The Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg and its Music Director Gustavo Gimeno present a composer portrait of César Franck. The album features the famous Symphony in D Minor, as well as the lesser known, but equally enchanting Symphonic Variations for piano and orchestra, with Denis Kozhukhin as soloist. Born in Liege but raised in Paris, Franck synthesized Wagnerism with French musical traditions, resulting in a fine equilibrium between a voluptuous orchestral sound and audacious harmonies on the one hand, and lucidity and graceful charm on the other. While the three-movement symphony follows a from-darkness-to-light trajectory, the delightful Variations oscillate between symphonic poem and miniature piano concerto. The OPL and Gustavo Gimeno continue their acclaimed PENTATONE series of composer portraits that already featured monographs of Shostakovich, Bruckner, Ravel, Mahler, Stravinsky, Debussy and Rossini. Denis Kozhukhin adds another release to his extensive PENTATONE discography that already contains Grieg/Mendelssohn (2019), Strauss’s Burleske (2018), Piano Concertos by Ravel and Gershwin (2018), Tchaikovsky and Grieg (2016), as well as a Brahms solo recital (2017).

The D minor Symphony is a difficult work to bring off in performance. Its sprawling first movement contains a large restatement of material in slow tempo, and there are hard-to-gauge transitions in all three movements. The unfolding needs to have a sense of mystery about it, but also exert a real grip; the interpreter has to evoke a complex emotional scenario of dark and light, turbulence and confidence, introversion and extroversion, reverence and ecstasy – an utterly ambivalent mix. While a stodgy or insincere performance can make the work sound like mere exercise – and also make it easy for a listener to understand how Gounod could disparage the score – a committed one can make the sun shine.

Monteux was 85 at the time he made this recording of the symphony, and it is immediately clear from listening that his technique had deteriorated to the point that the Chicago players really had to be on their toes. The first movement’s opening pages are very deliberate, almost groping; the ensemble is not good in places, as though the beat were somewhat imprecise. But once the long buildup begins, remarkable things start to happen. One feels that a slumbering giant is coming to life. The Allegro takes off at a fierce clip – again the Chicagoans seem momentarily caught off guard – and from there on the performance simply cooks. Part of Monteux’s secret is the way he animates the accompanimental tremolos and ostinati that fill the score and can sound like so much wallpaper unless they are brought to life. The sound is remarkably fine except for some tape saturation in the loudest passages, where the treble gets grainy and the image loses some of its depth; in the soft and medium dynamics, the tone is exquisite. There is good presence and atmosphere on the remastered CD, and the coupling of the Munch accounts of works by D’Indy and Berlioz is excellent. – Ted Libbey, author of The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection.

Firkusny gives us a performance very much in the class of Artur Rubinstein... His Czech roots give him an enlivening sense of rhythm, allowing him to convey high spirits with impeccable poise and style.

Claus Peter Flor leads a sober, "Germanic" performance of Franck's symphony, noteworthy for its clarity of texture and sensitivity to dynamic nuance. This is evident at both ends of the dynamic spectrum, whether in the delicate tracery of the second movement's central section, or in the distinct audibility of the trumpets in their final lick just before the work's closing chords. I do miss the rhythmic lift that Monteux brings to the finale (it's not entirely free of Teutonic heaviness, but then that's Franck's fault too), and the Royal Philharmonic strings could have a sweeter timbre now and then, but this is a good performance, strong on basic musical values. The sonics are also well-balanced and pleasing.

The Symphonic Variations is even better, and valuable for enshrining yet another telling example of the artistry of Rudolf Firkusny, whose "Indian summer" recordings for RCA comprise his most important artistic legacy aside from his Janácek piano music discs on DG. For some reason, perhaps because of its brevity and lack of virtuoso fireworks, the Variations doesn't often feature on concert programs anymore, but the piece was a favorite of Artur Rubinstein, and Firkusny gives us a performance very much in that class. The variations proper, actually the central episode sandwiched in between the dramatic introduction and the fully developed finale, have just the right serenely graceful flow, while the conclusion is simply delightful. Clearly the pianist's Czech roots give him an enlivening sense of rhythm, allowing him to convey high spirits with impeccable poise and style.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Most of César Franck’s works received scant attention at the time of their composition and Hulda was never performed in his lifetime. The narrative is set in 14th-century Norway at the time of the great tribal kings, with marauding hordes spreading fear and terror throughout the land. Hulda is kidnapped and transferred from one tribe to the other, her family is killed and she herself is humiliated. However, Hulda’s spirit cannot be crushed, and she survives with revenge as her goal in life. Franck’s music portrays raging clans, bloodthirsty murderers and shattered lives, but also moments of exquisite tenderness in this acclaimed revival of a forgotten masterpiece that places the role of Hulda among the great tragic stage heroines.

Assistant Director of Music, John Challenger, releases his second album on the Cathedral’s Father Willis Organ. This album was recorded prior to the dismantling of Salisbury's famous instrument, which was built in 1876 and is currently undergoing major restoration. In this new recording, John plays organ works by the nineteenth-century composer and founder of the French Symphonic organ school, César Franck. The programme includes Franck’s Pièce Heroïque, the Prelude, Fugue and Variation, along with the gigantic Three Chorals for Organ, which Franck composed in 1890, immediately prior to his death. This is the first album to be released independently by Salisbury Cathedral.

This remarkable release reveals the full breadth and genius of a creative career known to most merely by the tip of the iceberg: a small number of seminal works written in the composer’s final decade of life. Cesar Franck (1822–1890), although considered one of the foremost 19th-century French composers, was not in fact French by birth, but Belgian. He only became a full French citizen in 1873 after he had been appointed organ professor at the Paris Conservatoire.

Franck's career can be divided into three distinct periods, each characterised by the production of very different types of music. From 1834 to 1846, under pressure from his father, he concertised as a piano virtuoso, and most of the works of this period were written with that purpose in mind. In the decade following his marriage in 1848 he composed virtually nothing but became celebrated as an organist, and he would bring the spacious dimensions of that instrument to his sound world in the years to come. His ‘middle period’ – from about 1858 to 1879 – was devoted to the production of works for organ, church music and a series of monumental choral pieces on religious or biblical subjects. In these three decades he wrote virtually nothing for the piano. From 1879 begins the decade of his late flowering in the great chamber and orchestral works, ushered in by his well-loved Piano Quintet and containing the pieces for which Franck is widely known. Spanning all three periods were opera and his small output of 18 mélodies.

Recordings date from 1976-2016.

Includes new liner notes on the music and composer by David Moncur.

Selected excerpts of reviews from some of the previously released volumes included in this set:

Franck: Melodies / Francesca Scaini, Mattia Ometto

Scaini’s vocalism, rich and full with a luscious yet powerful tone and outstanding vocal control. She has no “break” in registers, her voice has the same burnished bronze quality from her lowest to her highest notes, and her vibrato is light and rapid, making her timbre sound almost vibratoless. Her breath control is staggering, spinning out the longest lines as if in one breath, and her musicality unquestionably great (Scaini, the notes tell us, has also sung the modern music of Hespos, Ligeti, and Neurath in addition to the standard Italian operatic repertoire). If I have any complaint, it is that she is more of an operatic animal and less of a song stylist; it’s a bit like hearing Gilda Cruz-Romo sing Schubert Lieder. Pianist Ornetto, following her every mood and impulse, also accompanies along “big” lines. This may not really be the ideal style for Franck’s chansons , but as I say, you can’t fault her voice or phrasing.

– Fanfare

Franck: String Quartet, Piano Quintet / Rubackyté, Vilnius String Quartet

Joined by Mûza Rubackyté, one of the great pianists of our era, the Vilnius Quartet galvanized to bar-by-bar involvement and escalating drama lifting into superbly mastered ecstasy verging on hysteria.

– Fanfare

-----

CONTENTS:

• Franck, C: Le Chasseur maudit
Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra
Roberto Benzi

• Franck, C: Symphony in D minor
Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra
Roberto Benzi

• Franck, C: Symphonic Variations for piano & orchestra, M46
François-Joël Thiollier (piano)
Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra
Roberto Benzi

• Franck, C: Les Djinns, Op. 45
François-Joël Thiollier (piano)
Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra
Roberto Benzi

• Franck, C: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B minor, Op. 11
Martijn van den Hoek (piano)
Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra
Roberto Benzi

• Franck, C: Les Eolides - Symphonic Poem
Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra
Roberto Benzi

• Franck, C: Psyché
Sofia Symphony Orchestra
Vassil Kazandjiev

• Franck, C: String Quartet in D major
Vilnius String Quartet

• Franck, C: Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 14
Muza Rubackyte (piano)
Vilnius String Quartet

• Franck, C: Trio Concertant in F sharp minor, Op. 1, No. 1
members of the Academica Quartet

• Franck, C: Trio Concertant in B flat major, Op. 1, No. 2 'Trio de salon'
members of the Academica Quartet

• Franck, C: Duo Concertante
members of the Academica Quartet

• Franck, C: Andantino quietoso in E flat, Op. 6
members of the Academica Quartet

• Franck, C: Trio Concertant in B minor, Op. 1, No. 3
members of the Academica Quartet

• Franck, C: Trio Concertant in B minor, Op. 2 No. 4
members of the Academica Quartet

• Franck, C: Violin Sonata in A major
Mariana Sîrbu (violin), Ruxandra Colan (piano)

• Franck, C: Ballade, Op. 9
Julia Severus (piano)

• Franck, C: Transcriptions of Four Schubert Songs, Op. 8
Julia Severus (piano)

• Franck, C: Fantasy on Two Polish Folk Songs, Op. 15
Julia Severus (piano)

• Franck, C: Souvenirs of Aix-la-Chapelle, Op. 7
Julia Severus (piano)

• Franck, C: Grande Fantaisie sur des motifs de Gulistan de Dalayrac
Francesco Bertoldi (piano)

• Franck, C: Fantaisie No.2
Francesco Bertoldi (piano)

• Franck, C: Fantasy on Two Polish Folk Songs, Op. 15
Francesco Bertoldi (piano)

• Franck, C: Grande Fantaisie No.3
Francesco Bertoldi (piano)

• Franck, C: Prélude, Fugue et Variation Op. 18
Muza Rubackyte (piano)

• Franck, C: Prelude, Aria et Final M23 (1886 / 7)
Muza Rubackyte (piano)

• Franck, C: Prélude, Choral et Fugue, M21
Muza Rubackyte (piano)

• Franck, C: Fantaisie in C major, Op. 16
Adriano Falcioni (organ)

• Franck, C: Grande Pièce Symphonique in F sharp minor, Op. 17
Adriano Falcioni (organ)

• Franck, C: Prélude, Fugue et Variation Op. 18
Adriano Falcioni (organ)

• Franck, C: Pastorale, Op. 19
Adriano Falcioni (organ)

• Franck, C: Prière, Op. 20
Adriano Falcioni (organ)

• Franck, C: Final in B flat, Op. 21
Adriano Falcioni (organ)

• Franck, C: Trois pièces pour grand orgue, M. 35-37
Adriano Falcioni (organ)

• Franck, C: Trois Chorals pour grand orgue, M. 38-40
Adriano Falcioni (organ)

• Franck, C: Cinq Pièces pour Harmonium
Joris Verdin (harmonium)

• Franck, C: Prélude, Fugue et Variation Op. 18
Joris Verdin (harmonium), Jos van Immerseel (piano)

• Franck, C: Offertoire in A major
Joris Verdin (harmonium)

• Franck, C: Petit Offertoire
Joris Verdin (harmonium)

• Franck, C: Quasi Marcia Op. 22 pour Harmonium
Joris Verdin (harmonium)

• Franck, C: Petit Offertoire pour Harmonium
Joris Verdin (harmonium)

• Franck, C: Offertoire sur un noël breton
Joris Verdin (harmonium)

• Franck, C: Entree pour Harmonium
Joris Verdin (harmonium)

• Franck, C: Piece in E flat major
Joris Verdin (harmonium)

• Franck, C: L'Organiste
Joris Verdin (harmonium)

• Franck, C: Stradella
Isabel Kabatu (Léonor), Marc Laho (Stradella), Werner Van Mechelen (Spadoni), Philippe Rouilon (Duke of Pesaro), Xavier Rouilon (Pietro), Giovanni Iovino (Michael), Patrick Mignon (Beppo), Roger Joakim (An officer)
Chorus and Orchestra of the Opéra Royal de Wallonie
Paolo Arrivabeni

• Franck, C: Les Béatitudes, M53
Cornelia Kallisch (alto), Ingeborg Danz (mezzo-soprano), John Cheek (bass), Diana Montague (mezzo-soprano), Scot Weir (tenor), Reinhard Hagen (bass), Gilles Cachemaille (baritone), Keith Lewis (tenor), Juan Vasle (bass)
Gächinger Kantorei Stuttgart, Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR
Helmuth Rilling

• Franck, C: Redemption
Gé Neutel (soprano)
The Netherlands Radio Choir, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic
Jean Fournet

• Franck, C: Mass in A Major Op. 12
Mariann Bódi (soprano), Attila Wendler (tenor), István Rácz (bass)
Kodály Kórus Debrecen
Salamon Kamp

• Franck, C: Quae est ista
Kodály Kórus Debrecen
Salamon Kamp

• Franck, C: Dextera Domini
Kodály Kórus Debrecen
Salamon Kamp

• Franck, C: Sept Paroles du Christ sur la Croix
Mainzer Domorchester, Mainzer Domorchester
Karsten Storck

• Franck, C: Trois pièces pour grand orgue, M. 35-37
Daniel Beckmann (organ)

• Franck, C: Nocturne
Francesca Scaini (soprano), Mattia Ometto (piano)

• Franck, C: Ninon
Francesca Scaini (soprano), Mattia Ometto (piano)

• Franck, C: Le vase brisé
Francesca Scaini (soprano), Mattia Ometto (piano)

• Franck, C: Lied (Lucien Paté)
Francesca Scaini (soprano), Mattia Ometto (piano)

• Franck, C: Le mariage des roses
Francesca Scaini (soprano), Mattia Ometto (piano)

• Franck, C: Souvenance
Francesca Scaini (soprano), Mattia Ometto (piano)

• Franck, C: Robin Gray
Francesca Scaini (soprano), Mattia Ometto (piano)

• Franck, C: Passez
Francesca Scaini (soprano), Mattia Ometto (piano)

• Franck, C: Roses et papillons
Francesca Scaini (soprano), Mattia Ometto (piano)

• Franck, C: L’ange et l’enfant
Francesca Scaini (soprano), Mattia Ometto (piano)

• Franck, C: Les Cloches du soir
Francesca Scaini (soprano), Mattia Ometto (piano)

• Franck, C: L’émir de Bengador
Francesca Scaini (soprano), Mattia Ometto (piano)

• Franck, C: S’il est un charmant gazon
Francesca Scaini (soprano), Mattia Ometto (piano)

• Franck, C: A cette terre où l’on ploie sa tente
Francesca Scaini (soprano), Mattia Ometto (piano)

• Franck, C: Aimer
Francesca Scaini (soprano), Mattia Ometto (piano)

• Franck, C: La Procession
Francesca Scaini (soprano), Mattia Ometto (piano)

Abundant though it is, César Franck’s vocal music (operas, sacred music, oratorios, mélodies) does not occupy a prominent place in the current repertory. His instrumental compositions – headed by the Violin Sonata in A major and followed by the organ works – represent virtually all that today’s audiences and musicians know of his output. Yet the mélodies and vocal duets, neglected by performers and publishers alike, deserve to be plucked from oblivion, both for their own sake and for their place in the history of French music. The alluring voices of Tassis Christoyannis and Véronique Gens immerse the listener in the atmosphere of the nineteenth-century Parisian salons and the mélodies performed there. The composer and organist César Franck, famed for his instrumental music, proves himself equally skilled in setting poems by Musset, Hugo, Chateaubriand, Daudet and Dumas. This first complete recording of his works for voice and piano ranges over his entire creative life.

REVIEWS:

Of Franck’s overlooked works, probably none are more so than his mélodies (songs). Now, with this new release, Bru Zane provide what is described as the first complete recording of Franck’s works for voice and piano. This collection of 22 mélodies and 6 duos range throughout most of Franck’s compositional life, commencing in 1843 when he was just out of his teens with Robin Gray and Le Sylphe through to 1889 with Les Cloches du soir and La Procession written close to the end of his life. For his melodies, Franck elected to set French texts headed by Victor Hugo with six and also François-René de Chateaubriand, Alphonse Daudet, Alexandre Dumas, Joseph Méry and others.

Bru Zane has entrusted this Franck collection to Greek baritone Tassis Christoyannis and American pianist Jeff Cohen...Christoyannis shines throughout for his reliably warm and appealing tone coupled with the responsive accompaniment from Cohen.

In the set of 6 Duos Christoyannis is partnered by renowned French soprano Véronique Gens who also sings a single mélodie...Her voice remains in outstanding condition and dependably attractive, displaying a special gift for expression. Written in 1888 the 6 Duos, settings of text by five different writers, best evokes the atmosphere of the Parisian salon in the Belle Époque. Christoyannis [has] ease of delivery and Gens[,] engaging charm... 

Sound engineer Matteo Costa has achieved splendid clarity and balance between singers and piano. It’s hard to fault the presentation of Bru Zane releases and this album is no exception. In the accompanying booklet there are a pair of essays Another side to César Franck by Alexandre Dratwicki and The Songs and Duets of César Franck by Jean-Philippe Navarre. There is also detailed and helpful information given for each of the twenty-eight songs/duets together with several reproductions of artworks and documents of the period. The French texts provided with English translations alongside are invaluable.

Beautifully performed, recorded and presented, this album of the complete Songs and Duets of César Franck is an appealing addition to the catalogue.

--MusicWeb International (Michael Cookson)