German Music Folder

[Mark Thomas]

I'm not going to be able to post any more music for a few days and so I thought that I'd indulge in a little Raff-fest.

Now available for download are a number of  broadcasts of Raff's orchestral works recorded by Werner Andreas Albert in the 1990s but never released by cpo because of contractual difficulties: the Festival Overture, the Elegy and the four Shakespeare Preludes. In each case I think they are superior interpretations to those available commercially on Marco Polo or from Stadlmair on Tudor. If anybody has any more of Albert's broadcasts of Raff repertoire then I'd be hugely grateful if they were uploaded.

There is also the Overture and an Entr'acte from a broadcast performance of the opera Benedetto Marcello and a Swiss broadcast of a fine performance of the Ein feste Burg Overture.

The real rarities are ten short orchestral numbers from the Oratorio Welt-Ende - Gericht - Neue Welt, including the four mini-tonepoems illustrating the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. These come from a complete performance on a limited circulation LP. The German regional orchestra plays the music well enough but the interpretations are, to my taste, far too stolid and earthbound. Treat them as tasters, therefore, because some of these pieces have just been recorded for a new CD of Raff orchestral music due out next year in performances which will bring them truly to life (or death in this case!)

Anyway, enjoy!

[albion]

Mark, many thanks for all these Raff recordings, especially the Shakespeare Preludes. Sullivan conducted the British premiere of Welt-Ende at the 1883 Leeds Festival, but worried that it was "not sufficiently effective to suit the taste of a British audience - it is wanting in character and brightness". To me, the music seems to have plenty of colour and character and it is nice to have the opportunity to judge (at least partially from the orchestral extracts) for ourselves!

[albion]

broadcasts of Raff's orchestral works recorded by Werner Andreas Albert in the 1990s but never released by cpo because of contractual difficulties [...] I think they are superior interpretations to those available commercially on Marco Polo or from Stadlmair on Tudor.

Picking up from the last post, I'm amazed at just how much extra drama Albert is able to wring from the Shakespeare Preludes: he really makes a strong case for them as repertory pieces, rather than curiosities. What a pity that these performances could not have been commercially issued - I enjoy the Tudor recordings, but there is something of the "it's another piece by Raff and we're recording a series of discs which we've got to sell so we'd better get through it somehow and make a half-decent job" about them. Under Albert, everything comes alive: the crackling woodwind writing in The Tempest and Macbeth, the more compelling pacing of Romeo and Juliet and Othello. Excellent!

[Mark Thomas]

Don't like to say I told you so, but.... 

[Alan Howe]

...which raises a general point about the recordings of Raff's orchestral music that we have had up to now. Grateful as I am for them all (and I am, genuinely), I simply wonder how much more a really great set of performances would tell us about all this wonderful music.

Schneider's (live) Symphony No.7 also has the whiff of magic about it...

[Dundonnell]

This is exactly true of so much "unsung music" by "unsung composers" If the music is performed by a second-rate orchestra/conductor who may fail to be be able to deliver the music as it could sound in the hands of better musicians an impression of medocrity may be left.

The supreme talent of a Toscanini or a Beecham was to take such music and perform it with conviction, enthusiasm and that element of magical inspiration which is required.

The Raff I have on disc is Friedman(No.1), Stadlmair(Nos.2 and 6), d'Avalos(No.3), Wetton(Nos.3 and 4), Schneider(Nos.3 and 10), Butt(No.5), Albert(Nos.7-11).

I am sure that I could probably do better

[eschiss1]

This is not wholly hypothetical- one could compare Toscanini's Martucci performances, of which a few survive and have been released on CD, with those since... (not German composers there, but the subject follows on from the preceding comment. Sorry...)

[Latvian]

Thank you, shamokin88, for the Erbse uploads. I'm completely unfamiliar with this composer and am glad to have the opportunity to explore his music now, at least in part.

As far as his disappearance mid-career, New Grove has the following to say:

When his opera Julietta op.15 (1957), first performed at the Salzburg Festival in 1959, received negative reviews from some critics, he partially retreated from public musical life.

[Alan Howe]

The supreme talent of a Toscanini or a Beecham was to take such music and perform it with conviction, enthusiasm and that element of magical inspiration which is required.

Actually, their talent was to take virtually any music and turn it into gold.

My point here is this: Raff's music belongs indisputably with that of the canonical great composers - and would thus benefit from top-flight music-making. Even Brahms or Bruckner can be made to sound second-rate in second-rate performances...

[semloh]

The supreme talent of a Toscanini or a Beecham .....their talent was to take virtually any music and turn it into gold.
..........

I couldn't agree more, Alan, on all points.

The neglect of these brilliant Shakespeare pieces is emblematic of Raff's situation. Here in Australia, you'd be searching high and low among the archives for a concert performance of anything by Raff (I wonder if his symphonies have ever been performed here!). We remain deluged by Brahms, Beethoven and Tchaik.

[eschiss1]

To be fair to Australian Orchestras, one did very well, I'd say, by some works by Benjamin Frankel and others on some cpo releases some while back. Anyways.

Hrm. Then there's the two George Raffs (19th century and ca.1930, the latter mentioned in digitally-scanned articles in the Brisbane Courier from that year- 4 March 1930 page 22 ... distant Raffish-erly relatives? ... not related to music though, though there is an article about radio on the same page.

[eschiss1]

Still don't know if any Raff orchestral music was performed in Australia- hrm- but when World's End was performed at the Leeds Festival in October 1883 (together with, among other works, Barnby's Psalm 97 , mentioned in the article too ), this fact was reported in the Brisbane Courier. This maybe should not surprise.
(Google searches hint- need to confirm- that George Raff (one or both of them?) may have owned or partially owned the aforementioned journal, so references to him, and occurrences of the _word_ Raff, would be common enough in a Google search of the scan files at Trove.nla.gov.au .)

[Sydney Grew]

Thank you, shamokin88, for the Erbse uploads. . . .

Yes thank you Shamokin88 for all the Erbse! It is truly wonderful to be able to hear more of his work at last.

The Thirteenth Symphony of 1998 is the last one listed in my edition of Grove's Dictionary, but since it also says there that "he wrote at least one symphony every year" he may well have composed further symphonies following the thirteenth between 1998 and 2005 - does any one know?

Rather unexpectedly Erbse in his will endowed an annual prize for "rock musicians from the Salzburg area":

http://www.confused5.com/erbse/preis.html

Since I have no idea what "rock music" is I will say no more!

But I found a valuable autobiographical article from him at the same site, with a few photographs:

http://www.confused5.com/erbse/

It seems it was a serious accident while climbing which set him on the road to writing so many new symphonies from 1990 onwards.

[eschiss1]

Expectedly the Halm string symphony is a delight. Thank you!

[Dundonnell]

Can I suggest that we decide whether Johann Nepomuk David is to be regarded as an Austrian or as a German composer(he was born in Austria but spent most of his life in Germany)

The links to recordings of his music are now being posted in both

the Austrian Downloads section(Arbuckle's uploads of the Symphony No.5, the Organ Concerto, Spiegelkabinett Waltz and the Cantata "Ezzolied" of 16 September)

and, more recently, in the German Music Downloads section (MSV's uploads of the Symphony No.2, Symphony No.3, Symphony No.4, Symphony No.7, Symphony No.8, Sinfonia breve and allison's of the same works, minus the Spiegelkabinett Waltz, (6 June) as posted by Arbuckle).