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Listen to Franck’s Prélude Op 18 on the organ
When Christmas comes around, you can be guaranteed of hearing Franck’s Panis angelicus in some form or other: as a vocal solo, perhaps, or a duet, or instrumental version, or orchestral arrangement, or choral transcription, or on a consort of Tibetan nose-flutes for all I know. Come December, it’s as ubiquitous as hangovers and dyspepsia.
And why shouldn’t it be? The piece has a once-heard-neverforgotten melody which displays a beguiling simplicity. At least it seems simple, until – hey presto! like a rabbit out of the hat – the tune is actually revealed to be a canon which curls back on itself, Möbius-like, at the interval of one bar. Straightforward beauty and formal ingenuity. Clever, no? And the combination of those two qualities pretty much sums up what is wonderful about Franck’s late style. The geometrically perfect canon in the last movement of the Sonata in A major for Violin and Piano is another example of his delightful, informal trickery – atrickery which only enhances, never compromises, the musical exuberance.
So, to come back to my initial question, why is it that his piano music is not quite as well known, or as frequently performed as that of contemporary composers – say, Brahms or Tchaikovsky or even Chabrier?
