Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Alain Altinoglu
This recording marks the beginning of the collaboration between the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and its new music director, the French conductor Alain Altinoglu, who conducts the leading European and American orchestras and has made a reputation for himself in every repertory – not forgetting opera at Salzburg, Bayreuth, and La Monnaie in Brussels, where he is music director. Their first disc pays tribute to a composer whose bicentenary is celebrated in 2022, César Franck, with the famous Symphony in D minor and two less well-known works, presented in new editions: the symphonic poem Le Chasseur maudit (1882) and the large-scale symphonic interlude from the oratorio Rédemption, composed in 1872 after the Paris Commune, performed here in its first version, long considered lost.
All the performances are sober, well-paced and never overblown, with textures as transparent as the scoring allows them to be.
[Symphony] Outer movements are taut and exciting...Altinoglu gives Franck’s organ-like scoring plenty of air; you can hear everything, notably the cornets when the second subject gets reprised. [Le Chasseur Maudit] One of the great tone poems, it’s thrilling here, Altinoglu whipping up a storm in the scary final minutes.
Beautifully paced not too slow, you feel Franck's' deliciously romantic harmonies unfolding smoothly and seductively. What a fine first recording for conductor Alain Altinoglu and his new orchestra the Frankfurt Radio Symphony and a great souvenir to have as we leave Franck's 200th anniversary year behind us.
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