Franck & Boulanger: Chamber Music at Salle Cortot
Paris, Salle Cortot — Main Hall
About the Event
A flower of maturity, the first blossoms of an early career: César Franck’s Quintet and Lili Boulanger’s chamber works together form a moving panorama of French Belle Époque music. Its expansive and dramatic structure makes Franck’s Quintet in F minor (1879)—written when he was fifty‐seven—the first great quintet in the French repertoire, reviving 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 ardor and foreboding gravity. Could this diptych be read as a metaphor for the tragic fate of the young artist, whose career was meteoric? She died at the age of twenty‐four, the very year these two pieces were composed.
Program
FRANCK
Quintet in F minor with piano
BOULANGER
Nocturne and Cortège, for piano and violin
On a Spring Morning, for piano, violin, and cello
On a Sad Evening, for piano, violin, and cello
Cast / Production
Franck Della Valle, violin
Sylvain Hotellier, violin
Stephie Souppaya, viola
Sarah Veilhan, cello
Lorène de Ratuld, piano
Address
Salle Cortot, 78 rue Cardinet, Paris, France — Google Maps