An influential musician in French musical life at the end of the 19th century, César Franck inspired numerous vocations and played a major role in the revival of both chamber and organ music. Born in Liège, then part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, on December 10, 1822, César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck came from a modest family, his father a bank clerk. Like his younger brother Joseph on the violin, he proved to be a child prodigy during his studies at the Royal Conservatory of Liège, where he won a first prize in singing, followed by a first prize in piano at the age of twelve. His father, who envisioned for his eldest son a career as a virtuoso following in the footsteps of Franz Liszt, witnessed his success on stage and decided to help fate by moving to Paris in 1835. While awaiting the French naturalization required for admission to the Paris Conservatoire, the young Franck took private lessons in counterpoint with Antoine Reicha and piano with Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann. Once he had obtained French nationality, he entered the Conservatoire in 1937, where he reunited with Zimmermann and studied counterpoint and fugue with Aimé Leborne. The following year, the jury was unanimous in awarding him a first Grand Prix d'Honneur for piano, followed by other prizes in each subject over the following years. In 1839, he performed one of his own compositions, a Trio, in the private salon of piano maker Érard, then enrolled in François Benoist's organ class, winning only second prize in 1841. While his father persisted in seeing him as a piano virtuoso, the student had to leave the classroom to give concerts, instead of taking part in the Prix de Rome. In 1843, he published his four Opus 1 trios and performed in Belgium, Germany and France. Still under paternal pressure, he composed an oratorio, Ruth, to be performed at Érard's in front of Parisian luminaries. Conquered, Liszt succeeded in obtaining another public performance in the Conservatoire concert hall. In 1846, after composing the symphonic poem Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne, Franck broke definitively with his father, who hardly approved of his desire to marry one of his students, Eugénie-Félicité, daughter of the actress Madame Desmousseaux. The union, finally celebrated on February 22, 1848, was quickly followed by the birth of the first of their four children, Georges-César. He worked on his first opera, Le Valet de ferme, completed in 1853. From 1845 to 1863, he was pianist for chamber music concerts at the Institut musical d'Orléans. At the same time, between lessons, he served as organist at Notre-Dame-de-Lorette church, before being appointed to Saint-Jean-Saint-François-du-Marais church in 1853, on one of Cavaillé-Coll's first instruments. In 1858, a prestigious position awaited him at Saint-Clotilde basilica, where he remained until his death. Franck developed his improvisational style, using every resource to enrich the harmonies of his religious pieces such as the Messe solennelle for bass and organ and the 3 Motets of 1858, the 3 Antiennes for grand orgue of 1859 and the Messe à trois voix of 1860. In 1862, his Six Pièces pour grand orgue won the admiration of Bach aficionados, led by Liszt. After the 1870 war, Franck encouraged his pupils to found the Société nationale de musique, of which he became president in 1886. He adopted French nationality to succeed Benoist as organ professor at the Paris Conservatoire in 1872, where his pupils included Vincent d'Indy, Ernest Chausson, Henri Duparc and others, who nicknamed him "Père Franck". His teaching, which advocated a return to the fundamentals of counterpoint and harmony, led to what came to be known as the "Franckist school". Busy as he was as a teacher, Franck nevertheless produced a series of masterpieces, demonstrating his creativity in a cyclical musical architecture characterized by the repetition of themes and their superimposition in the final movement, as well as by the boldness of his chromatic harmonies. In 1879, after ten years' work, he completed the oratorio Les Béatitudes, then composed a powerful Quintette avec piano, premiered at Salle Gaveau on January 17, 1880, followed by the symphonic poems Le Chasseur maudit (1882) and Les Djinns for piano and orchestra (1884), and the triumphantly acclaimed Prélude, choral et fugue pour piano (1884). The Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, appointed in 1885, conducted the premiere of his Variations symphoniques for piano and orchestra, with pianist Louis Diemer, on May 1, 1886. This was another success, before the Sonata for violin and piano in A major, dedicated to Eugène Ysaÿe and premiered at the Cercle artistique in Brussels on December 16. The symphonic poem Psyché, begun the same year, was completed two years later and premiered on March 10, 1888 at the Société nationale de musique, two months before the Prelude, Aria and Finale for piano, on May 12. At the age of sixty-six in 1888, César Franck combined his three roles of organist, teacher and composer, putting the finishing touches during the summer to what is undoubtedly his best-known and most performed work, the Symphonie en ré mineur, a milestone of French music dedicated to Duparc and premiered in the concert hall of the Paris Conservatoire on February 17, 1889. On April 19, 1890, his intricately structured and introspective String Quartet in D major was unveiled at the Société nationale. In May 1890, Franck suffered a traffic accident when his carriage was hit by an omnibus. Forced to rest, he worked on his Trois Chorals for organ, then resumed lessons in October, when he was diagnosed with pleurisy. On the morning of November 8, 1890, emphysema of the lung took the composer's life at the age of 67.
