Evgeni Bozhanov and the Takács play Franck
Our first and only Franck Quintet of the competition. Fun fact: Félicité Saillot hated this piece, as did Camille Saint-Saëns. Her criticism may have stung a little more, since she and Franck were married. It reportedly made life at home a little tense.
UPDATE: We had a little confusion about our blogging schedule, and rather than have two threads about the Franck, howzabout y’all comment on Mike’s post? He’s played the piece, and I anticipate that he’ll have incisive things to say.
James McQuillen
May 30th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Fascinating, isn’t it?
Whenever I heard about that - (I also read somewhere that Liszt thought Franck’s work was a bit overdone, though I wonder at the truth of that statement - considering his own performance record…) I’ve wanted to find and read that Harwood novel ‘Cesar and Augusta’ - anyone actually read it?
May 30th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Haven’t read the novel. IIRC, Liszt and Franck were pretty good pals, but I suppose that wouldn’t have kept them from being critical of each other. Félicité was apparently an astute critic of César, but I gather it didn’t do wonders for their marriage.
May 30th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Beautiful and totally exhilarating. I love that Franck quintet and he played it magnificently.