Hans Franke (1882-1971)

[Alan Howe]

Thanks, Mark. And a special vote of thanks to Ilja for making the time to visit the Archive in Dresden.

My I simply echo Mark's request that, having reached this point in our investigations, what we need now is first-hand documentary evidence of Franke's activities, particularly pertaining to the period before World War 2 when biographical facts about him are at best sketchy and at worst completely false. For example, it appears doubtful whether he ever studied under such luminaries as Reinecke or Draeseke because we have not been able to find any evidence that he did.

[Mark Thomas]

A final report, for now at least, on the Franke Case.

The only major development is that Ilja managed to have a helpful discussion with the principal of the Franke Foundation and former owner of the publishing company which issued the CDs and published "Franke" scores. She's certain that his daughter had no idea of his plagiarisms and was greatly upset to learn of the first to be unearthed (Rheinberger's Taming of the Shrew Overture masquerading as the finale of Franke's 4th Symphony). The Foundation has not actively promoted his music for some time and instead has been funding music scholarships. It will probably now be renamed and focus solely on that activity. In the last few days the CDs have been withdrawn from sale although the scores are still available under his name.

The professionals involved in establishing the Franke Foundation, in recording and selling the CDs and publishing the scores, all clearly took his biography and authorship of the music on face value, never checked facts as we have done, never questioned the startling inconsistencies of style (although some at recording sessions at least recognised it). They continued with recording the "Symphony No.6" and "Piano Concerto No.1" despite the irrefutable proof of plagiarism which had halted the earlier recording project only a few moths before. All in all, the impression one gets is of a complacent, incurious German musical establishment which was not interested at all in Franke or his music but was happy to help Franke's daughter establish her foundation and secure funding from it.

We think that we have reached the limit of what can we can usefully achieve: Franke has been exposed as a lying plagiarist, the Franke Foundation has acknowledged and accepted that and the recordings at least have been withdrawn from sale. Our final step will be to hand the case over to the German press and it will be up to them whether they wish to pursue the investigation any further.

Thanks to everyone at UC who has contributed to this thread and to uncovering Franke's deception: to Reverie, whose digital realisation of Kauffmann's Symphony unwittingly set the ball rolling and who subsequently digitised extracts from a couple of Franke's other symphonies, to eschiss1 for identifying some of Franke's plagiarisms, but most of all to Alan Howe for initially identifying the various conflicting leads and following them up so doggedly, and to Ilja for his huge amount of research spadework in German, visiting the archive in Dresden and copying scores there and for contacting all the principals involved and persuading them to talk about the case.

[terry martyn]

I am very pleased to hear all of this and, particularly, that the baton should indeed now be handed to the German press. It's wishful thinking, but it would be splendid if the CD containing Woelfl and (especially) Kauffmann could be re-issued with the correct attribution, as it is a fine recording of an excellent symphony, and it would be a shame if a by-product of our investigations results in permanent suppression of such lovely music.

[Mark Thomas]

Agreed, Terry, and we've started the process of trying to interest appropriate CD labels in discussing with the owners the prospect of taking over the rights to the Kaufmann Symphony recording in particular, though of course we've no control over whether that happens in the end.