Franck, César

[antongould]

Caught the first half of today’s COTW driving home from our ramble and was impressed with the pieces played … shamefully I know little of his music and like S_A am not a fan of the symphony - now looking forward to the rest of the week ……

[Master Jacques]

It's interesting to read how much of Franck's "unfashionable" status seems to stem from one work - the Symphony. Yet elsewhere in his work (which I confess to loving) there is plenty to negate this perception of bombast and harmonic heaviness.

I personally wouldn't want to be without the Piano Quintet, the String Quartet, the organ works ... yet there is wondrous delicacy to offset all that dark tension in such varied works as the Violin Sonata, the beautiful sets of pieces for harmonium, and such epicurean orchestral feasts as Les Eolides and the extraordinary long tone poem with chorus, Psyche. None of these are touched by the bombast which over-emphatic performances of the Symphony can project.

If I were to recommend one batch of performances, I'd go for Jean Fournet's Prague recordings of five works (including Les Eolides and Psyche), which are available in a nice 3-CD box with his Czech Debussy and Falla's Three Dances from La vida breve (SU 4122-2). Those discs seem to slip into my CD player with insidious ease.

And has anyone who's ever heard the Prelude, Fugue et variation (in its harmonium and piano, or solo piano versions) managed to get that haunting tune out of their head? Not me, for sure!

[Serial_Apologist]

Caught the first half of today’s COTW driving home from our ramble and was impressed with the pieces played … shamefully I know little of his music and like S_A am not a fan of the symphony - now looking forward to the rest of the week ……

Apologies Anton for starting my own thread, not having seen your above post, as I was catching up with listening to Programme 1 of Franck as Composer of the Week.

[jayne lee wilson]

One of my favourite releases this year, lovely sequence, beautifully played and recorded......if you buy it GUILD will give a contribution to the Ukraine Disaster Emergency Appeal...



Cesar Franck Orchestral Works
Lviv National Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra

• Released on 03/06/2022 by Guild Music
• Main artist: Lviv National Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra
• GUILD CD

[smittims]

I think it was Jonathan Swain who likened the 'haunting tune' inthe 'Prelude , fugue and Variation' to a sixties French pop song. Imagine it sung by Francoise Hardy...