Completed in 1888, César Franck’s Symphony in D Minor was once very much a standard repertory work, though, for some inexplicable reason, it began to slip from favour a few decades ago and has become something of a rarity of late. Fabien Gabel’s performance with the BBC Symphony Orchestra marked its first Proms outing for nearly 20 years, and you couldn’t help but be struck by what a great and original work it is, with its dark intensity of orchestration and mood, its evolutionary structure derived from a handful of notes heard at the outset, and its absorption of the influences of Wagner and Brahms without ever seeming derivative.
Gabel’s interpretation can only be described as awesome, and was characterised by a powerful, sweeping nobility, the opening motto magnificently brooding, the first movement’s allegro flung out with almost reckless defiance. The central allegretto, rolling slow movement and scherzo into one, relaxed into eloquent lyricism before the finale, recapitulating everything that had gone before, blazed with triumphant conviction. The BBCSO were at their best here, and there was some terrific playing, the great cor anglais solo in the allegretto above all.
