Fantaisie

Historical context

This Fantaisie in C, an organ piece, shares its opus number 16 with an earlier piano work, ‘Trois petits riens’, from 1845, as noted in a book. The construction of this Fantaisie, with its central point on the subdominant and a curtailed ending, shows hesitations of Franck’s first manner, according to a book. However, its Lied at the commencement, flowing calmly without modulation, foreshadows the general characteristic of his third style. The piece also demonstrates Franck’s gift of evolving a living melody from a pre-established harmonic condition, which is itself the result of a melodic canon, as described in a book.

Intriguingly, the theme flowing on the great organ keyboard from its architectural combination resembles the ‘motive of sleep’ in Wagner’s ‘Die Walküre’ and the ‘Nibelungen’ epic, a prescience of Wagner who was then ignored in France, as observed in a book.

Drawn from Indy, Vincent d’, 1851-1931, Cesar Franck; a translation from the French of Vincent d’Indy (1922) — public domain, archive.org.