On his arrival in Paris from Poland in 1831, Frederick Chopin realized that he had set foot on the cultural and musical capital of the world. His talent and excitement in his new home quickly helped him to gain respect and friends among the circle of the arts. Among the people that he met during this time were two who would become special life long friends, the painter Eugene Delacroix and the cellist August Franchomme (1808-1884). Apart from a piece for flute and piano and a piano trio, Chopin wrote his only chamber music compositions for cello and piano, two of them written in close collaboration with Franchomme.

August Franchomme is considered as one of the French masters of the cello in the 19th century. He was a student of Levasseur joining his class in the Paris Conservatory at the age of seventeen. In 1828 Franchomme became a member of the Conservatoire Concerts and principal cello of the Royal Band. After the death of the celebrated cellist Norblin, Franchomme became professor at the Paris Conservatory, a post that allowed him to create a solid cello school in France for forty years. Contemporary critics raved about Franchomme’s full and expressive tone combined with an extraordinary facility in the left hand, and a special gift for interpretation in performance. He acquired the famous “Duport” Stradivari cello from the great cellist’s son, who considered Franchomme to be “Duport’s succesor”. Franchomme was also a composer with a few salon pieces for cello and piano, numerous transcriptions from the violin sonatas of Beethoven and Mozart, and a number of pedagogical etudes, being the most important the Caprices Op. 7, still used as part of the standard repertoire. He was also a very gifted businessman who on a few occasions helped Chopin to deal with problems with his publisher.

Chopin’s first composition for the cello was, however, not a product of his interaction with Franchomme but a Salon piece intended for performance of the Prince Radziwillof Austria and his seventeen years old pianist daughter. The Introduction et Polonaise Brillante in C major for piano and cello was written in 1829 and published in 1833 with a dedication to the Viennese cellist Josef Merck (1795-1852). Chopin had a great admiration for the cello virtuoso as he himself wrote in one of his letters:

On Thursday there was a soiree at Fuchs, when Limmer introduced some of his own compositions for four violoncellos. Merck as usual made them more beautiful than they really were by his playing, which is so full of soul. He is the only violoncellist I really respect.[1]

According to Chopin this piece was nothing more than a brilliant drawing room piece suitable for the ladies ,[2] without a major musical content. In spite of being an early work, written in the space of a week, it bears, however, that special and unmistakable mark of Chopin’s musical style. It is interesting to mention that this composition was the first Polonaise that Chopin ever wrote. The work has gained more popularity in a revised version made by the cellist Friedrich Grutzmacher at the end of the 19th century. In this revision Grutzmacher includes some more challenging technical passages for both instruments and transforms its nature in a more brilliant cello and piano piece.

During the 1830’s the most popular genre in the Parisian musical life was the French Grand Opera, of which the most important exponent was Giacomo Meyerbeer. As a result of this operatic trend most composers and players started to write fantasias and variations based on popular themes from the great Operas of the time. In an effort to meet the demands of the public taste and, of course, quick and sure sales, the French publisher Schlesinger approached Chopin in order to commission him a piece for cello and piano based on the trendy operatic melodies of Meyerbeer. Eager to find acceptance in the musical circles of his new home Chopin took the commission and asked his cellist friend Franchomme to work together with him on the project. The result of this collaboration was the Grand Duo Concertant sur des themes de “Robert le Diable”, written in 1832 and published in 1833 with the names of both Chopin and Franchomme as composers. The term “Grand Duo” did not only refer to the brilliant instrumental virtuoso quality of the work, but also tried to emulate the spirit of the French “Grand” Opera, in both name and musical style. The Opera Robert le Diable was premiered on November 21st 1831 with an enormous success. Its most popular melodies, Romanze and chorus “Von v’e pieta” from the first act and the trio “Le mie cure, ancor dal cielo” from the fifth act, were the melodic source for the cello and piano joined composition by the two musicians. Although is highly unusual to see a performance of this piece in today’s concert programs, the Grand duo Concertante had a popularity at the time that made composers like Robert Schumann to comment on its musical content:

This is a composition for drawing-rooms, in which, behind the lovely shoulders of Countesses, the head of a famous artist appears here and there; it is therefore not fitted for tea parties, at which people play a little on the intervals of conversation. It is essentially a work for the most refined of circles, in which the artist receives the respect and the attention his position deserves.[3]

In the same article Schumann argues that Franchomme’ participation in the composition was that of saying “yes” to all of the ideas presented by Chopin. If it could be said that musically the piece contains a lot of Chopinesque ideas and piano writing, the cello writing, with its rapids and virtuoso like figurations in high registers could only be written with the help of a skilled player such as Franchomme. To what extent this collaboration was documented in the manuscript is very hard to say, but its brilliant instrumental writing is an obvious fact that corroborates the joined project. The Grand Duo has been, however, a very underrated and neglected composition. Many cellists disregard its musical content and others simply ignore its existence. Some recent recordings have given justice to this composition, showing its instrumental brilliance in the charming style of salon music. In my opinion the future will bring more performances of such pieces and a better understanding of the wrongly disregarded style of the epoch.

Chopin’s last major composition was the G minor Cello Sonata Op. 65, a composition that caused him a great deal of difficulty. It was composed between the years 1845-47 and first publicly performed, in a truncated version without the first movement, in his last public concert on February 16th, 1848 at the Salle Pleyel, Paris. The work is dedicated to Franchomme, who collaborated with the composer on writing the cello part and remained a very close friend of Chopin during the composer’s last months.

In mid-April 1846 Franchomme invited Chopin to stay a week at his relatives home in Coteau, near Tours, in order for the two musicians to work on the sonata, which the composer had already started in October 1845. He had been playing passages with Franchomme but seemed not to be completely satisfied with the work:

I play a little-I write a little. [I am] at times content, at other times not with my Sonata with Violoncello. I throw [it] into a corner then pick it up again. 11 de octubre de 1846[4]

I do everything in my power to work-but somehow, it just doesn’t come to me- and if it continues like this, my creations will resemble neither the chirping of birds nor the sounds of porcelain being smashed. July 8th, 1846[5]

His preoccupation with the work is corroborated by the numerous work sheets of the work, greater than any other of his compositions. These copious sketches have given musicologist one of the few sources about the understanding of Chopin’s craftsmanship.

Chopin finally completed the work in 1847 and performed it with Franchomme in a musical soiree organized in his apartment in Paris, with only six people invited, among them George Sand and Delacroix. A few weeks later the two musicians performed it again in a reception at Chopin’s apartment in honor of Countsess Potocka, in the presence of Sand, Prince and Princess Czartoryski and Prince and Princess Wirthemberg.

In spite of having performed it and published in October 1847, Chopin did not feel entirely satisfied with the first movement, and that is probably the reason why he took it away in the February 1848 concert. Regardless of the exclusion of the movement, the Sonata was received generously by the public and critics:

…he recited his beautiful cello sonata with Franchomme. Do not inquire of us how all these masterpieces, small or great, were rendered… We shall say only that the charm did not cease for a single instant to act upon the audience, and that it lasted still after the concert was over.[6]

The popularity of the work decreased dramatically after its premiere. It became an unjustifiable neglected work for more than fifty years, revived with the help of the recording industry by the cellist Gregor Piatigorski (partnered with Ralph Berkowitz) in the first half of the 20th century. It is hard to explain why this beautiful masterpiece suffered so much to make it into the concert programs. One could only think about Chopin’s so close association with piano music that unable us to picture his chamber production. As well as writing the three cello works, Chopin wrote a piece for flute and piano and an early piano trio, compositions that seem to have banished entirely from the repertoire. The case of the Cello Sonata is very different, since it is his last major large composition. It is an elegant work that combines the refine and poetic style of Chopin’s music with the lyricism and warm tone of the cello, both parts written in wonderfull collaboration between two great artists.

[1] A Handbook of Chopin’s Works. Pag 65

[2]   A Handbook of Chopin’s Works. Pag 63

[3]     A Handbook of Chopin’s Works. Pag 280

[4]   The work sheets to Chopin’s Violoncello Sonata. Garland Publishing,Inc. New&London.1988. Pag x

[5]   Tad Szulc:Chopin in Paris.Scribner.1998. Pag 320

[6]   Concert donné par Chopin dans le salons de Pleyel. Revue et Gazette Musicale de Paris, Febrero 20, 1848, pag. 58