Hans Franke (1882-1971)

[Alan Howe]

If there's any stealing involved in this whole sorry saga, I think we all know who the perpetrator really was. At this stage, unless proven otherwise, we should simply assume that Vogt & Fritz have been victims of the fraud. They cannot possibly claim ownership of any of the music proven to have been written by, for example, Woelfl, Hill or Kauffmann as we have clear documentary evidence to the contrary, both in terms of recordings and original scores.

[terry martyn]

Quite so,Alan.   

[Alan Howe]

What Vogt & Fritz should do, of course, is halt all sales of scores and CDs of music purportedly by Franke pending a thorough investigation into the facts of the case.

[Ilja]

By the way, I've spent some time today going through the Edition Silvertrust website in search of the D minor Trio and the F# minor Piano Quartet, and drawn a blank. So it's either even more obscure than we think (but something about the Trio sounds familiar to me, as it does to Mark) or Franke changed things around for a bit. However, the pattern sofar indicates that he was unwilling (or unable?) to change much apart from swapping some movements around, so my hunch is that he probably changed very little in the works he plagiarized.

By the way, has anyone been able to check on the possible Boehe link?

[Alan Howe]

Do we really have sufficient evidence from Franke's score to be able check out the Boehe link?

[Alan Howe]

By the way, the CD of the Symphony & Piano Concerto is still on sale from the publisher:
https://vogtundfritzsound.de/musikcd/klassik/hans-franke/

Buy one while you still can...

[John Boyer]

There's one thing that bothers me about Christian Hammer's response:  "In fact, it is not news that Hans Franke drew on the work of other composers."

He writes this as if concerns of plagiarism were already known and widely discussed -- this, about a hitherto unknown composer, recently discovered, whose works have not been widely discussed.  The very existence of Hans Franke and his alleged body of work was news, never mind the possibility of plagiarism.  Consider the following exchange:

--
John: I have discovered a hitherto unknown manuscript by equally unknown contemporary of Goethe and have posted it to my website. 

Paul: I just finished reviewing your post and have noticed troubling anachronisms in chapters 2 and 3.

John: The question of authenticity in those chapters is hardly news.  It's well documented. 
--

Hmmm...
 

[Alan Howe]

Yes, I'd forgotten about that. It's not hard to imagine someone identifying the Piano Concerto as being by Woelfl and the Piano Trio in D as being by Wilhelm Hill, but the Kauffmann Symphony had never been recorded. It sounds as though someone must have raised a red flag at some point, but in respect of which of Franke's claimed compositions is not clear.

Ilja told us that Christian Hammer also said this:
<<There was probably a similar case years before the CD recording with the Anhaltische Philharmonie Dessau under Golo Berg, who were also supposed to record a symphony by Hans Franke. It just came out beforehand that it was in no way a composition by him.>>

I wonder whether an email to conductor Golo Berg would reveal which (fake) symphony by Franke was presented to him for recording and who it was actually by?

[Alan Howe]

I have just finished emailing Golo Berg.

[terry martyn]

Yes,that needed to be followed up. The answer could be pretty illuminating, especially if it turned out to be that "Forest" Symphony.

Another loose end is the true composer of the String Quartet  No 4 in E minor op 780, which was on that third CD funded by the Franke Foundation.

[Alan Howe]

No reply yet. I'll keep you informed.

[eschiss1]

And the use of the expression "drew on" reminds me of the very funny line, in a book review in the American magazine "The Nation" some decades back, that [it's like saying] (details slightly changed, I don't have the article in front of me anymore) 'there was an hommage at 15th and 4th last night.'

[Alan Howe]

We don't know what conductor Christian Hammer actually said - Ilja kindly translated it for us as 'drew on'.

[eschiss1]

Ah, sorry!

[Alan Howe]

I'm sure he'll enlighten us. I'm equally sure that, whether in German or English, it's a euphemism for 'copied'!