Franck - Le Chasseur Maudit; Psyché; Les Éolides review I Andrew Clements's classical album of the week

The Guardian 80

RSC Voices/Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Tingaud
(Naxos)
Franck has a decent claim to being the most influential French composer of the 19th century – this is a reminder of the clarity of his orchestral vision

Though he was born in Belgium, César Franck was based in Paris for almost all of his adult life. His pupils included Duparc, Chausson and d’Indy, while both Debussy and Ravel built on his fusion of the French and Austro-German traditions, and so Franck has a good claim to have been the most influential French composer of the 19th century. Yet these days his reputation rests on a handful of pieces and, outside France at least, only his single symphony is part of the regular orchestral repertoire. Certainly, performances of any of his five symphonic poems are rare, but Jean-Luc Tingaud’s selection of three of them is a reminder of what a vivid and effective orchestral composer Franck could be, even if there are moments in these performances when you sense that a genuinely top-class orchestra might make the music dance and sparkle even more than the RSNO manages to.