Hans Franke (1882-1971)

[Mark Thomas]

Maybe they don't know until someone tells them definitively.

[eschiss1]

If we can identify the chamber works, (1), and the record label does not change them, (2), then Musicweb's reviewer may be interested in a - belated - update to their 2004 review of that disc. Maybe. Later than never. (And whatever label's taken over Signum's stock ...)

[eschiss1]

Is it ok if I comment in the comment section of the IMSLP page of the Wölfl, "reused" by Hans Franke in his "piano concerto in F major" or something like that or should we leave this discussion mostly here for now.

[Reverie]

Interesting they both have very similar moustaches and high foreheads

[Alan Howe]

That's uncanny. Franke must have been quite an operator (to use a photo of the young Kauffmann as himself).

[Wheesht]

Could not both photos be of Kauffmann?

[eschiss1]

There's also a Franke Gavotte in G? Op.810 for violin and piano on YouTube but I don't know if it's in-the-same-lines. (Likewise a question with the 1 or 2 chamber music CDs - at least one of which, of two trios and a piano quintet, is probably of more extended works..., again.)

[Alan Howe]

Could not both photos be of Kauffmann?

That's the implication, yes.

Is it ok if I comment in the comment section of the IMSLP page of the Wölfl, "reused" by Hans Franke in his "piano concerto in F major" or something like that or should we leave this discussion mostly here for now.

I don't see why not - now that the fact's been established.

[Alan Howe]

Maybe they don't know until someone tells them definitively.

I'm sure they must already know.

If the conductor now knows, has he not told them? (I'm assuming from what he has told us that he made the recording in good faith as a work by Franke and only subsequently found out the truth.)

[Ilja]

Left to right: Johannes van der Waals, Hendrik Lorentz and Pieter Blok. Three scientists working in the Netherlands around 1901. Never underestimate fashion and convention.

In short: I think we're making too much of the similarities in appearance.

[Alan Howe]

You may be right; on the other hand, we're dealing with deliberate deception here...

[Alan Howe]

The score that was made to me is a handwritten one with 4 entries from performances, 2 of which were in the Berlin Philharmonie (1941 + 1942) supposedly under Wilhelm Furtwängler.

Is there any way of finding out whether the Symphony in A minor was actually conducted as described above? Is there a historical record of Furtwängler's wartime concerts?

[Ilja]

This page shows no performances of a Franke symphony. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Furtwängler had been acquainted with Kauffmann's work to some extent.

That said, the Nazis were really desperate for performances of proper Aryan music at the time. The simultaneously hilarious, tragic and pathetic story of the search for a replacement to Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream bears witness to that.

[Alan Howe]

So, the Furtwängler connection is most probably a fiction.

By the way, here's a link to the Hans Franke website:
https://hans-franke.de/

I have just emailed them concerning the Symphony.

[Alan Howe]

It wouldn't surprise me at all if Furtwängler had been acquainted with Kauffmann's work to some extent.

On the other hand, if Kauffmann's works had been removed from libraries and/or been long out of print, the conductor might never have come across him.

For comparison purposes, is there any evidence that he conducted any of the more unfamiliar/second-tier (Austro-German) symphonies of the late nineteenth century? I certainly can't find any examples in the concert programmes to which Ilja kindly supplied a link.