll's organs aimed to reproduce the
richness and power of the symphony
orchestra, and it was this kind of
instrument, rich in 8' (unison)
stops, that contributed to the
particular character of Franck's
organ music.
Cavai116-Coll may have been influential in having Franck appointed
toward the end of 1857 as organist of
the recently completed basilica of
Sainte Clotilde in Paris. In 1859
Franck inaugurated the new
Cavailie-Coll organ of forty six
stops at Sainte Clotilde. His after-
service improvisations quickly became
a public attraction.
Franck's Six pieces followed during
the next few years (published, 1868);
and his Trois pieces a decade later
(1878).
In 1871 Franck was appointed
professor of organ at the Paris Conservatoire, whether through the
influence of Benoist, whom he succeeded, or of Saint-Saens, or even of
Cavailie-Coll himself. (It was at
this time that Franck applied for
French citizenship, as a condition of
his appointment.) It was not long
before Franck's organ class assumed
the status of an unofficial composition seminar.
Only months before his death,
Franck composed the Tro7's chorals
during his customary summer vacation
at Nemours. He completed Choral I on
August 7. He states in a letter
which he wrote at the end of August,
"I have written a large piece for
organ which I have entitled simply
Choral.    A choral it is, indeed, but
with plenty of fantasy. ... I am
hoping next to compose two other
organ chorals, the second half of the
harmonium book, and a sonata for
piano and cello." Choral II was com-