In February 1835, the young César Franck gave his first public performance as a pianist in his home town of Liège. At that time, he was still a student at the Ècole royale de musique, which he had first entered in 1827. Following more successful performances in the same year, he completed his studies in Liège and went with his father to Paris to receive further training from Anton Reicha, Pierre Zimmerman and Hippolyte Colet. At the end of the year, father and son returned home to plan César's future career from there on. During this time, César composed the three-movement Piano Sonata (op. 10), which is still very much in the spirit of the classical period and clearly borrows from his role models, but this is to be expected from a 13-year-old boy.

César broke away from the formal stylistic idiom of the classical period after leaving the Paris Conservatoire in 1842. His father pushed him toward a career path as a virtuoso, and the son complied, composing his own pieces for this purpose, following in the tradition of piano works by Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin and Johann Nepomuk Hummel.