Description
When Ernest Chausson was born, it was still in the Berlioz era, his future teacher, Cesar Franck, was 33; Jules Massenet, also his professor, was 13; and Gabriel Faure, who would eventually become 'the greatest musical authority in France at the time', was only 10. Claude Debussy was not yet born. Interestingly, by a fatal twist of fate - a bicycle accident during a vacation - Chausson's earthly path ended almost at the very end of the 19th century, although his late work already indicated the future horizon of music. Nota bene, the so-called musical Impressionism broke out in France in 1894, with the first performance of Debussy's Prelude a l'Apres-midi d'un faune. Yet it is hard to avoid the thought that Ernest Chausson occupies a special position in the galaxy of French composers of the second half of the 19th century. And it is not only about - otherwise a catchy slogan - 'him being the link between Franck with Debussy'. If there had been no Chausson, then European music, and not only French music, would have been lacking a seasoned lyricist, a composer gifted with extraordinary melodic inventiveness, susceptible to poetic moods and sensitive to the nuances of text. Even in the sphere of purely instrumental works, Chausson appears to be a sensitive person, one that is hard to find; a creator who is tender and delicate to the extreme. - Marcin Majchrowski (transl. Anna Marks)
