This is a different sort of entry that i'm posting simply in the name of information dissemination. i'm currently doing a project on cesar franck's symphonic poeme Psyche (a fantastic work which i will surely also post here in the coming weeks), and in the process of searching for sources written in english about his life and times, i stumbled across a record of this booklet written by his only significant student in England, a man named John William Hinton (1849-1922). it's a tiny little pamphlet that was pretty difficult to track down - not a well known work but brief and insightful towards Franck. the little folder i received through the library system contains a set of small yellowed pages that are all separated from each other and basically coming apart, so i decided that it would be a good idea to transcribe it.
below you will find the complete text and page numbers to john hinton's personal reminiscences of cesar franck. maybe someday the fact that this is on the internet will help someone in their research. with the exception of a couple typesetting things, this is everything exactly as you would see on the printed copy.
(1)
Cesar Franck
Some Personal
Reminiscences
by J.W. Hinton, M.A.,
Mus.D.
(Trinity Coll., Dublin)
Author of “Organ
Construction,”
“Story of the Electric
Organ, &c. &c.
London: William Reeves
83, Charing Cross Road,
W.C.
(2)
Printed by Whitehead &
Miller.
15, Elmwood Lane,
Leeds.
(3)
Reminiscences of César
Franck.
So many books and press
notices have appeared dealing with Franck's biography or discussing
his art methods, that every thoughtful musician (even if acquainted
only with a few of the great tone-poet's works) must feel less
surprise at the sudden outburst of posthumous celebrity than regret
in realising how completely Franck was ignored or misjudged by his
contemporaries – by the many who could
not appreciate his genius, and, alas, also by the few who would
not.
While
ample materials now exist from which Franck's life may be
reconstructed, it is unfortunate that, with the exception of Vincent
D'Indy's book, Cesar Franck
(Paris, Felix Alcan, 1907*), and of a few other publications, nearly
all the documents are veritable “Gospels according to St. Luke,”
written by persons who never knew Franck intimately.
Alongside
of such valuable testimony as that of M. Vincent d'Indy (the St.
Peter of the Franck
*English
Edition, by Mrs. Newmarch (John Lane, 7/6 net).
(4)
disciples),
I venture to hope that the personal reminiscences of a humble
disciple and friend of the master may possess a measure of interest,
and this hope must be my excuse for acceding to request of friends
that I should publish a few of these recollections.
Further,
and separately, some prefatory apology is necessary for the many
details of my own biography included. These details, however, are
unavoidably present, to explain when
and how I came to know
Franck. Moreover in fairness to myself, and in the interests of truth
and accuracy, I could not permit readers to infer that I was
continuously Franck's pupil; for while it is true that our
acquaintance and friendship was spread over more than twenty years,
yet I only enjoyed the privilege of his instruction for a few short
periods separated by considerable intervals.
It was
towards the end of 1865 that I first saw Franck. I was then a “big
boy” (though doubtless I should have resented this appellation at
the time), and nothing was farther from my thoughts than the idea
that I should one day adopt the profession of music. Indeed my father
was too deeply imbued with the well-known tenets and prejudices of
Lord Chesterfield for such an idea to have been even thinkable.
It was
as an act of indulgence, intended to be an incentive or bribe, that
during a visit to Paris my father treated me to a course of “first
class” harmony lessons, from a “first class” man. This
concession to my penchant for music I was supposed to justify and
repay, by more close and
(5)
earnest
study of Greek irregular verbs, and of other things equally
uncongenial to me. Considering that my previous music teacher was one
whose main vocation was to tramp country roads collecting rates and
taxes, it will be obvious that I could not have been adequately
prepared to at once benefit from Franck's lessons.
I
shall, however, never forget his wonderful patience and kindness, and
though he commenced by telling me “vous ne savez rien du tout”
(which of course ruffled me considerably), further meeting my
querulous reply that I was “out of practice” by adding “vous
n'avez jamais su,” I nevertheless soon got over my temporary
resentment, and began rapidly to acquire clear and definite knowledge
– if of necessity but elementary. Better still, I came to love
my studies, and firmly resolved to learn more at the first
opportunity. Some part of the time allotted to my lessons was devoted
to improving my piano playing, which might then be summed up as
ability to render very indifferently a few of Sydney Smith and
Brinley Richard's pieces. These Franck refused to consider, and
substituted Mozart's Sonatas, of which I still have the copy
containing his fingering and corrections of my inaccuracies.
After
the completion of this short course of “finishing” lessons, as
they were intended to be (but which were really only the starting
point of my career) I received no musical tuition until the
autumn of 1867, when again with my father in Paris, which city he was
wont to visit for three months nearly every year.
(6)
Of
this visit I possess a rather curious and valuable memento. Having
succeeded in obtaining permission to renew my lessons with Franck, I
eagerly availed myself of the short course possible, and submitted to
him a copy of Best's edition of Bach's 48 Preludes and Fugues (which
had been given to me, but I had not yet studied). This book he took
away, returning it to me at the last lesson with the first twelve
numbers (both Preludes and Fugues) fingered in places of difficulty,
and marked with pedalling for optional use on the organ. After
some words of practical advice generally he exhorted me diligently to
master the whole work, he on his part having done all he could
to facilitate the unaided study thereof. I did this, more or less –
I fear rather less than more, but, without any further tuition or
coaching from any source, I passed my Mus.B. Exam in the University
of Dublin (1870).
From
the beginning of 1868 to the autumn of 1872 (a period covering both
my College career and the time of the Franco-Prussian war) I did not
see Franck or correspond much with him, and it was not until 1873, by
which time I had decided to follow music as a profession, that I
resumed my studies with him – for a somewhat longer period than on
previous occasions.
Franck
then admitted me as an “Elève auditeur” at his class in
the Conservatoire, the class so well and lovingly described by Mr.
Vincent D'Indy (p. 225 op. cit.).
At that time the pupils were Samuel Rosseau, Georges
(7)
Verschneider
(son of M. Charles Verschneider Barker's partner in organ building),
Jean Tolbecque, two lady students, and myself. D'Indy also attended
the class, but it seemed that Franck put him on a plane rather above
us generally. No suspicion of favouritism was, however, thereby
suggested. It appeared quite natural and in accordance with the
fitness of things that the pupil able to assimilate most rapidly and
in the largest amounts should not be stinted in his appetite.
Many
are the memories which cling round that class-room, though not a few
have passed from me. Plain-song accompaniment, organ playing, and
extemporisation in sonata, or fugute, form, were the three main
branches of study there taught. In the first I felt no interest, but
what I did acquire came in very useful to me years afterwards.
The
attendant who blew the organ (the bellows of which are located in a
small room under the instrument) was one Jean Lescot, and later in
the day he was to be found at the opera in full evening dress
checking tickets and passes with great importance and dignity. Lescot
was a useful man to know, so I often preferred to relieve him in
blowing rather than grind through some particularly arid specimen of
Plain-song. Jean Tolbecque, too, often slipped round to the bellows
chamber, endeavouring to be unobserved when he knew he had not
prepared his work, and as Franck would not unfrequently grow
interested and enthusiastic in helping pupils whose work was
satisfactory, the
(8)
time
limit was sometimes exceeded, and Tolbecque succeeded in getting
passed over.
Further
than this, I used to bring written work to Franck at intervals; this
was generally at 9 in the evening after he had finished his daily
routine of teaching.
Franck's
success with his pupils was largely due to his power of eliciting
from them earnest and well digested
work.
“Don't
try to do a great deal, but rather seek to do well”;
“no matter if only a little can be produced”; “bring me the
results of many
trials, which you can honestly say represent the very best you can
do”; “don't think that you will learn from my correction of
faults of which you are aware,
unless you have strained every effort yourself to amend them.” Such
were his words, and if he noticed evidences of lack of interest or
insufficient intensity of effort in the work submitted he would
severely, but kindly, decline to correct it, and the pained
expression of his countenance would generally shame the pupil into
more serious application.
Wrong
accidentals in playing particularly annoyed him. I do not think,
however, that it was the mere jar on his nerves that upset him, so
much as the fact that he failed to understand how the player could
(even for a moment) forget the tonality or lose his perception of the
sense of the harmony – such things seemed to him inconceivable,
monstrous in fact. Under these circumstances he would shout, and even
rave like a madman if the offence were repeated. This fury was
however quite harmless; no word
(9)
of
his was ever personal or sarcastic – his wrath was against the sin,
not against the sinner.
No
one who has not known Franck intimately will ever realise what a
phenomenally hard worker he was; working perhaps hardest of all in
the “holidays,” when a little reading of good literature afforded
the only breaks in days wholly occupied in composing or scoring.
Franck invariably rose at 5 a.m., winter and summer; moreover it was
his habit, no matter how hard pressed he might be, to reserve at
least some brief interval in the day for meditation, reflection, and
probably prayer - “Le temps de la pensée,” as he called it. Now
it must be quite obvious that such continued work could only be
possible for one gradually
disciplined thereto by hardships, only be understood when we recall
his early history and surroundings.
At
the age of 11 Franck was already a youthful prodigy on the piano, and
travelled with his father, giving pianoforte recitals. Poor little
Franck! he can never have played games or known the happy careless
youth of most children.
When
h was 12 years old his father removed to Paris in order that the boy
should have the best musical training possible, and at 15 he competed
for the highest prize in piano playing at the Conservatoire. On this
occasion, by some impulse of youthful “cussedness” he chose to
play the sight-reading piece in a key a third lower, accomplishing
this incredible feat with perfect ease and accuracy. Cherubini, the
“Maestro” examining (despite all the unlovable
(10)
qualities
attributed to him by Berlioz), showed remarkable fairness; for though
bound to disqualify Franck for this irregular action, he personally
requested the council to grant the young virtuoso a special “grand
prix d'honneur” for piano playing – the only one ever granted by
the Conservatoire, from its beginning to the present day.
A
similar eccentricity did not serve Franck so well when he competed
for the organ prize. Noticing that the sonata subject would work with
the fugue subject, he treated the two together, evolving a complex
fugue; for this he was again disqualified, but eventually allowed a
SECOND prize, as an act of mercy.
Having
abandoned the profession of travelling virtuoso, which indeed was one
most uncongenial to his retiring and studious disposition, the
resources of the Franck family were thereby materially reduced, and
he was compelled to work early and late in teaching at such
remuneration as offered. Franck's early marriage, which took place in
1848, naturally did not tend to relieve him from the strain upon his
energies. Even so, however, he neither could, nor would, give up his
time for study, and thus became as it were an automatic expression of
work, continuing until his death to occupy every moment of a career
unchequered by any of those periods of inactivity, or reaction, which
have so often delayed the development of, or utterly wrecked, many
promising geniuses.
At
the time of his marriage Franck was organist of the church of Notre
Dame de Lorette,
(11)
and
we learn from M. D'Indy that on the day of his wedding, the
insurgents in the Revolution of '48 had constructed a barricade in
front of the church. Over this the happy couple were safely conducted
by the belligerents, and no harm was done to them.
It
may not be uninteresting to recall that the then new organ at Notre
Dame de Lorette was the first Cavaillé organ erected in Paris,
having been completed in 1836, five years before the opening of the
magnificent instrument at St. Denis (Sept. 21st,
1841), often erroneously assumed to have been Cavaillé's first organ
in Paris.
The
following condensed schedule of the contents of the Notre Dame de
Lorette organ brings before us the instrument Franck, had to use and,
moreover, is typical of the condition of large organs in France at
that time.
SCHEDULE
OF STOPS
Great
and Choir Organs, CC to F, 54 notes; Swell to Tenor F, 37 notes;
Pedals AAA to A, two octaves.
GREAT.
1. Open
Diapason, 16 ft. 12. Grand Cornet, VII. ranks.
2. Ditto,
8 ft.
3. Bourdon,
15 ft. 13. Grand Furniture, IV. ranks.
4. Stop
diapason, 8 ft.
5. Flute
(Clarabella), 8 ft. 14. Small Furniture.
6. Salicional,
8 ft. 15. Sesquialtera, III. ranks.
7. Principal,
4 ft. 16. Bombarde, 16 ft.
8. Flute,
4 ft. 17. Trumpet, 8 ft.
9. Twelfth,
3 ft. 18. Clarion, 4 ft.
10. Fifteenth,
2 ft. 19. Vox Humana, 8 ft.
12.
Grand Cornet, VII. ranks.
13.
Grand Furniture, IV. ranks.
14.
Small Furniture.
15.
Sesquialtera, III. ranks.
16.
Bombarde, 16 ft.
17.
Trumpet, 8 ft.
18.
Clarion, 4 ft.
19.
Vox Humana, 8 ft.
(12)
CHOIR
1. Bourdon,
8 ft. 8. Seventeenth.
2. Open
flute, 8 ft. 9. Cornet, V. ranks.
3. Dulciana,
8 ft. 10. Mixture, V. ranks.
4. Flute,
4 ft. 11. Trumpet, 8 ft.
5. Principal,
4 ft. 12. Clarion, 4 ft.
6. Twelfth,
3 ft. 13. Contra Fagotto, 16 ft.
7. Fifteenth,
2 ft.
8.
Seventeenth.
9.
Cornet, V. ranks.
10.
Mixture, V. ranks.
11.
Trumpet, 8 ft.
12.
Clarion, 4 ft.
13.
Contra Fagotto, 16 ft.
SWELL
(Enclosed
in a Venetian Swell.)
1. Bourdon,
8 ft. 6. Cor Anglais, 16 ft.
2. Flauto
traver, 8 ft. 7. Trumpet, 8 ft.
*3. Harmonic
Flute, 4 ft. 8. Hautbois, 8 ft.
4. Flegeolet,
2 ft. 9. Clarion, 4 ft.
5. Cornet,
III. ranks. 10. Vox Humana, 8 ft.
6.
Cor Anglais, 16 ft.
7.
Trumpet, 8 ft.
8.
Hautbois, 8 ft.
9.
Clarion, 4 ft.
10.
Vox Humana, 8 ft.
PEDALS
1. Open
Wood, 16 ft. 4. Trumpet, 8 ft.
2. Ditto,
8 ft. 5. Large ditto, 8 ft.
3. Ditto,
4 ft. 6. Clarion, 4 ft.
4.
Trumpet, 8 ft.
5.
Large ditto, 8 ft.
6.
Clarion, 4 ft.
As
an organist Franck was principally remarkable for his wonderful
extemporary development of themes. He would study a subject closely
for a few moments, his countenance assuming such visible signs of
intensity as will not be readily forgotten by those who have seen
him, and then as it were would “let himself go.” At the end he
invariably criticised himself, saying “I did not do this, or that,”
“I haven't done quite what I intended” - or more rarely, “well
I think I have
succeeded pretty well this time.” These extemporary voluntaries
came to be both a presure and an artistic duty
to him, and if he did not quite realise what he desired, or if the
warning bell rang for him to stop just as he was piling up a close
“Stretto,” he would be visibly
*The
earliest introduction of the harmonic Flute is to be noted, and,
almost the first instance in Paris of the Venetian Swell.
(13)
pained,
and seemingly formed the resolution to “get his own back” next
time by still greater concentration of energy. Franck's
“registration” on the organ was sober, if compared with that of
Léfebure-Wély, and in no degree intended to captivate the general
public; but while the modern resources of the organ were not
neglected by him, it is unquestionable that beauty in the design and
combination of ideas, not variety in colour display, was his
principal quest. In this connection it seems unavoidable to note that
the great builders-up of organ literature from Bach to Rheinberger
have seldom given any indication of the stops to be used, evidently
conceiving that that the highest excellence of organ music should
reside in its design and architecture,
so to speak, or in other words in beauty of line and
proportion, which would lose in
dignity and become largely unintelligible if prettily “picked out
in colours.”
Indeed,
such “interpretations” of Bach and of other Organ Classics are as
now, alas, but too common, rather suggest the cheap oratory of some
lay readers and others in our churches, who “patronise” the Word
of God by bestowing upon it such emphasis and punctuation as embodies
their conception of what they appear to think the Almighty OUGHT to
have said.
Franck's
six pieces for the organ (Op. 16) were his first really important
work for that instrument. They were composed in 1862, when organ
music in Paris received such a healthy stimulus from Hesse's visit,
and his recitals on the newly erected organ at St.
(14)
Sulpice,
but it was not until 1868 that they became known. Franck gave a copy
of these to my father, asking him to secure English rights of
performance, but unfortunately he found himself unable to give effect
to this commission. Early in 1868 Franck played the No. 1 of this
series at the opening of the organ at Notre Dame (Guilmant also
producing his Marche Funèbre et Chant Séraphique
on the same occasion). It was of Franck's six pieces that Franz Liszt
said, “They have a place alongside of the works of Sebastian Bach.”
My copy, which I greatly treasure, bears the inscription, “Souvenir
Affectueux, a Mr. John Hinton,” together with Franck's signature.
Little
can, I think, be said for some of Franck's smaller organ pieces –
mere “pot boilers” - which were mostly written in his early
necessitous days specially to meet the very limited powers of French
village harmonium players. Doubtless some of these bear later dates,
but Franck, as Handel and others, often revived parts of his early
writings, and of this I have documentary evidence.
Speaking
of these pieces, one can only say that passages in them bear the
imprint of a master hand – that is all. When, however, we come to
his Three Chorals, we find ourselves in presences of a stupendous
manifestation of musical genius, for therein Franck has continued the
work of Sebastian Bach, and surpassed him.
A
vivid memory is evoked in my mind as I think of the pleasure I
experienced when he
(15)
told
me I could come to Notre Dame to the organ while he tried the stops
and fixed the registration of the pieces he was to play. As I
ascended the tortuous staircase and viewed the impressive pile from
near the roof, visions of Quasimodo, and of many others who moved in
that wonderful mediæval atmosphere created by Victor Hugo, seemed to
flash across my mind, suggested by each quaint carving, or dim
recess.
If
I may hazard an appreciation of Franck's art, I should say that he
was essentially a symphonist, and that it is in his superb quartet
for strings and other concerted pieces that we find him at his best.
D'Indy reluctantly concedes that Franck's church music is singularly
unequal and disappointing, moreover assigning some causes which
explain this. He also frankly admits that in opera Franck was perhaps
scarcely at home; his strong mysticism and leaning towards sacred art
did not, I think, conduce to special aptitude in dealing with
conventionalised forms of stage music.
It
only remains to add that I took part in the first production of
Redemption, and of
some other of Franck's works.
Poor
Franck! he was not gifted as a conductor; the business and
disciplinary duties of that office were completely beyond his grasp,
and consequently most of his first performances were sad fiascos.
Nevertheless,
kind soul that he was, he seemed soon to forget, and he never had a
hard word to say to any performer, no matter how badly they had
served him.
(16)
In
1887 (at which time I resided in Guernsey), I journeyed to Paris to
be present at the Franck Festival, portions of Les
Béatitudes
and various other pieces from his pen being performed at the Cirque
d'Hiver, under the conductorship of Pasdeloup. Here again ill fortune
ensued. The music had been insufficiently rehearsed and was badly
rendered. Pasdeloup (then almost in his dotage) started the
Variations
Symphoniques
at double the pace intended, resulting in a “scramble,” a hideous
and painful travesty of the music.
At
that time Franck was just entering upon a new lease of activity as a
composer, and much of his best work was done subsequently; but, alas!
this golden period was destined to be all too short: for one day in
crossing the street, perhaps meditating upon some combination of
musical themes, he was struck down by the pole of an omnibus.
From
this accident he rallied for a while, but internal troubles
developed, and the end came on November 8th,
1890. His remains were interred at Montrouge, but subsequently they
were removed to a more fitting resting place in the Montparnasse
Cemetary. R.I.P.
