Tim Mahon takes polite issue with my throwaway line of the Franck symphony
as "a work I know well enough but have never liked much".

I must admit to finding it hard to justify this opinion, but I'll try.
I remember with some trepidation visiting a konditorei in Vienna with a
charming young lady, just for the experience of eating something rich in
the Viennese manner.  The cake I ordered, lavishly flavoured with enough
chocolate and cream to make you wonder whether you should have a paramedic
on hand just in case, was further generously covered with even more whipped
cream.  The first mouthfuls were fine, but I couldn't finish it - far too
rich.  I feel a bit the same about the Franck symphony.  Others might
substitute Brahms or Dvorak or Mahler as being too thickly orchestrated.
I love the music of all these composers, and there are other works of
Franck I like very much, such as the symphonic poems, the violin sonata and
the piano quintet, but not the organ music (I'm not a fan of organ music in
general, says he, hastily erecting a few missile shields).  I can recognise
- or think I can - the influence of Franck on Chausson, Dukas, Magnard and
the others, but somehow their music is cleaner, there's not the stodginess
I hear in Franck's symphony.  I think my indifference to the work stems
from the main theme of the first movement, which has always sounded dry and
forced: the movement seems to drift on forever.  The opening theme of the
last movement of Dvorak's 4th strikes me in the same way, and is a letdown
after what precedes it.  With Franck, the letdown is near the beginning,
and despite the pleasures of the slow movement, they're not enough to
compensate.

Tim also used Balakirev's symphonies and piano concertos to ask why these
works of such a well-recognised mentor should not be heard more often.  I
like all of those, but I wouldn't regard them as at the same level as, say,
Borodin's 2nd or Rimsky-Korsakov's Antar symphony.  This is not to say that
they are bad music, just that others wrote better.  I'd even add to those
such works as Kalinnikov's and Taneyev's symphonies.

Tim enthused over Khrennikov's Napoleon Bonaparte on Russian Disc and
recommended buying it.  I think I'm right in saying the label has been
discontinued.  I remember buying very cheaply an LP of Khrennikov's 2nd
symphony years ago and, mindful of his role in the 1948 formalism nonsense,
secretly hoped it would be pretty ordinary.  To my chagrin, I liked it.
Even more than the Franck symphony.

Richard Pennycuick
[log in to unmask]