César Franck had a rather ambitious and overbearing father! Determined to make the most profitable use of his son’s musical talents, he forced him into a career as a virtuoso pianist. Studies at the Liège and Paris Conservatory set the

César Franck’s reputation primarily rests on a few large-scale orchestral and instrumental works of his later years. Among his most respected and finest works is the Violin Sonata composed in 1886 as a wedding present for the Belgian violinist Eugène

The actress Madam Félicité Saillot Desmousseaux, better remembered as the dutiful wife of César Franck (1822-1890), greeted the arrival of her husband’s Piano Quintet in F minor with public condemnation, fiery scorn and a deeply professed hatred. Surprisingly, the same