the Violin Sonatas Opp. 19 and 23 and other major chamber music works. The 1855 first performance of his Violin Concerto in E minor, under Hillers direction, was a triumph. In 1859 Franck moved to Berne, becoming director of the newly established music school. Honoured with title of Professor honorarius and a doctorate, he was responsible for the musical life of both city and university. Books on the history of the Conservatory and manuscripts of several piano sonatas serve as reminders of his time there. However, he continued to show restraint when it came to publishing his works, which was obviously due to his strong self–criticism. In 1867 Julius Stern succeeded in obtaining Eduard Franck for his new conservatory in Berlin and from 1878 to 1892, into his late seventies, he taught at Breslaur’s Conservatory. Here in Berlin, he poured out a cornucopia of works that had been completed earlier but withheld, including another symphony, the String Sextet Op. 41, a piano quintet, a string quartet and diverse piano music. He composed a second Cello Sonata (Op. 42), a late successor to the first one, which had been his Op. 6. These works, published late in his life, as well as the posthumously rediscovered works (only 9 of 18 Piano Sonatas are published so far) prove that Franck must have been working constantly during his “silent” years. The two Sextets published in 1882/84 (Op. 41 and posthumous Op. 50) are important examples of his later style, the nature of which is particularly evident in Op. 50, with its melancholic, retrospective mood. Paul Feuchte EDITORIAL NOTE Introduction The present edition of the ”Twelve studies for Pianoforte“ creates a link back to the beginning of Eduard Franck’s career as a composer. Already at an early age, the piano was the center of his musical life and it is not surprising, that an immense part of his later compositional output was written for this instrument. Next to 17 piano sonatas (9 of which have never appeared in print) and 2 piano concertos, there are numerous piano pieces, variations, marches, capriccios and character pieces, of which a considerable number also survived in manuscript. In a way, one can regard his Opus 1 (the first of his works that appeared in print) as an attempt of emancipation, as an effort of ”stepping out“ of the shadow of his teacher and master: Mendelssohn. He succeeded several years later, however, the ”Twelve Studies“ attracted some attention, when they appeared in 1837. To use Mendelssohn’s own words (to whom the pieces are dedicated to): ”...I liked the last two of the first and the very last of the second volume best...“. 1 [No. V, VI, XII] Robert Schumann referred to them as ”... almost felicitous and admirably“ 2 and attested Franck an approach ”over the roofs into a higher, even finer element.“ 3 1 Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Letter to Eduard Franck, January 3, 1838. Owned by the Paul and Andreas Feuchte.. 2 Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, 8. Bd., Nr. 43. May 29, 1838 3 ibid VI The present volume is released as a part of the edition of printed and posthumous works by Eduard Franck intended to highlight his compositional output and make it completely available in a unified, published format for the first time. The composer’s descendants, Paul Feuchte (Freiburg) and Andreas Feuchte (Hamburg), have assigned a direct source to almost every work for which the original manuscript is not in the estate of the composer and hence owned by the heirs. It is remarkable that almost no authentic handwritten sources have survived of the works that were published during Eduard Franck’s lifetime. Thus, we are reliant on a single source preparing this Urtext edition: (A) First print, released in 1837 in two volumes by the Leipzig publisher Fr. Kister (Plate number 1176 and 1177). We used the copy of the Berlin State Library, Music Department with Mendelssohn-Archives. This copy comes from Mendelssohn’s estate. Editing principles This edition of the sonata is free from any arbitrary corrections or changes by the editor. All emendations and corrections have been clearly identified as such with square brackets for expression marks e.g. [a tempo], dynamics [cresc.], [sf ] etc. and dashing for slurs, ties and hairpins . Nick Pfefferkorn (Translated by David Babcock)
Zwölf Studien für Klavier op. 1 Twelve Studies for Pianoforte op. 1 VII
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