Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Françaix: Piano Concerto

Jean Françaix and his wife Blanche, 1937
Here is one of the earliest recordings of music by one of France's most cheerful musical voices, Jean Françaix (1912-1997).  Françaix made his reputation in 1932 with a work for piano and orchestra, his Concertino, and he followed it up four years later with this equally saucy and delightful Concerto.  One imagines that he wrote this work with the gramophone in mind, for each of its four movements is timed to exactly fill out a 12" 78-rpm side!  And, in fact, the concert première, in June of 1937, seems to have taken place after this recording was made:

Françaix: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1936)
Jean Françaix, piano
Orchestre Philharmonique de Paris conducted by Nadia Boulanger
Recorded February 9, 1937
Victor 15114 and 15115, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 40.93 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 19.7 MB)

The original issue of this recording was, of course, on French HMV.  Victor, which issued the set in 1938, does not appear to have seen fit to issue it with an album; they didn't begin issuing two-record groupings as album sets until 1937, and even then, seems to have been selective about which such groupings received albums.  Such worthy contenders as Landowska's recording of Bach's Toccata in D, and Cortot's of Mendelssohn's "Variations serieuses" - both issued about the same time as the Françaix - also did not receive albums.

11 comments:

  1. For some reason Antony Griffith's LP transfer (on World Records SH 227 - issued 1975) states 'Recorded December 1937' - showig a UK cat.# of HMV DB.5034-5

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    1. I'm pretty sure the February date is correct; Landowska's recording of the Haydn D major concerto, made April 19, 1937, has higher matrix numbers than the Françaix (2LA 1719/23 versus 2LA 1503/6, first takes in all cases). Odd though that World Records should have given incorrect info - weren't they an EMI product?

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    2. Yes, EMI.
      Have't checked any further source which leads to your date - but SH 227 stated '10-11 May 1937' for Hahn's PC (Magda Tagliafero: Pathe 78's) - though just 'Dec 1938' for Milhaud's Scaramouche (HMV DB.5086: 2LA 2885-6).
      As the only other item was 'Rio Grande' (already done) then my lack of anything substantial, 'in that line' (on 78>LP), led to their being left un-dubbed.
      A lack of 'background grunge', etc, leads one to suspect Anthony Griffith worked from vinyls, as there is quite some clarity to the sound.

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  2. This sounds intriguing, but the filefactory links only lead (after their 30-second wait for "slow" downloads) to their proprietary download manager (which, in turn, doesn't open) rather than to the music files. Do you know if this is a temporary glitch? (I'm a mac user.)

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    1. I'm guessing it's only temporary. When I checked two hours ago, the FLAC files had 37 downloads and the MP3s had 11; but these numbers haven't changed since. Sometimes filefactory just gets bogged down, from an uploading end as well as downloading. Numerous times I've had files stall while uploading and I've had to just quit and try again later. Very frustrating. I really miss mediafire!

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    2. Thanks -- I'll try it again from home tonight (our office blocks access to filefactory). It's a shame that filefactory is so user-unfriendly, but I continue to appreciate your wonderful posts.

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  3. Sorry, but it's still not working. All I keep getting is the same file called "Francaix Piano Concerto MP3s.zip.exe" (or ... FLACS ...) that neither unzips or executes - plus, of course, their invitation to upgrade to one of their pay plans, but based on their dreadfully bad reliability (not only with your files), that's not gonna happen. Just wanted to let you know.

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    1. It sounds like they're adding an unwanted ".exe" extension to the file name. Are you able to download a file at all, and if so, is it the right size (41 MB FLAC, 20 MB MP3)? Maybe you need to simply rename the file with a ".zip" extension in order to be able to open/unZIP it. If you still have trouble, please contact me privately via email - see my post "Bye Bye Mediafire" (Jan. 30) for details.

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  4. Hi Bryan,
    I download very few files but had no problems (using Vista) - just right-clicked the zip folder to 'extract' the files (FLAC) thus creating an unzipped folder.
    Probably achieved via the '7-zip' already installed (& used to create my folders) - so maybe that cures the fault?

    Sounds Very Different to the LP....

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  5. Bryan,
    After reading Peter Gutmann's comments, I wanted to share my experience with you. Peter says he is a Mac user - so am I. I have never been able to download any of your posts from FileFactory using Safari under Mac OS X. I have to use Google's Chrome browser under Mac OS X or else use Microsoft's Internet Explorer under Windows (which I also have running on my Mac using Parallels). I have used both Chrome (OS X) and IE (Windows) successfully to download your files from FileFactory.

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  6. I'm aware of another recording:
    15 August 1936 in Frankfurt, Sendesaal
    Françaix: Piano Concerto
    Jean Françaix, piano
    Orchester des Reichssenders Frankfurt
    Hans Rosbaud (conductor)

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