Prom 51: Lalo, Brahms and Franck (25.08.22)

[richardfinegold]

Perhaps the "rarely heard" referred to a relative lack of audience members in attendance at such fixtures.

I remember the Franck being pretty ubiquitous fare 40 or so years ago and having to miss a concert featuring it for some reason and probably consoling myself with the notion that there would be many other opportunities. It hasn’t quite worked out that way

[smittims]

What an irony that there is now a cycle-lane next to where Chausson was killed.

His 'Symphonie' and 'Concert' are favourites of mine. What passion, and expressed with such nobility of gesture.

Favourite recordings: Munch, or Monteux, for the Symphonie and Thibaud/Cortot for the 'Concert'.

[Maclintick]

I remember the Franck being pretty ubiquitous fare 40 or so years ago and having to miss a concert featuring it for some reason and probably consoling myself with the notion that there would be many other opportunities. It hasn’t quite worked out that way

I wonder when the Franck D minor was last programmed in one of the London concert halls ? To broaden the question, I'm intrigued by the way once-popular works slip out of the repertory and re-emerge later. For instance, the Saint-Saëns piano concertos are now making a comeback after decades of relative under-exposure, & the Strauss tone poems seem now to feature more frequently than they did in the nineties and noughties, at least here in the UK.

[Barbirollians]

I think Nezet-Seguin programmed it a couple of years back . I cannot remember seeing it on the programmes of concerts in Manchester or Sheffield ever in the last 20 years.

[jonfan]

I think Nezet-Seguin programmed it a couple of years back . I cannot remember seeing it on the programmes of concerts in Manchester or Sheffield ever in the last 20 years.

Well you would have heard it at least twice in the last twenty years by Leeds Symphony Orchestra as well as the
Chausson and the whole opera Le roi dY’s. Our late conductor was a keen Francophile so some Berlioz was included each season. Martin Binks was conductor for 50 years, a UK record.

[gurnemanz]

Recently checking a concert we attended at the Gewandhaus in the 70s I discovered they have a concert archive going back to 1781!

https://www.gewandhausorchester.de/en/archive/search/

I should think not many orchestras could match this. Out of curiosity I searched for Franck's Symphony: Performed in total 32 times. This can be roughly halved to allow for repeats of the same concert. First performed under Artur Nikisch in 1900, it seems not to have caught on, not being revived until 1940, but being performed in every decade since, most recently in 2019.

I suspect the Gewandhaus might not be untypical in its programming.

[hmvman]

I wonder if it's a generational thing. A friend of mine, who was older than me, born in the early '30s, loved the Franck symphony and urged me to listen to it many years ago. It never really gelled with me at that time so I was keen to listen to this proms performance to see if my view has changed. Sadly, it hasn't really. It's not that I dislike it, it was a pleasant enough listen, but it just doesn't excite me at all!

[bluestateprommer]

This NYT article by David Allen (not cited at least so far in this thread, AFAICT) delves into the "What happened to it?" question of CF's Symphony in d:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/arts/music/cesar-franck-symphony.html

In years past, when I heard the opening theme of the finale, I sometimes mistook it for Aaron Copland. (Make of that what you will.)

In this Prom, Fabien G.'s reading was solid and OK, if not a world-beater, for me. I sensed an element of dogged struggle in Daniel L.'s performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto, but ultimately he did pull it off, again in an OK manner. This was in marked contrast to his tossing off of the encore without sounding as though he was breaking a sweat, so to speak (in contrast to the Brahms). Fine, if perhaps a bit brash, opener with the Lalo.

[smittims]

Peter Warlock wrote a send-up of the opening theme of the finale of the Franck Symphonie, in rag-time (notes-inegales, and an offset bass). Imagine it played on a slightly out-of-tune upright. It's one of a number of passages that seem to reach across genres. Another is the opening section of Franck's Prelude, fugue et variation : I think it was Jonathan Swain who said it could almost be a sixties French pop song ; imagine Francoise Hardy singing it :

'Un jour d'amour
Je pense que c'est
Un jour d'amour... ' (etc.)

[Pulcinella]

This performance of the Franck symphony appears on the cover CD of the December 2022 issue of BBC MM that's just arrived, coupled with Le chasseur maudit in a 1994 Brangwyn Hall performance.

[Bryn]

This performance of the Franck symphony appears on the cover CD of the December 2022 issue of BBC MM that's just arrived, coupled with Le chasseur maudit in a 1994 Brangwyn Hall performance.

Lucky you. I'm still waiting for mine to arrive.