Hans Franke (1882-1971)

[eschiss1]

1: Or as long as 2004 that Musicweb posted a (edit: rather negative, but innocent) review of the piano quintet and piano trios disc.

2: Unless Furtwängler's performance history for those years as set down, thanks to the TAHRA organization iirc, at furtwangler.fr for example is incomplete, agreed. It's possible there are known blank spots in the performance record but that would itself almost certainly be a well-known fact and worth looking up. I suspect not, mind?

[eschiss1]

Anyone mind if I put a comment in the discussion section of either the German or Catalan Wikipedia page of Hans Franke about this matter, as it relates to the composer's output? Or should I hold off?

(In English, I fear, but.)

[eschiss1]

There's already a comment in the discussion section that goes "When you listen to Hans Franke's Piano Concerto in F Major, you can't believe - perhaps with the exception of the humorous final movement - that this is a work of the 20th century."

Edit: is Wölfl's finale unusually playful, even premonitorily modern, or did Franke edit it?

[eschiss1]

from earlier in the thread: "for some reason Hill's trios don't show up when one searches IMSLP".

If you're searching for a trio for piano, violin, and cello in D major-

Category:Trios starting with the supercategory trios -

then "restrict to" violin, cello and piano -

then "show pages" for works in "D major" - there are 70 trios in D for piano, violin and cello on the site - the Hill no.1 is no.15 under "P" (for piano, not Hill). (Between the trio op.10 (published 1865) of Louis Lee (1819-96) and the trio op.2 by Aurora.borealis , a trio by a living composer.)

[terry martyn]

Eric has reminded me that the Signum recording of the Piano Trio etc was back around 2004, if not slightly earlier, ie whilst Franke's daughter was still alive. Mistakenly,I thought that it was one of the three CDs funded by the Franke Foundation.

Which means that one of the three was the Kauffmann/Woelfl, another one contained the String Quartet No 4, but the third contained works performed by the South Bohemian Chamber Orchestra. I haven't researched what works were on that  disc, but I believe it was issued before the Symphony was recorded.

Four CDs ,it seems in total, not three

[Mark Thomas]

There is such a stark contrast in quality between the two piano trios on the chamber music CD (one of which is by Hill) and the terminally vapid Piano Quintet No.3, that one does wonder whether the latter might a genuine work by Franke; "Written in an air raid shelter" maybe gives it an air of authenticity? Clearly someone (maybe him, perhaps his daughter, the custodian of his legacy), wanting to enhance his reputation, started down the path of passing off obscure or forgotten works of much higher quality than Franke himself could create to bolster his posthumous reputation but maybe couldn't resist including a genuine work or two of his amongst the published/recorded ones?

I wouldn't be too quick to condemn the publishers. We know only too well here how ignorant so many music "professionals" are of the huge legacy of nowadays unknown romantic 19th century music and also how the prospect of financial sponsorship can make recordings and score publication happen.

[Ilja]

I would check on the common factors between the publishers and the Hans Franke Foundation,Alan.

The contact given on the Hans-Franke.de website is Elke Tober-Vogt, who is also the "Vogt" in Vogt & Fritz. So there's a fair bit of overlap there.

But at the risk of sounding repetitive, I have to emphasize that we have simply too little information at this point to make a convincing accusation against anyone - or to proclaim anyone's innocence, for that matter. Hopefully a perusal through the catalogue and some reactions from the performers involved will give us more to go on.

[Alan Howe]

The initial reply I received was from Elke Tober-Vogt. No follow-up response as yet...

[terry martyn]

Small (or Little)Suite for String Orchestra (op. 863) on that South Bohemian Chamber Orchestra CD.   Now the only "Little Suite" I know is the  Carl Nielsen....

[Ilja]

Small (or Little)Suite for String Orchestra (op. 863) on that South Bohemian Chamber Orchestra CD.  Now the only "Little Suite" I know is the  Carl Nielsen....

And of course the Petite Suites by Debussy and Roger-Ducasse, Dubois' Suite Miniature, and Volkmar Andreae's Kleine Suite.

[eschiss1]

IMSLP has several Little suites for strings from the right timeframe, including an interesting-looking Kleine suite, Op.38 published by Lienau in 1884 by Kassmayer... any details on Franke's?... (Kassmayer's is in 3 movements, Allegro, Andantino, Praeludium und Fuge (Allegro).)

[eschiss1]

(Ah ok, from the seller's page, the Franke has 3 tracks: Allegro appassionato, Andante sostenuto, Presto giocoso, with sound samples. And I remember looking at the perusal score of this work at Edition49, now I think of it.)

[eschiss1]

also, (sorry) I wonder if the work was originally titled something else like Serenade (or ... or ...) and retitled Suite by - Franke or whoever repurposed it when it was published in the 21st century ... the opening at least sounds like something familiar from an Idyll or Serenade or something, CDC CCC CDC CCC

[cypressdome]

Small (or Little)Suite for String Orchestra (op. 863) on that South Bohemian Chamber Orchestra CD.  Now the only "Little Suite" I know is the  Carl Nielsen....

My post (#95) in this thread had a link to the publisher's website and noted that several of Franke's scores are available there as perusal pdfs including Kleine Suite für Streichorchester Op.863.

[Alan Howe]

This is the link to the scores:
https://www.edition49shop.de/verlage/vogt-fritz/?p=1&o=1&n=12&f=6752

And follow this link to the Kleine Suite:
https://www.edition49.de/pdf/vf/VF_1520_Probepartitur.pdf