Kurt Masur, in the words of the New York Times, believed “that music-making was a moral act that could heal the world.” He spent 11 years as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, which he described it as “an orchestra without limits”. Aptly, both idealism and daring inform the splendid Symphony in D minor by César Franck, who fused the French and German traditions at a time of heated Parisian controversy over the cultural identity of music.
