César Franck (1822-1890)
Symphony in D minor (1889)
Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Pierre Monteux
rec. 7 January 1961, Orchestra Hall, Chicago
Reviewed as a download
HDTT24024 [39]
This is a classic of the gramophone; a stereo recording made in Chicago in January 1961 with the city’s famous symphony orchestra conducted by the great Pierre Monteux following two nights of concerts at Orchestra Hall. The records were made for RCA Victor Living Stereo by Richard Mohr and Lewis Layton. It was taped using the classic three-track system. In this new transfer from HDTT we hear the mixed four-track reel-to-reel tapes that were issued at the time on the US market for audiophile collectors.
In this very special record, we have a direct link with the creation of the piece in 1889. We believe that Pierre Monteux himself was at the premiere. Certainly, he was a student at the Paris Conservatory at the time and although only thirteen years old he was already totally immersed in musical study and performance in the French capital. By then he had even started conducting. Monteux made at least three recordings of this piece. I have a fondness for his first from San Francisco (made in 1941 and issued in a five-record 78rpm set by Victor) but this version from twenty years later is very special indeed.
Monteux had been coming to Chicago since the year he made that first Franck symphony on shellac. It was at Ravinia though, thirty miles North of the City that Monteux usually conducted. He was a regular at the summer festival and included the Franck on that first visit in August 1941. By the dawn of the sixties the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was under the directorship of Fritz Reiner. At the start of the 1960/61 season, he was poorly, however. Concerts were allocated to Walter Hendl, Antonino Votto, Robert Shaw, Hans Rosbaud, Paul Kletzki and Stokowski. Quite an impressive roster. For a fortnight after Christmas two concerts were allotted to Monteux. His first comprised a program of Mozart’s Symphony No 35, Creston’s Second symphony and Brahms’ Fourth. The second week he presented Cherubini’s Anacréon overture as a prelude to the Franck symphony. Petrushka came after the interval.
The sessions booked for the CSO in early January were supposed to be conducted by Reiner. The Franck symphony recording under review then was evidently not planned for. Reiner rarely let his orchestra record with other maestros, so we have something here quite unique. The magnificent crack ensemble that is the Chicago Symphony, disciplined, tight in ensemble, formidable, led by the warm and generous twinkling eyes and hands of the Maître Monteux. It is a wonderful thing. It has always been a jewel of the Living Stereo catalogue and has rightly never been out of the catalogue. I have known it for many years and didn’t really need another version. I have been getting into the vintage sound of reel-to-reel tape transfers recently, however, so thought I would treat myself.
Monteux, so very French in his manners and approach, is always superb in the core Germanic symphonic repertory. Think of his Brahms or his “even-numbered” Beethoven. Franck’s only symphony is indisputably French in style, accent and manner but it is heavily indebted to the tradition of Beethoven and influenced, I think, very much by the ideas of Wagner and Liszt. One always reads about the clarity Pierre Monteux brings to performance. For me, his greatness is in making sure everything is “heard”, even in those moments of intense passion and abandonment. He is a master of line and form and of course there is always that style and grace and je ne sais quoi. In the Franck he controls the ebb and flow, the light and shade with great skill. Although he is focussed on the score and Franck’s markings, he does allow tempi to open frequently but it always feels organic and right. The music is robust enough to take a variety of interpretations. Think of the rubato Mengelberg allowed or the drama and vivaciousness of Paray in either of his super recordings. Apart from Monteux’s wonderful reading I would also highly recommend either of Beecham’s records or Klemperer (especially if you’re a woodwind lover).
Monteux was eighty-five years of age when he made this recording. In no review I have ever read, have I seen it noted that he split the Chicago violins antiphonally. He did. This was not Reiner’s way, but for this work it is the right decision. His approach to the work is full-bodied, energetic, eager even, despite his advanced years. The CSO respond to him with gusto. They sound enthused, their tone glows with a smiling warmth, yet it is not soft and fluffy by any means. There is a pin-point accuracy to all the attacks and laser-sharp attention to detail. Listen to those triplets in the stings in the second movement. Monteux always turns his corners with style and elegance par excellence: sample the theme in celli and bassoons in the finale or the later dolce cantabile section. The pace is always kept alive; he never flags.
HDTT’s expert remastering allows one to really feel the weight and glory of the Chicago sound. There are times when it is a little too much, to be honest. There is some overload at fortissimo,especially with that brass section, but if you are considering like I did, investing in this transfer (uncoupled as it is) in preference to a tamer standard RCA CD (probably with the Boston Petrushka as a bonus) you will probably want that bite and snarl! You pays your money and makes your choice.
A postscript and fun fact: HDTT use the original artwork. I have always wondered about this. After a bit of detective work, I finally discovered it is a photograph of the Winged Victory of Samothrace, a headless and armless statue rescued many years ago and taken to the Louvre in Paris where it resides at the top of the Daru staircase. The head and arms have never been found, but I gather they found a finger or two in recent digs. There is a copy at Caesar’s Palace in Vegas too, but I would think the cover shows the original!
Philip Harrison
Availability: High Definition Tape Transfers
This recording was also released on the briefly available RCA SACDs of the Living Stereo series, which included digital transfers from the original 3-track masters. Fortunately copies of these SACDs can still be obtained online through the second-hand market. I have a problem with reviewers using the term “remastering” when it’s clear there was no “master” directly involved, as is generally the case with HDTT and other restorers such as Pristine. A 4-track commercial reel-to-reel tape is simply an n-th generation copy, and any tarting up by HDTT’s transfer which the listener may consider an “improvement” is purely a subjective evaluation, and almost certainly the “overload” reported in this review will be a property of the multiply-copied analogue source. It’s not evident on the SACD I have.
Interesting to see Klemperer’s name brought up in this context. In fact, I remember approaching that recording diffidently and ending up mightily impressed. Another exceptionally fine recording by a conductor you wouldn’t associate with Franck is the Boult – swift, urgent with a nervous pull to the phrasing. Apparently he retained strong memories of a performance in Liverpool by Franck’s pupil Pierné. Do you have any thoughts on that recording, Philip?
It is a long time since I heard that recording but I gave it a lttle spin just now. It is indeed exciting and suprisingly “romantic”, although I found it stucturally unified and coherent (as I knew I would). Actually, I wonder if Toscanini would have influenced Boult in this piece. As you will know he came with the great NYPSO in 1930 and opened everyone’s ears and hearts to what a great conductor/orchestra could achieve. Did they play the Franck on that tour? When he came to Boult’s own BBCSO in 1935, Boult had prepared the players to perfection. Again I couldn’t confirm they played the Franck symphony but they may have. Toscanini was pampered with days of rehearsal time. He may very well have played some material with them they did not do live at Queen’s Hall. They definitely did plenty of Brahms and some French repertory to boot. Boult’s Franck has a curious discographical tree does it not? The “London Orchestra Society” was actually the Philharmonia. I think the record was made at a single sitting on 1 June 1959 with Richard Mohr in charge of the whole production – Watford Town Hall. Issued at the time in Readers Digest livery. it eventually made it to CD courtesy of Chesky. It will now reside in one of those huge boxes no doubt.
According to Harvey Sach’s list of all Toscanini’s known appearances as conductor, he took an early interest in the Franck Symphony, conducting it in Milan in 1918 and Rome in 1920 (we call this early Toscanini but he was already in his 50s). Then from 1930 to 1934, he conducted it 13 times with the NYPSO, mostly in NY but also on tour to Philadelphia, Washington and Baltimore. Also in 1934, he conducted it twice in Paris with the Walter Straram Orchestra. Thereafter, he conducted it only twice, with the NBCSO in 1940 and 1946 (the two performances that have survived). So he never conducted it in the UK.
I suppose Boult might have slipped over to Paris for one of the 1934 concerts, but I should be inclined to take his word for it that he modelled his performance on memories of Pierné. The question might be whether Toscanini, at an earlier and more impressionable age than the martinet he became later, ever heard Pierné conduct it. Well, in 1932 he conducted two performances of Pierné’s orchestration of Franck’s Prélude, Choral et Fugue, so he does seem to have had some admiration for the man.
PS. Refreshing my meory of Boult’s autobiography “My Own Trumpet”, I see that he not only heard Pierné conduct the Franck in Liverpool during the First World War but acted as translator for him during the rehearsals (Pierné did not speak English). He recalls that the symphony “was in those days in London often tinged with a strong Russian flavouring. Pierné’s straightforward rendering seemed just right for the simple and direct music.” He also mentions that “I think that my efforts to simplify and smooth out the performance by the BBC Orchestra when we rehearsed it ten years later caused me actually to spend a longer time than I had planned for rehearsal”. So, even if he did pop over to Paris in 1934 (neither “Own Trumpet” nor Kennedy’s biography mention such a visit but he did pop over Salzburg to hear Toscanini conduct Tristan later in the year), it would seem that his own ideas about this work were settled in their general lines well before that. By the way, I don’t know if Henry Wood’s extraordinarily speedy 1924 recording is an illustration of what Boult meant by “a strong Russian flavouring”.
Thanks for this in-depth contribution Chris. I am back from holiday now so I will have a little more time to really check out that Boult recording, and also investigate what I can find of Pierné conducting the Colonne Orchestra too; which I note having inherited from Colonne himself in 1910, he led for over 20 years. Our colleague Jonathan Woolf reviewed this Malibran set :
https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2003/nov03/pierne_conducts.htm
I note that therein is enshrined a performance of Franck’s Psyché. That set was on three Odeon’s according to WERM, with the fifth and final filler side being taken by an arrangement of the choral from Franck’s Prélude, choral et fugue. WERM also tells me that Colonne/Pierné also made a version of Redemption also for Fr. Odeon.
Being an important part of Parisian concert life for over twenty years, I think it highly likely Toscanini heard or was very aware of Pierné’s skills as a conductor. Thanks Sir.