César Franck

Born in Liège on 10 December 1822, Franck gave his first concerts at eleven and studied privately in Paris from 1835 under Anton Reicha. An early oratorio, Ruth, flopped disastrously, and he settled into decades as a church organist and teacher, gaining a reputation as a fearsome improviser and travelling France to demonstrate new instruments built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. In 1859 he took the post at Sainte-Clotilde, which he held until his death, and in 1872 became professor at the Paris Conservatoire, taking French nationality to meet the requirement. Only after that appointment did he compose the symphonic, chamber, and keyboard works - the Symphony in D minor, the Violin Sonata, the Panis angelicus - that entered the repertoire and drew a devoted circle of pupils including Chausson, d'Indy, and Vierne. He died on 8 November 1890.