[1] During the first period (1841–1858), when his ambitious father forced him to be active as a virtuoso pianist,[2] Franck wrote works for chamber music, including four piano trios numbered as the composer's Opp.
[1] Franck’s masterpieces, including the Piano Quintet F minor (1879), the Violin Sonata A major (1886), and this quartet, were written in the third period (1876–1890).
Even the Symphony in D minor and the Prélude, Aria et Final, whose reputation is well established today, were disastrously premiered.
[13] Finally, on 19 April 1890, in the concert of the Société nationale de musique at Salle Pleyel, the premiere of this work was received with thunderous applause.
[5] Franck's quartet is a major work, symphonic in scale, consisting of four movements which are tightly united by cyclic form.
A complete performance lasts approximately 50 minutes, making it one of the longer string quartets in the repertory.
The first violin plays the main theme of the introduction over the harmonic accompaniment of strings (Excerpt 1).
A stepwise-falling dotted rhythm, suggested at the very end of the introduction, leads into the main part of sonata form in D minor starting with exposition of first subject (Excerpt 3).
The passionate climax is smoothly connected to the exposition of the second subject, in F major, which appeared in dialogue between the first violin and viola (Excerpt 5).
[6] Impressive ascending repeated notes, as shown in Excerpt 6, open the movement’s F-sharp minor scherzo.
This is the shortest and most immediately accessible of the quartet's movements: imitated for example by Frank Bridge in the second of his three Novelletten just a few years later (1904).
[16] In the second part of this movement, a passionate melody is exhibited by the first violin over the accompaniment of extended arpeggios (Excerpt 11).
[18] Repeated modulation prevents an obvious determination of tonality, though the key signature is C major.
[17] This 'summary' is similar to the finale from Beethoven's ninth symphony;[6][9] Franck himself had used the same method in his organ piece Grande Pièce Symphonique.