Frankel: Symphonies 2 & 3

Benjamin Frankel (Composer), Werner Andreas Albert (Conductor), Queensland Symphony Orchestra (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: Queensland Symphony Orchestra
• Conductor: Werner Andreas Albert
• Composer: Benjamin Frankel
• Audio CD (July 18, 1995)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Cpo Records
• ASIN: B000001RXI
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #228,786 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Intro To The Second Sym Spoken By The Composer - Benjamin Frankel

2. Sym No.2 Op.38: Adagio/Tranquillo

3. Sym No.2 Op.38: Alla Marcia (Moderato)

4. Sym No.2 Op.38: Adagio

5. Intro To The Third Sym

6. Sym No.3 Op.40

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Symphonies of a Cine-Composer, February 20, 2001

By 

Scott Spires (Prague, Czech Republic) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Frankel: Symphonies 2 & 3 (Audio CD)

Benjamin Frankel (1906-73) was a British composer best known for his film scores, but that is only one aspect of his output. Here are two symphonies, very impressive compositions which make use of atonal / serial techniques yet have clear themes and melodies, transparent scoring, and a direct emotional appeal. They are both strongly atmospheric, reflecting perhaps Frankel's skills as a film composer.

The 2nd is a formidable, aggressively bleak work, suggestive of some sort of prolonged crisis. At times it threatens to lapse into monotony (maybe due to the lack of conventional modulation), but this is a minor problem. On the whole it's a very solid, intense piece. The short 3rd Symphony is, in contrast, bright and trouble-free, with a sound somewhat like neo-classical Stravinsky. A good disc, and the composer's spoken introductions are a nice bonus.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Even I have expressed regrets for such a late discovery., January 11, 2003

By 

David Anthony Hollingsworth (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Frankel: Symphonies 2 & 3 (Audio CD)

The title of my review is to the point. My discovery of Frankel's music was made this past December & I shall confess an amazement of how late this discovery was, given my otherwise resourcefulness in the obscure. But, the unearthingness yields rewards, for the music of Frankel gives us other dimensions of modern music.

British composer Benjamin Frankel (1906-1973) enjoyed considerable success during his career, only to fall victim to almost total oblivion two decades since his death (much like Tubin, Atterberg, & Langgaard). Frankel, well known for his film music, was often ignored as a main 20th Century symphonist. But, many thanks must be given to all involved, including the CPO record label for its enterprising yet bold initiative. But gratitude must be given to Buxton Orr for his tireless promotion of Frankel's art as well as to Kennaway for his informative literature on the composer. High praises are also due to conductor Werner Andreas Albert and the Queensland Symphony for their authoritative performances throughout the series. And as far as the composer's chamber & concertante works are concerned, violinist Ulf Hoelscher, violist Brett Dean, clarinetist Paul Dean, and the Nomos Quartet, et al. must be given high praises also. This is an important series that will continue to expose Frankel's music as much as what Chandos is doing in its series of the music of Sir Arnold Bax.

How to describe Frankel's music? His music is generally eloquent (the most used adjective in this regard), noble, and fluent (like his Quintet for Clarinet & String Quartet). Yet at the same time, his works demonstrates profundity, melancholy and emotional intensity, underlying his very seriousness in purpose. Not that every work of his are ultimately memorable, but, as for instance in his Violin Concerto & the Second Symphony, there are substance and depth in his communication: the communication which sometimes brings to mind Vainberg, Mahler, & Copland in its firm yet straightforward expression. But, he also brings to mind Sir Malcolm Arnold with a rather vivid orchestration, if sometimes lacking Arnold's flamboyancy in the writing. As far as technique is concerned, though, he absorbed Schoenberg's methods with his twelve-note serialism.

A reviewer for Gramophone Magazine (name not mentioned in its website) defines serialism as the following. Serialism means an adaptation designed to hold a strong sense of a key and of a melody, but using elements of such a melody with great economy & strictness. But I agree in the reviewer that serialism need not necessarily mean aridity (or emptiness) as Frankel admirably proved. His technique is strict, but his music is communicatively varied (again, much like Vainberg or Copland). Again, not every work of his are memorable. But where his melody is often noble and genuine, it is the buildup of that melody that's compelling. And it seems that the melodies undergo something of a metamorphosis, sometimes evolving from simplicity to something more profound, maintaining its stance with little waste & hardly in danger of flagging.

The Symphonies here are rather compelling cases in point. The Second, dedicated to his late wife Anna, starts off with a subtle, somewhat mournful atmosphere (fleetingly Mahlerian and even Myaskovskian). But soon enough, the mood intensifies, with the poignancy of anguish & fiercity. The orchestration, once noble yet mournful at the beginning, becomes violent as the movement develops. But the second movement hardly lets itself go, maintaining, if not, enhancing the diabolical nature of the previous movement. The finale, typical of Frankel, is introspective and haunting, and in the end, elegiac. By contrast, though, the Third Symphony starts off jovially, yet never letting go of its dignity (almost like one leaving church on a Sunday afternoon refreshed & upbeat-like in Ives' Third Symphony "The Camp Meeting"). The work has interlinking moods between the quiet uplift and the reflective, with the closing a bit ambiguous.

Werner Andreas Albert draws magnificent performances from the Queensland Symphony with the recordings purely yet ideally realistic. The booklet essays of E.D. Kennaway & Orr are exemplary and I truly admire CPO decision in placing Frankel's recorded assessments of the symphonies before them on separate tracks. So, anyone new to Frankel's music should either try this disc first or another CPO disc having his Violin & Viola concerti (the third piece, Serenata Concertante for Piano Trio & Orchestra is quite a masterpiece). A Frankel revival? I would think so. Perhaps Andre Previn, who performed Frankel's music in the past, would engage in reviving Frankel's music & his status as a major 20th Century composer into a more fully-fledged endeavor.

But then agian, it's just a passing thought.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Rewarding if tough music in excellent performances, April 4, 2011

By 

G.D. (Norway) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Frankel: Symphonies 2 & 3 (Audio CD)

CPO's series of the works by Benjamin Frankel (1906-1973) - in particular the complete symphonies - is extremely valuable and another feather in the cap of this always enterprising and important company. Like his contemporary (or near-contemporary) Humphrey Searle, Frankel attempted to combine serialism with communicativeness. This is not to say that Frankel's music is particularly easy or immediately attractive, but the result of the reconciliation attempt is a series of novel, personal, imaginative works that deserve to be better known. Frankel's take on twelve-tone music is hardly dogmatic, and he does in now way eschew, or try to eschew, tonal centers or even thematic material in the standard sense.

The second symphony (1962) was written in a time of personal distress for the composer, but although the music is dark and troubled it should probably be viewed as an abstract work. The outer movements are generally slow, probing and bitter, tense and relentless. They frame a dark, capricious and spiteful scherzo (all movements employ some striking sonoric effects). While it is a substantial work it is not easy to fully come to terms with for the listener, and there are few glimmers of hope or light. The third symphony is somewhat lighter and more focused. Cast in one movement (though with discernible sections), it provides several examples of Frankel's employment of tonal material to color his serialism; the result is a strikingly original and surprisingly successful work and should probably be heard first by those coming to the composer for the first time through this disc.

Rewarding music, then, but it is made less communicative than it could have been by Frankel's distaste for sheer momentum or "real" climaxes; despite the turmoil and drama of the music, it never breaks loose of its formal constraints. I am not sure that is a criticism, but it certainly makes the music sound a little forbidding at first. The performances are in any case extremely good and the sound is vivid and full as well. The disc comes with a spoken introduction (by the composer himself) to the music. Recommended.