How did I happen to choose César Franck’s Symphony in D Minor as my selection to listen to this week? Recently I purchased a book called “Composers, Their Lives and Works.” It is an attractive and enlightening 300-plus page book on the lives and achievements of 100-plus composers, chock-full of beautiful artwork, fascinating photographs, and more. The composers are discussed by time period: Before 1600; the 17th and 18th Centuries; Early 19th Century; Late 19th Century; Early 20th Century; and Late 20th and 21st Centuries. I glanced through the Table of Contents of the book and chose to listen to something by César Franck because I really know nothing about him. I ran a few Google-searches and discovered that he wrote one symphony late in his career, so I decided to listen to that. I also found a “Symphony Guide: Franck’s D Minor” at TheGuardian.com (HERE), and the writer posed the question, “When was the last time you heard César Franck's Symphony in D Minor on an orchestral programme?” I don’t believe that I ever have. Well, I’ve listened to the symphony now, and though it is certainly pleasant, I do think that this sort of symphony on an “orchestral programme” is the very type of symphony that would turn people off from classical music. I have attended symphonic concerts for many years because I love classical music, and I would be fine hearing Franck’s symphony on a program. However, I’ve taken my wife and various friends to enough concerts to know that they would not enjoy this piece. Most people really aren’t “into” listening for the compositional practices and forms of extended symphonic works. All too often my friends struggle to remain awake at concerts -- and why? They find works like this to be monotonous and boring.
They’re not interested in the exposition of a main theme, variations on that theme as the piece is developed, recapitulation, modulation, cyclic structures, and so on. They do love memorable melodies, interesting harmonies, original rhythms, haunting tonality, dramatic orchestration, or inventive ways that some works hold their interest. Franck’s symphony has little bits and pieces of some of this, but not enough to captivate new listeners if an orchestra is hoping to expand its audience. The writer for The Guardian laments, “The problem nowadays is that we can't, or don't, hear the implicit radicalism of Franck's symphony,” and then goes on to say that too many might regard the work as “the acme of late-19th century lugubriousness; a symphony that's worthily crafted and finely wrought, but expressively inert; the equivalent in sound of a mediocre lump of Gothic revival architecture” -- and therein lies the problem. The work is “expressively inert.” There is a catchy phrase that sounds familiar at about 7:08 in the video above on the right that’s repeated and developed now and again throughout the symphony. Have I heard this work before on the radio, and I just wasn’t paying close enough attention to know that it was Franck’s Symphony in D Minor? Was that phrase tapped for some media advertisement? Has this work been featured in some TV show or movie soundtrack? The Guardian’s writer concludes that Franck’s Symphony in D Minor is a work “I want to hear in the concert hall more often.” The symphony is pleasant enough, and I’d be fine were it to be scheduled on some future concert program; however, I don’t expect orchestras will be expanding their audiences if this is the case.
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A New Hope:As the header above says, each week I will listen to a piece of classical music that I've never heard before, and then I will report out what I thought about it. Archives
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