Franck Les Djinns Sheet Music, Program Notes and recordings

Les Djinns

A Poem's Shape, A Storm's Sound

To understand César Franck’s Les Djinns, one must first understand its extraordinary literary inspiration. The piece is based on a poem of the same name by the great French writer Victor Hugo, published in his 1829 collection Les Orientales. Hugo's poem is a masterpiece of form mirroring content. On the printed page, the poem is shaped like a diamond or a spinning top: it begins with very short lines, which gradually lengthen stanza by stanza to a long-lined, chaotic climax, and then just as gradually recede back to the short lines of the beginning. This visual shape perfectly mimics the sound of the approaching, attacking, and departing swarm of djinns. The narrative is a terrifying first-person account from a speaker hiding in his home, hearing the growing, unearthly noise that becomes a hurricane-force assault on his house before fading away into the silence of the night. It was this brilliant, pre-packaged musical structure that Franck seized upon, creating a work that is one of the most faithful and effective musical translations of a poem ever composed.

The Symphonic Poem and the Piano

The genre Franck chose for this work was the symphonic poem, a single-movement orchestral form pioneered by Franz Liszt. A symphonic poem seeks to illustrate or evoke the content of a non-musical source, such as a poem, a story, or a painting. Franck’s unique contribution here was to add a solo piano to the orchestra, creating a hybrid genre. Unlike his Symphonic Variations, where the piano is a clear, if collaborative, protagonist, the piano in Les Djinns plays a more ambiguous and atmospheric role. At times, its agitated passages seem to represent the inner turmoil of the narrator. At other times, its brilliant, swirling arpeggios personify the djinns themselves. It is less a concerto soloist and more the orchestra's chief narrator and special effect.

The Stillness of Night

Franck’s music follows the poem’s narrative with remarkable fidelity. The piece begins in an atmosphere of deep silence and foreboding. Low, ominous chords in the strings and piano set a scene of darkness and quiet. This corresponds to the opening short-lined stanzas of Hugo's poem, which describe the stillness of the night and the sleeping town. The mood is hushed and expectant, creating a tension that immediately captures the listener's attention.

The Approaching Swarm: A Masterful Crescendo

The central and most famous feature of the work is its long, gradual, and terrifying crescendo, which mirrors the lengthening lines of Hugo's poem. Franck begins to build the tension with quiet, scurrying figures in the piano and agitated tremolos in the strings. This is the first hint of the "sound like the driven sleet" that the narrator hears. Slowly but inexorably, the dynamic level increases, the tempo quickens, and the texture thickens. The piano part becomes more virtuosic and demanding, with rapid scales and arpeggios that seem to whip the orchestra into a greater frenzy. Franck’s signature chromatic harmonies add to the growing sense of unease and supernatural dread.

The Climax: A Demonic Assault

The work reaches its ferocious climax at the center, corresponding to the longest lines in the poem where the swarm attacks the house with "cries of hell. " Here, Franck unleashes the full power of the orchestra and piano. Thundering, dissonant chords from the piano are pitted against powerful, driving rhythms from the full orchestra. The music is chaotic, violent, and overwhelming, a truly terrifying depiction of a demonic storm. The main thematic material, which has been building throughout the first half, is now heard in its most powerful and dramatic form, shouted by the brass. It is a moment of pure, programmatic terror.

The Retreat and the Return to Silence

Having reached the peak of its fury, the music begins a long, gradual retreat. Just as Hugo’s poetic lines begin to shorten, Franck skillfully dismantles his musical storm. The dynamic level begins to fall, the orchestration thins out, and the frantic themes become fragmented and dissolve. The piano’s virtuosic fury subsides, returning to the agitated but quieter figures of the opening. This long decrescendo is in many ways more difficult to sustain than the crescendo, and Franck manages it brilliantly, creating a palpable sense of the supernatural swarm passing by and vanishing into the distance. The work ends as it began, in near silence, with a few final, ethereal chords in the piano and strings, leaving behind only the "vague murmur" described in the poem's final line. The storm has passed, and the silence it leaves behind is profound.