Franck

For a brief period, I studied in Paris. It was one miraculous year in which I soaked up as much as I could from the great French capital.

I remember the first time I was in Paris. It was not for study but for a piano competition, somewhere around 2006 or 2007, I can´t remember the exact date.

When I emerged from the subway, exiting at the Place de la Concorde, I gazed around in amazement, speechless. The sight was just too beautiful for words.

Sentimentally, I couldn´t forget that some of my idols (like Chopin or Debussy) had been around those streets, overlooking the Seine, recollecting scenes in their minds from which they would draw inspiration for their works.

A couple of years later, as I mentioned before, I studied there at the historically important La Schola Cantorum, founded by Vincent D´Indy and in which many important musicians who changed the course of music taught and studied.

Among those was Cesar Franck, a Belgian composer whose music has always been close to my heart.

The big hall where I received my piano lessons was the same hall in which Franck´s organ stood (the organ was still there while I was around) and in which he composed a bunch of beautiful music.

This weekend I have the privilege of playing again his famous Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Major, one of the great masterworks in the violin and in all of the chamber music repertoire, and among the most beautiful pieces of music I´ve ever heard. The concerts are in León and El Pardo, in Spain, with a fantastic Spanish violinist called Pablo Martos.

Today I´ve included the first movement of this amazing masterpiece on my Universal Beauty playlist (I love grandiloquent titles) in a heartfelt version by Kaja Danzowska and Krystian Zimmerman. You can listen to it at the top of this list by clicking here.

ENjoy, and have a great day.

Claudio.