Hans Franke (1882-1971)

[Alan Howe]

Question: is there actually any hard evidence (apart from recordings) of concert, i.e. public performances of works ostensibly by Franke?

This is the list of projects promoted by the Hans Franke Foundation:

CD-Produktion des Ensemble Tedesco
Polyarte-Festival Schweinfurt 2015
Konzerte des Duo concertant (Klarinette und Klavier)
Konzerte des Ensemble Tedesco (Streichquartett) in Norddeutschland
Konzerte des K.u.K. Klavierquartetts in Süddeutschland
Konzerte des Hofstall-Bläserquartetts Würzburg
Konzerte von Barbara Hesse-Bachmeier (Sopran) und Stanislav Rosenberg (Klavier)
Polyarte-Festival München 2010
Hans-Franke-Kammermusikwettbewerb
CD-Produktion der Südböhmischen Kammerphilharmonie Budweis
CD-Produktion mit dem Brandenburgischen Staatsorchester Frankfurt
https://hans-franke.de/hans-franke-stiftung/foerderbeispiele/

Trouble is, we've no idea what was performed at the events held in public.

[Alan Howe]

Here is a photo and description of a presentation made to Franke's daughter on the occasion of the founding of the Hans Franke Stiftung on 4th December 2006:
https://www.mainpost.de/regional/schweinfurt/art-3812609

Note the presence of Elke Tobler-Vogt and Gerhard Vogt.

[Alan Howe]

I've now received this reply from conductor Golo Berg (in English):

It was like this: Because it fit into our theme of "hunting", we played the finale "Der Jäger und die Jagd" from the 5th Symphony in E major op. 785 "Deutscher Wald" by Hans Franke in Dessau in September 2006. At that time there was a printed catalog of his works from 1996. There was also an exchange of letters with a Prof. Günter Klaus from Oberursel, probably an acquaintance of Franke's daughter Ms. Prokop, and then correspondence with the Vogt publishing house.

However, I was able to identify the music as a plagiarism of the overture to "Der Widerspenstigen Zähmung" by Joseph Rheinberger.

I would be happy if you would keep me updated!

[Alan Howe]

How unfortunate! The piece identified by Golo Berg as being by Rheinberger was recorded on a Signum CD by the Frankfurt (Oder) orchestra back in January 1994 - release date 1995.

It seems that the revival - at least in recordings - of the forgotten music of the Romantic period has turned out to be the undoing of whoever is/was responsible for this dreadful deception.

[Wheesht]

Question: is there actually any hard evidence (apart from recordings) of concert, i.e. public performances of works ostensibly by Franke?

Konzerte des K.u.K. Klavierquartetts in Süddeutschland

Trouble is, we've no idea what was performed at the events held in public.

According to 'Leporello', the cultural magazine for Würzburg, Mainfranken and Babmberg, the K.u.K. Klavierquartett performed Franke's Piano Quintet (1942) at Schloss Werneck on 8 May 2011, see here, page 16.

[John Boyer]

Ernest Pool: His Family

Margaret Wilson: The Able McLaughlins

Louis Bromfield: Early Autumn

Julia Peterkin: Scarlet Sister Mary

Oliver Lafarge: Laughing Boy

Margaret Barnes: Years of Grace

Carol Miller: Lamb in His Bosom

Harold L Davis: Honey in the Horn
--

What is this list of books above? Has anyone ever heard of these authors or their works? This is a select list of American novels published in the 20 year period from 1918 to 1938. Not only that, each one was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, yet I'll bet no one has heard of them or their authors.

It occurs to me how easy it is to perpetrate a fraud like the Franke one. Most works of art disappear in time, even those that were critically celebrated in their day like the ones that I listed above. What is to stop someone from copying out Ernest Pool's "His Family" and then submitting it to a publisher as a new work?  Who at Random House, even a well read person, would recognize it?  Until recently, this would've been quite easy to do and might have gone undetected. Only the recent massive digitization of books would now make it fairly easy to unmask. And again, I've limited my list only to the celebrated books of their day, never mind all the reasonably good ones that got reasonably good reviews but disappeared even more quickly than these.

I wonder if there are more Joyce Hattos and Hans Frankes out there than we imagine.

[Wheesht]

That's a good point. Bromfield is the only name I recognise here (without ever having read anything by him). Yes, there may well be more instances of fraud than we'd like to think.
In German, there is the term 'Nihilartikel' which was (is?) used by compilers of reference works to reveal copyright infringements. See this entry in World Wide Words.

[terry martyn]

I am a bit perplexed by the chronology  .It seems that this plagiarised movement was actually performed in September 2006.  That picture of the establishment of the Franke Foundation dates from December 2006.  The Kauffmann/Woelfl works were recorded in 2007 and released sometime in 2008, probably lateish,as the Classical Music Guide reviewer doesn't mention the release.

Where.in all this,is the date of the discovery of the plagiarism by Berg, and how does all this reconcile with the words of Christoph Hammer about it being "no news" and reconcile, indeed, with his actions in conducting those works?

[Alan Howe]

In short, I don't know. Maybe Christian Hammer had already made his recording before hearing about Golo Berg's experience of plagiarism.

[terry martyn]

However, one thing we now know for sure.  At least part of Franke's "Forest" Symphony was a plagiarism

[Alan Howe]

I don't think the remainder of the symphony existed at all. After all, the supposed finale was merely a stand-alone overture.

By far the most obscure music plagiarised turns out to have been by far the most distinguished, i.e. Kauffmann's Symphony. So far, that is.

[terry martyn]

The score presumably survives intact.  Maybe Franke did a kind of Frankenstein job on the symphony.

[Alan Howe]

We don't know that. In fact, we shouldn't presume anything. We only have evidence of the one 'movement'.

[terry martyn]

I was referring to Eric's post on this thread, no 80, Alan, which seems to bring up availability of the score

[Gareth Vaughan]

Well none of Franke's orchestral music is listed as available in score on the publisher's website now.