The Catholic-Christian Masking of César Franck and Alternative Erotic Readings of his Piano Quintet, Violin Sonata, and Prelude, Chorale and Fugue

César Franck (1822-1890) is, for many, a problematic composer. He was born a Belgian, naturalized a Frenchman, but is often cited as an example (musically) of the Germanic. In the wake of this supposed identity crisis one particular identity has stuck: that of the Pater Seraphicus, composer of music imbued with deep Catholic-Christian piety. Those largely responsible for this identity are Vincent d'Indy and Alfred Cortot. However, as outlined in chapter 1, there are many problems with this interpretation, especially when one looks closely at Franck's music, which is filled with musical markers of the erotic. Chapter 2 explores some procedures associated with eroticism, focusing on sources directly associated with Franck, namely Wagner, Liszt, and Debussy.Subsequent chapters develop new interpretations of Franck's music, starting with the Piano Quintet (1880). Chapter 3 explores its explosively dramatic first movement, whose second theme awakens a latent, subversive eroticism, which is ultimately punished and crushed by the destructive forces of the first theme. Cortot's spiritual interpretative incentives were most famously and influentially pronounced in reference to the Prelude, Chorale and Fugue (1884), which is discussed in the fourth chapter. The frequently-cited paradigm in this work of an incorruptible diatonicism's adjacency and resistance to its decadent sibling chromaticism is shown to be problematic, and the Chorale theme of this work is viewed instead to be a possible erotic symbol. Additionally, a parallel is traced between the work's structural plan and the trajectory-towards-climax paradigm so beloved of Wagner. Chapter 5 explores the Violin Sonata (1886), a work whose first half is pregnant with erotically-symbolic impulses. Here possible cross-pollinations with Debussy are considered, including consonant use of "voluptuous" sonorities (such as the dominant ninth chord) and sinuous melodic commingling which may depict, respectively, erotic languor or activity. Chapter 6 summarizes these arguments and suggests implications in performance as well as directions for further research, including alternative analyses of Franck's other works as well as those of other composers. This chapter concludes with a brief consideration of other aesthetics which may similarly entangle religious piety with eroticism.D.M.A