Concerto in D major for violin, piano and string quartet Op.21 (1891)

Décidé - animé

Sicilienne: Pas vite

Grave

Très animé

While the Concert pour piano, violon et quatuor à cordes certainly has a virtuoso element - the solo violin part was written for Eugène Ysaÿe - it is misleading to think of it as a double concerto with string-quartet accompaniment. The French title, Concert pour piano, violon et quatuor à cordes, was intended to call to mind such baroque works for mixed ensemble as the Couperin Concerts royaux or the Rameau Pièces de clavecin en concert. Completed in 1891, it represents an early stage in a long-term tendency to restore French qualities to French music by recalling its past. At the same time, it could have been written only by a late-nineteenth-century disciple of César Franck imbued with his harmonic language and cyclic structural principles.

Anyone hearing the Concerto in D for the first time could be forgiven for assuming that the three-note motif so bluntly uttered by the piano in the Décidé opening bars will dominate the whole work. Certainly, the brisk first subject, introduced in the main animé tempo by the solo violin over a characteristic arpeggio figuration on the piano, is a simple derivative. The other main theme, on the other hand, a lyrical melody introduced by violin, is such a free variant that it is scarcely recognisable.

The A-minor Sicilienne - another baroque allusion - has its own melodic interest. It also has its own structural agenda, as it so adroitly confirms when it combines its two main themes in counterpoint (on solo violin and viola) after the brief development section. While there are references to the three-note motif in both the central movements, they are discreetly made. The melancholy F minor Grave is remarkable not so much for its melodic interest - in spite of the passionate derivative of the three-note motif introduced by the solo violin in the middle of the movement - as for its sustained atmosphere of chromatic unease.

The Très animé finale begins with an urgent rondo theme which has nothing in common with preceding material. The following episode, however, is based on a theme which, introduced by piano and taken up by solo violin, is recognisable as a playful variant of the three-note motif. A later episode presents the theme from the middle of the slow movement fortissimo on all the strings in unison. And so the reminiscences go on until, in a prolonged Très vif coda, the first theme of the first movement returns in all due triumph on the solo violin over bell-like broken chords on the piano.

Gerald Larner ©2006

Décidé - animé

Sicilienne: Pas vite

Grave

Très animé

While the Concert pour piano, violon et quatuor à cordes certainly has a virtuoso element - the solo violin part was written for Eugène Ysaÿe - it is misleading to think of it as a double concerto with string-quartet accompaniment. The French title, Concert pour piano, violon et quatuor à cordes, was intended to call to mind such baroque works for mixed ensemble as the Couperin Concerts royaux or the Rameau Pièces de clavecin en concert. Completed in 1891, it represents an early stage in a long-term tendency to restore French qualities to French music by recalling its past. At the same time, it could have been written only by a late-nineteenth-century disciple of César Franck imbued with his harmonic language and cyclic structural principles.

Anyone hearing the Concerto in D for the first time could be forgiven for assuming that the three-note motif so bluntly uttered by the piano in the Décidé opening bars will dominate the whole work. Certainly, the brisk first subject, introduced in the main animé tempo by the solo violin over a characteristic arpeggio figuration on the piano, is a simple derivative. The lyrical second subject, on the other hand, is such a free variant that it is scarcely recognisable. The three-note motif element of the first subject occupies most of the attention in the development section, however, the second subject making its entry only shortly before the violin cadenza that leads into the recapitulation.

The A-minor Sicilienne - another baroque allusion - has its own melodic interest. It also has its own structural agenda, as it so adroitly confirms when it combines its two main themes in counterpoint (on solo violin and viola) after the brief development section. While there are references to the three-note motif in both the central movements, they are discreetly made. The melancholy F minor Grave is remarkable not so much for its melodic interest - in spite of the passionate derivative of the three-note motif introduced by the solo violin in the middle of the movement - as for its sustained atmosphere of chromatic unease.

The Très animé finale begins in D minor with an urgent rondo theme which has nothing in common with preceding material. The following episode, however, is based on a theme which, introduced in A major by piano and taken up by solo violin, is recognisable as a playful variant of the three-note motif. A later episode presents the theme from the middle of the slow movement fortissimo on all the strings in unison. And so the reminiscences go on until, in a prolonged Très vif coda, the first theme of the first movement returns in all due triumph on the solo violin over bell-like broken chords on the piano.

Décidé - animé

Sicilienne: Pas vite

Grave

Très animé

Most French composers born in the second half of the nineteenth century, Debussy and Ravel included, owe at least a little to César Franck. Chausson owes him more than most. Coming to music comparatively late in life, he studied composition first with Massenet, which was an education, and then with Franck, which was an inspiration. However, although he was a fervent member of the “bande à Franck” - alongside Henri Duparc and Vincent d’Indy, to mention two other Wagner disciples who had abandoned the legal profession for music - he was no slavish imitator, least of all in his songs. His Symphony in B flat,though clearly modelled on Franck’s Symphony in D minor, avoids some of the more laborious aspects of cyclic construction and has its own, less effusive melodic personality. But for the cycling accident which so unfortunately killed him nine years later, he would surely have developed a more austere style and a more classically orientated aesthetic - as his unfinished String Quartet in C minor seems to confirm.

The Concerto in D major, which was completed in 1891, a year after the Symphony in B flat, represents the next stage in that unfulfilled development. Its Franckiste allegiance is clear in its relationship to the older composer’s Piano Quintet in F minor and its dedication to his favourite violinist, Eugène Ysaÿe, who played the solo violin part in the first performance in Brussels in March 1892. At the same time it represents the beginning of an attempt to restore French qualities to French music, anticipating in a way the sonatas Debussy was to write towards the end of his life a quartet of a century later. There is little or nothing of the eighteenth century in the style of the music itself but the title (Concert in the original French), while acknowledging the heroic role played by the solo violin part, also calls to mind such baroque works for mixed ensemble as the Couperin Concerts royaux or the Rameau Pièces de clavecin en concert.

Anyone hearing the Concerto in D for the first time could be forgiven for assuming that the three-note motif so bluntly uttered by the piano in the Décidé opening bars - a rising fifth and a falling fourth - will dominate the whole work. Certainly, it is prominent in the first movement and it is important too in holding the long-term structure together. But, as the string quartet demonstrates in another introductory episode, it is a flexible motif which can be expanded or contracted at will. The brisk first subject, introduced in the main animé tempo by the solo violin over a characteristic arpeggio figuration on the piano, is a simple derivative. The lyrical second subject, on the other hand, is such a free variant that both the piano and the violin prepare the way by anticipating it at a slower tempo before the latter definitively introduces it animé and in B major. The three-note motif element of the first subject occupies most of the attention in the development section, however, the second subject making its entry only shortly before the violin cadenza that leads into the recapitulation.

The A-minor Sicilienne - another baroque allusion, both in its title and in its gentle 6/8 dance rhythm - has its own melodic interest. It also has its own structural agenda, as it so adroitly confirms when it combines its two main themes in counterpoint (on solo violin and viola) after the brief development section. While there are references to the three-note motif in both the central movements, they are discreetly made. The melancholy F minor Grave is remarkable not so much for its melodic interest - in spite of the passionate derivative of the three-note motif introduced by the solo violin in the middle of the movement - as for its sustained atmosphere of chromatic unease.

In a work authentically constructed according to Franckiste cyclic principles, the last movement must not only seal the long-term unity but also deliver it in triumph. Far from setting out with that obvious intention, Chaussson’s Très animé finale begins in D minor with a rondo theme which is more urgent than joyful and which has no significant interval in common with any preceding material. The following episode, however, is based on a theme which, introduced in A major by piano and taken up by solo violin, is recognisable as a playful variant of the three-note motif. A later episode presents the theme from the middle of the slow movement fortissimo on all the strings in unison. And so the reminiscences go on until, in a prolonged Très vif coda where the rondo theme itself is reshaped and radiantly reharmonised, the first theme of the first movement returns in all due triumph on the solo violin over bell-like broken chords on the piano.

Gerald Larner©