Franck - Boulanger - D'un Matin de Printemps

A flower of maturity, the blossoming of an early career: César Franck's Quintet and Lili Boulanger's chamber works form a moving array of Belle Époque French music. The ample and dramatic architecture of the Quintet in F minor (1879), written by Franck at the age of fifty-seven, makes it the first great quintet in the French repertoire, rehabilitating the genre in France. Lili Boulanger was nineteen when she became the first woman to win the prestigious Prix de Rome. The influence of Debussy and Fauré, a family friend, permeates Nocturne and Cortège. Based on the same motif, D’un matin de printemps and D’un soir triste present a striking contrast between flourishing ardour and fatal gravity. Could this diptych be read as a metaphor for the tragic destiny of the young artist whose career was meteoric? She died at the age of twenty-four, the very year these two pieces were composed.

Programme:

FRANCK Quintette en fa mineur avec piano

BOULANGER Nocturne et Cortège, pour piano et violon

D’un matin de printemps, pour piano, violon et violoncelle

D’un soir triste, pour piano, violon et violoncelle

Distribution:

Franck Della Valle, violon

Sylvain Hotellier, violon

Stephie Souppaya, alto

Sarah Veilhan, violoncelle

Lorène de Ratuld, piano