Hans Franke (1882-1971)

[eschiss1]

will have to check. Fortunately a fairly complete Furtwängler repertory/concert program exists(ed?) at the Tahra site, so shouldn't be too hard. He premiered one of Ewald Straesser's symphonies, iirc, but, wrong century for your question... just as Berwald 2 (which he conducted in Stockholm October 17 1920) is the wrong area and time (1840s)... will keep looking. (Indeed, asking specifically if he conducted obscure symphonies from Austria or Germany from the late 19th century is going to take awhile to answer- I'll make sure their composers begin with the letter Q, too...)

Note that if the Liszt Faust symphony counts (and isn't too early)- certainly an appearance of it from a major conductor nowadays in concert is while not unheard of fairly rare- he programmed it about 10 times between 1913 and 1927.

[eschiss1]

Also, not a symphony and neither German nor Austrian, true, but he programmed "H. Götz"'s - Hermann Goetz's? - piano concerto in Berlin in January 1938 with Eduard Erdmann at the piano. His repertoire was, in any event, wide-ranging by most standards.

[Alan Howe]

Liszt's Faust Symphony is a major work by a major composer. I'm thinking of symphonies by, say, Bruch, Gernsheim, Reinecke, Fuchs, Herzogenberg, etc.

FWIW, my hunch is that these composers were all regarded as passé and not worth bothering with.

Concertos, of course, may well have been the choice of the soloists involved.

[eschiss1]

And he was probably, on the evidence, more interested in promoting living composers like Sekles, Braunfels, Hausegger, and others, yes. (Fuchs was also still alive, it's true.) (Reznicek's Tanz-Sinfonie -does- feature in the concerts of 24-25 November 1929, but you didn't mention Reznicek.)

[Alan Howe]

Agreed. Other examples are Pfitzner and Hessenberg.

[John Boyer]

Who is the perpetrator here?  Was Hans Franke a phony who somehow imagined that performing ensembles in the age of serialism would be interested in music that sounded as if it were written in 1820?  Or are the people promoting Franke the ones who are the authors of the hoax, using a long dead but wholly innocent person as the front for their scheme?  And to what end?

[eschiss1]

Fair enough. Furtwängler never performed Franke's music anyway (Franck, otoh!...)

[eschiss1]

"In the age of serialism" (or cashew, or whatever, none of these nomenclatures fit the facts) there has already been more and more diverse music to be had than in previous centuries, but have it your way

[Alan Howe]

The Hans Franke Stiftung must have the answers - hence my email to them...

[eschiss1]

The Wölfl concerto is op.32, I goofed, not op.29 (but otherwise it's still the same piece, apparently.) (see RISM, or the description of the cpo recording recorded in 2016 and reviewed by Musicweb 2 years ago, or... etc. It's impressive that Franke had access to the work, I guess, for all that it had been published in London sometime around 1806 and by André in 1808 or so (and between 1818 and 2020, not sure if it was published at all?) Then again, the Austrian National Library had copies of the early B&Härtel publication and others, so if he was visiting that or other libraries looking for interesting music to be inspired by , it might have crossed his attention. (The moreso if, contrafactually, they had open-stack policies like my university did, which was one reason I was in the Firestone Library basement skimming scores of people I'd never heard of instead of doing my math major homework. Don't have open stack policies, kid libraries.)

[eschiss1]

(also briefly re the Woelfl, there's a whole page about it here of some interest.)

[cypressdome]

Interestingly, https://hans-franke.de/ claims he attended the Leipzig Conservatory but the Das Königliche Konservatorium der Musik zu Leipzig 1893-1918 which lists all the students who attended during those years does not list a Hans Franke. His bio claims he studied piano and composition under Carl Reinecke. Reinecke retired from the Conservatory in 1902 so Franke's attendance at the conservatory would have to have fallen within the period the book covers.

[terry martyn]

Has anyone from here messaged our colleague Oliver T yet?   

[Alan Howe]

I have a strong feeling that much of Franke's 'back story' will prove to be fictitious. I wonder whether he actually wrote anything at all...?

[Gareth Vaughan]

I was thinking much the same thing, Alan. He certainly seems to have been something of a charlatan.