The NYT has an extended article exploring something I have wondered...

[url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/arts/music/cesar-franck-symphony.html?smid=url-share]

What Happened to One of Classical Music’s Most Popular Pieces?

César Franck’s only symphony was a pillar of the repertory for decades. But it’s now a rarity.

...Quiet, sincere and more famous in his lifetime as an organist and teacher than as a composer, Franck celebrates the bicentenary of his birth this year. But it’s unlikely that American orchestras will bring to the celebration the fervor with which they once performed his sole symphony. In one of the stranger stories in the history of the canon, the work — which from the 1920s until the ’60s was such a hit that the New York Philharmonic thought it a solid bet to fill Lewisohn Stadium on a hot summer’s night — is now all but absent from concert halls.

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“There is a lot of music that at one time was very popular and then disappeared,” the conductor Riccardo Muti said in an interview. Muti recorded the Franck with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1981 and was the last person to lead it at Carnegie Hall, with his Chicago Symphony Orchestra, in 2012.

“But in the case of this symphony,” Muti went on, “I don’t understand.”

In high school I only knew of it because my dad had an "album" of it on 78s that you listened to it in 6 minute chunks over eight sides. But it must have been popular, since he would normally buy only religiously-connected music.

I've played it a few time here. I agree with Muti - a good piece that should show up a bit more frequently. There's a great recording with the Chicago Symphony (Martinon conducting?).

Jim Scott

I also lament the absence of this work from public performance. It was the first "major" composition I encountered when I joined an orchestra as a teenager (in this work's heyday) - nice trombone parts - and I've liked it ever since.

Interesting to compare the surges in this piece's popularity with various orchestras and their conductors (who may have been responsible for its programming):

• New York Philharmonic (Arturo Toscanini)

• Boston Symphony (Charles Munch, Pierre Monteux)

• Chicago Symphony (Jean Martinon)

I think the San Francisco Symphony performed it frequently when Pierre Monteux was there. :idk:

I think it might be more popular with community orchestras than with pro groups lately. I've done it several times, but only with community and academic groups.

The article mentions that the Franck Symphony finished #1 on an audience survey in the 1920s, dethroning the previously perrenial favorite, Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" Symphony.

I'd be curious to know what the other contenders were back then.

For comparison, here is a modern survey by classical station WRR in Dallas.

2022 Classical Countdown

Rank – Composer/Title (Previous Year’s Rank)

1 Handel: Messiah (1)

2 Hitt: Yellowstone for Violin and Orchestra (new to countdown)

3 Beethoven: Symphony #9 in d minor “Choral” (2)

4 Dvorak: Symphony #9 in e minor “From the New World” (6)

5 Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue (4)

6 Vivaldi: The Four Seasons (3)

7 Holst: The Planets (9)

8 Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto #2 in c minor (13)

9 Beethoven: Symphony #5 in c minor (8)

10 Copland: Appalachian Spring (5)

11 Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture (7)

12 Barber: Adagio for Strings (11)

13 Debussy: Clair de Lune (17)

14 Bach, J.S.: Brandenburg Concertos (10)

15 Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade (15)

16 Mozart: Requiem (23)

17 Sibelius: Finlandia (31)

18 Beethoven: Symphony #6 in F “Pastoral” (20)

19 Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (29)

20 Vaughan-Williams: The Lark Ascending (24)

21 Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition (21)

22 Pachelbel: Canon in D (19)

23 Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Suite (18)

24 Vaughan-Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (14)

25 Beethoven: Piano Concerto #5 in E flat “Emperor” (12)

26 Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man (25)

27 Beethoven: Symphony #7 in A (16)

28 Ravel: Bolero (30)

29 Williams, John: Theme from Schindler’s List (37)

30 Mozart: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (39)

31 Bach, J.S.: Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring (40)

32 Smetana: The Moldau (22)

33 Orff: Carmina Burana (28)

34 Bach, J.S.: Toccata and Fugue in d minor (42)

35 Bach, J.S.: Sheep May Safely Graze (32)

36 Saint-Saens: Symphony #3 “Organ Symphony” (47)

37 Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto #3 in d minor (27)

38 Rossini: William Tell Overture (34)

39 Respighi: The Pines of Rome (54)

40 Wagner: The Ride of the Valkyries (36)

41 Grieg: Piano Concerto in a minor (49)

42 Elgar: Enigma Variations (67)

43 Beethoven: Fur Elise (69)

44 Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto #1 in b flat minor (26)

45 Copland: Rodeo (57)

46 Sousa: Stars and Stripes Forever (48)

47 Handel: Water Music Suites (60)

48 Beethoven: Piano Sonata #14 “Moonlight” (43)

49 Williams, John: Imperial March/The Empire Strikes Back (92)

50 Gershwin: An American in Paris (64)

I found my Chicago recording of the Franck - I was wrong, the conductor is Pierre Monteux. Two other good recordings in my library - New York Philharmonic with Kurt Masur, and Montreal Symphony with Charles Dutoit.

Jim Scott

Played it at least three times, funnily two out of these in combination with Haydn's creation in the same concert.

I like playing it and very rarely also like listening.

It does have some nice melodic ideas and recognizable elements/moments. And it's mostly quite playable.

But from my perspective, e.g. compared to a Brahms or Tschaikowsky symphony it's in the end not very interesting and lacks complexity.

[quote="CalgaryTbone"]I found my Chicago recording of the Franck - I was wrong, the conductor is Pierre Monteux. Two other good recordings in my library - New York Philharmonic with Kurt Masur, and Montreal Symphony with Charles Dutoit.

Jim Scott[/quote]

I really like that Monteux recording.

The old CSO recording is fantastic! Great brass playing, with Herseth giving a Masterclass on how to play lyrically while playing powerfully over the orchestra. His sound is so warm and brilliant at the same time! The brass playing from that time in the CSO would stand up well to anything you can hear now - 50 to 60 years later.

Jim Scott

Opening act for Gershwin...

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This is interesting... a major orchestra, a major conductor, Carnegie Hall... and yet only one piece out of five we might still recognize today:

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[quote="robcat2075"]Opening act for Gershwin...

NYP-1928-12-13.jpg

This is interesting... a major orchestra, a major conductor, Carnegie Hall... and yet only one piece out of five we might still recognize today:

NYP-1921-03-30.jpg[/quote]

Don Juan is a standard. Just played it, in fact.

[quote="Kdanielsen"]<QUOTE author="robcat2075" post_id="175264" time="1648787084" user_id="3697">
Opening act for Gershwin...

NYP-1928-12-13.jpg

This is interesting... a major orchestra, a major conductor, Carnegie Hall... and yet only one piece out of five we might still recognize today:

NYP-1921-03-30.jpg[/quote]

Don Juan is a standard. Just played it, in fact.
</QUOTE>

whoops never mind. I didn't even read the name of the Franck...

The NY Times review of that second program

He didn't like the cellist's "jazz effects"

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I played this with the Roanoke (VA) Symphony in the mid-1980s and not heard of it since.