Symphonischer Chor Hamburg

César Franck’s musical work is influenced by the formal ideals of Viennese Classicism and Johann Sebastian Bach’s counterpoint, and a certain affinity to the extended harmony of Liszt and Wagner can also be detected in it. With the Symphony in D minor, his symphonic poems, the famous Violin Sonata and the oratorio »Les Béatitudes«, Franck is one of the leading French composers of the late nineteenth century. The Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel of Matthew was the centre of Franck’s faith. He thought about putting that text to music for a long time – ten years passed before his »best work«, as he described it himself, was finished.