Prélude, aria et final

Historical context

The Prélude, aria et final, the second of Franck’s two late piano triptychs, was dedicated to Mme Bordes-Pène, who gave its first performance at a concert of the Société Nationale on 12 May 1888. Vincent d’Indy saw in it a contribution to the renovation of sonata-form: the Prelude built on a long, sustained phrase, the Aria a twofold exposition of a simple melody, and the Finale shaped to the anatomy of sonata-form, though its principal tonality returns only with the restatement of the second subject.

Where its companion, the Prélude, choral et fugue, ends in a triumphant peroration, this work closes softly, its melody seeming to evaporate over a varied gradation of tonalities. The two triptychs together, d’Indy wrote, gave a “revivifying impulse” to a pianoforte literature he thought in danger of “perishing between virtuosity and emptiness.”

Drawn from Derepas, Gustave (1848-1910), César Franck : étude sur sa vie, son enseignement, son oeuvre (1897); Indy, Vincent d’, 1851-1931, Cesar Franck; a translation from the French of Vincent d’Indy (1922) — public domain, archive.org.