Franck At La Madeleine...

[Corno Dolce]

So fascinating finding a 1969 recording of a famous Franck organ work that got me hooked on Franck and the special sounds of a Cavaille-Coll organ:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z6yv...related&fmt=18

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og8r7...related&fmt=18

[acc]

Thanks for sharing this with us, CD!

I agree, the Chorale in B is the kind of work that can get you hooked. Together with the Prière, it's my favourite Franck work.

This recording, and others, can also be found at http://www.dovesong.com/MP3/MP3_Franck.asp.

[Corno Dolce]

Aloha acc,

Thanx for sharing that tidbit. Franck's Grand Piece Symphonique came next for me, followed by the Priere. Mlle. Demessieux, through recordings, was my guide. What better coach than she to tell a story? For she could tell a story alright.

Best regards,

CD

Ps: I was greeted by the message the *The Dovesong MP3 Library is no longer in service.*

[musicalis]

Thanks for this brilliant performance of the M.C. Alain.
Cavaillé-Coll are really great-organs.

[Corno Dolce]

Aloha J.P.

CC organs are the best sounding organs. Yes of course, they spoke into marvelous stone edifices without wall-to-wall carpeting and guastavino tiles on vertical surfaces or false ceilings with sound-absorbing panels and what not else...

[mathetes1963]

Only Franck recording one really needs, imho:
http://www.festivo.nl/en/cd.php?id=fecd155/156

[acc]

Only Franck recording one really needs, imho:
http://www.festivo.nl/en/cd.php?id=fecd155/156

Although I have the highest admiration for Jeanne Demessieux (both as a performer and as a composer), her Franck set, while very good, isn't among my favourites. Here are mine.

Susan Landale (if it's to be only one, it's hers): http://www.calliope.tm.fr/pages/cata...re.php?id=3123.
Louis Robilliard: http://www.festivo.nl/en/cd.php?id=6921702.
Torsten Laux: http://www.ohscatalog.org/torlauxplayf.html.

For the three Chorales, I'd also mention Stanislas Deriemaeker: http://www.akc-orgel.be/Sch1CD.htm.

[mathetes1963]

Although I have the highest admiration for Jeanne Demessieux (both as a performer and as a composer), her Franck set, while very good, isn't among my favourites. Here are mine.

Susan Landale (if it's to be only one, it's hers): http://www.calliope.tm.fr/pages/cata...re.php?id=3123.
Louis Robilliard: http://www.festivo.nl/en/cd.php?id=6921702.
Torsten Laux: http://www.ohscatalog.org/torlauxplayf.html.

For the three Chorales, I'd also mention Stanislas Deriemaeker: http://www.akc-orgel.be/Sch1CD.htm.

Hmm...
I know Robillard mainly by reputation, and Landale's Messiaen is quite good; have to claim near total ignorance about Messrs. Laux & Deriemaeker...
I'll have to czech thoze owt!

[dll927]

Franck seems to have been one of those composers more appreciated after he was gone than during his lifetime. Widor wasn't fond of Franck's music, calling it "largely improvisation".

One thing has to be said about Franck - once he started a piece, he had trouble stopping!! Of the famous dozen, the "Cantabile" is easily the shortest. I have one recording where some guy stretches the Chorale in E to 18 minutes.

I've long had a special place in my admiration for the B minor Chorale, which is sometimes called "almost a passacaglia". I could spend all day listening to the Fantaisie in A, and the Final in B-flat is a real romp, especially with that rather extended pedal pre-oration.

Franck seems to have been adept at playing with musical subjects. A case can made for saying that, in the "Grande Piece Symphonique" very little appears just once, and the ubiquitous "Piece Heroique" is a succession of repeated themes.

It's interesting how time can be a different arbiter of attitudes. Whereas Widor is known almost solely for his organ symphonies (which no less an authority than Marcel Dupre called 'suites of pieces'), Franck composed pieces in several genres than have stood the test of time.

[acc]

Widor wasn't fond of Franck's music, calling it "largely improvisation".

Interesting. I knew (from Vierne's “Souvenirs”) that Widor criticized Franck for his teaching being centered too much around improvisation, but I didn't know that he expressed similar feelings about Franck's music. Can you remember where you read about it?

[dll927]

It surely came out of one of the brochures that accompany my rather vast collection of organ CDs. But I'd be hard-put to cite just which one. Since both of them were profs at the same conservatory, they must have had to get along with each other reasonably well. But there seems to be a feeling that much of Franck's regard in the music world came after he was gone. And he was a generation older than Widor (1822 and 1844).

I've never quite understood exactly who Vincent d'Indy was, but he seems to have been something of a disciple of Franck's and an admirer of F.'s music.

[acc]

Actually, they weren't profs at the Conservatory at the same time, since Widor did not have any job there prior to the organ class, which he took over after Franck's death in 1890. So there was no danger of them running into each other in the corridors.

Indeed, Franck wasn't particularly popular for much of his lifetime, especially among his colleagues at the Conservatory, and in particular the director, Ambroise Thomas, who openly reviled Franck. In contrast, a number of his students loved him (though not all: Debussy, for one, didn't have particularly fond memories of Franck). Among them, Vincent d'Indy stood out as particularly vocal in "deifying" his master. D'Indy's Franck biography should be compulsory reading for all would-be biographers, on what not to do if you want to write objectively.