Early orchestral music by César Franck

[Alan Howe]

I wonder if anyone else has spotted this forthcoming release...
http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Fuga%2BLibera/FUG596

[Mark Thomas]

How interesting. I do hope that the recording is also available for digital download as the last thing that I want is yet another recording if Franck's chocolate brown Symphony.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Well, I might be tempted to buy this because (believe it, or not) I do not possess a copy of Franck's Symphony!

[Mark Thomas]

You can have one of mine, Gareth, most of which have been played but once...

[Alan Howe]

I've pre-ordered the CD, so I'll be keeping friends informed of the quality of its contents in due course...

[Peter1953]

Slightly off-topic, but some time ago I bought the 5 CD box Musique pour piano, mainly because I was very curious to hear the 2nd PC op. 11. Just unbelievable. At first hearing I was thinking of an undiscovered Hummel. No, it wasn't. Moscheles perhaps? No, this showpiece was composed by the 13 year old César. Really amazing.

[JimL]

I'd really like to find out what happened to the first concerto, composed when he was 11!

[FBerwald]

Never published or lost!!!!

[Mark Thomas]

Well, in the end I still had to buy yet another unwanted copy of Franck's wretched Symphony in order to get my hands on what I really wanted: the 1846 Symphonic Poem Ce qu'on entende sur la montagne, which was downloadable only with the full album! I'm pleased that I did, though, because the Symphonic Poem is a really impressive piece of work from the 24 year old composer. Lasting 24 minutes it is full of grandeur and conceived on a monumental scale which, inevitably I suppose, brings to mind Liszt's work of the same name from just a couple of years later. Actually, the sound world is quite Lisztian too and Franck's orchestration is as colourfully effective as the much later Le Chausseur Maudit, for example. A really enjoyable listen. The ballet from his late opera Hulda, which rounds out the CD, is a bit heavy footed I thought, and I don't lay that at the door of conductor Christian Arming, as his performance of Ce qu'on entende is full of light.

[mbhaub]

Well, in the end I still had to buy yet another unwanted copy of Franck's wretched Symphony....

Judging from more than a few similar comments, I know I am in the distinct minority in regards to the Franck symphony. I love the work and have ever since I was given a copy (Monteux/Chicago) when I was 13 or so. The symphony is bursting with melody, it's got plenty of drama, the orchestration is superb, colorful, and inventive. The three movement design - Bax, among others, sure learned that lesson. The coda of the last movement brings the symphony to a satisfying close that the likes of Draeseke, Raff, Rubinstein, Spohr, Gernsheim, and other composers beloved by readers on this site were never able to achieve. For many decades it was well enough thought of that virtually every conductor of repute recorded it. I still own Bernstein, Karajan, Ormandy, Barbirolli, Maazel, Chailly, Paray, Monteux, Fistoulari, Ansermet, Toscanini,  Furtwangler, Dutoit, Giulini, Cluytens, Beecham and Boult. If musicians of this calibre take up the symphony, doesn't that say something? Maybe there is something about this symphony that IS worth our time? So...what is it about this chestnut that you don't like? What makes it so bad?

[Mark Thomas]

I don't really want to get diverted on to the Symphony, Martin, but since you ask:

virtually every conductor of repute recorded it

That's my problem. It's the piece's very ubiquity when I was in my late teens and twenties which counts against it now, as far as I am concerned. I'm not actually disagreeing with anything which you say in support of the piece, although I don't find the orchestration "colourful". I always think of it as a muddy brown colour. But that aside I'll hold my hands up and say that my dislike is pure prejudice which I won't defend but am comfortable with. I used to enjoy the work but then heard it so often that I got fed up with it and it has never regained favour with me.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Splendid! I'm glad to see you sticking up for the "wretched symphony" for I think it is rather a fine thing. At an age when I had just left my short trousers behind me I attended a concert in about 1964 (in Wolverhampton Civic Hall no less!) when Adrian Boult conducted it. That was my second comcert, and a few weeks after the first (Hugo Rignold with the CBSO in an all Beethoven programme). A good start to a concert going life, and I've treasured the Franck symphony ever since. Ahem, methinks Mark has got a pair of ill-fitting shoes and they're pinching the toes and causing a jaundiced outlook on life!

[Mark Thomas]

Oh no, Peter, I'm positively Pollyanna-ish when it comes to life generally, but I'll admit that Franck's Symphony does get my scowling muscles twitching!

[Alan Howe]

We all have our blind spots, I suppose - and I'll deliberately fail to respond to the distinctly tendentious notion that the ending of Franck's Symphony is superior to anything of the sort written by the unsung composers mentioned in a previous post, even though I actually hold the piece in the highest regard. 
But Mark's right: the point of acquiring this CD is not the decidedly sung Symphony in D minor, but the pretty well completely unsung and very arresting early (1846) symphonic poem Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne. This is very Lisztian in sound, although it surely precedes the latter's contributions to the genre, and is, I would have thought, pretty radical for its date. It's a real find - certainly one of the most important of the year for me.
So, no more discussion of the wretched/great Symphony, please. The symphonic poem's the thing here.

[TerraEpon]

I like the symphony too, perhaps because it was frequently used in The Smurfs...

Well, in the end I still had to buy yet another unwanted copy of Franck's wretched Symphony in order to get my hands on what I really wanted: the 1846 Symphonic Poem Ce qu'on entende sur la montagne, which was downloadable only with the full album!

I for one would forgo buying over buying something I don't want, especially because there's no reason they need to force you to buy the whole thing outside of "well this is the album!" mentality which completely seems silly when discussing individual classical pieces.