Composers Datebook™ is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present. Each program notes significant or intriguing musical events involving composers of the past and present, with appropriate and accessible music related to each.
Let's say "Jean Francaix"
Synopsis
Today’s we tackle a vexing P.C. issue—not “political correctness,” mind you, but “pronunciation correctness,” a passionate matter for classical radio announcers, of course.
Now there was a French composer who lived from 1912 to 1997 whose first name was Jean and whose last name was spelled “F-R-A-N- C cedilla-A-I-X.”
Most people pronounce his name “Jean Frahn-SAY,” which has come to be the accepted pronunciation. The problem is that the composer’s family and close friends pronounced it “Frahn-SEX.”
Years ago, an announcer at a station in New York requested the definitive answer from the composer himself, and was told, yes, technically it was “Frahn-SEX,” but that he was used to being called "Frahn-SAY" and had given up correcting people, joking that perhaps “Frahn-SAY” sounded more French, or maybe people just didn’t want to say “SEX” out loud.
This witty composer grew up in musical family in Les Mans and claimed that by the age of twelve, knew all the piano music from Scarlatti to Ravel.
Both Jean Frahn-SEX and Jean Frahn-SAY were very prolific composers of works large and small, including a delightful Symphony in G Major, which premiered on today’s date in 1953 at the summer music festival in La Jolla, California.
Jean Francaix — Symphony in G Major (Ulster Orchestra; Thierry Fischer, cond.) Hyperion CDA-67323