Rufinatscha PC

[Alan Howe]

Available from Innsbruck is the Piano Concerto in G minor (1850) by Rufinatscha. It's a stunning work from his maturity - full of memorable material and in his usual, high-flown style. Also on the CD are the Ouverture dramatique and the Overture to Die Braut von Messina, as well as Schumann's Piano concerto.

The orchestra is chamber-sized (approx.40) and the piano used is a period instrument from 1838 - slightly clattery, but nothing to worry about. Which means that the door is open for a bigger-scale performance...

[Peter1953]

What a wonderful news! Rufinatscha is definitely one of my greatest trouvailles over the past years, thanks to Alan. I hope I can order this CD without problems...

[JimL]

Alan, could you post the link, so we can paste it into our browsers?  I'm already standing in line...

[Alan Howe]

The CD isn't being advertised yet. I have been sent an advance copy, so - with apologies - web orders may have to wait a week or two.

[JimL]

OK.  Please post the web address for the museum and the CD number here when it becomes available, then.

[Peter1953]

Jim, maybe the thread Johann Rufinatscha: unjustly unsung, reply #13, can be helpful...

[Mark Thomas]

This is really good news.

Alan, though, has hit the nail on the head with his comment that "the door is open for a bigger-scale performance". We all know that Rufinatscha is one of the genuinely great unsungs, up there with Draeseke and Raff, someone who's music displays the quality necessary to sustain itself in the live repertoire if it ever got the chance. The problem is that we are the only people who know it.

Not a note is even available on well regarded but still niche labels like cpo or Sterling, never mind major players such as Chandos and Hyperion. The Tiroler Landesmuseum have done a great job of of creating archival recordings, and I'm hugely grateful to them for that, but they just do not seem interested in their wider distribution or in licensing them to other labels which can distribute them world-wide.

Those of us on this forum who have dabbled in the production rather than just the consumption side of the industry, and there are several of us now, know that the appetite is there amongst bigger and more prestigious recording labels for music of this quality and we just have to hope that there will be a breakthrough release of a performance from respected performers on a larger label which will mean that Rufinatscha is no longer our happy little secret.

[JimL]

All this talk of Rufinatscha's PC led me to break out my Hyperion RPC CD of Rufi's most illustrious pupil, Ignaz Brull.  To me, there is nothing else in the literature as sublime as the coda of the 1st movement of his PC 2.  Nothing.  Well, maybe the coda of the finale of Raff's PC.

[Alan Howe]

This is BIG music. Not in length, particularly, but in conception and range. And Rufinatscha is a BIG composer - a composer who makes the type of statements in music that the great composers make, whether sung or unsung. I used to think that there are two really great unsungs in the 19th century, i.e. Raff and Draeseke, as Mark says - and this because of their originality and quality. Now I would add Rufinatscha. No-one else at all could have written his music. It is utterly unmistakable, utterly original, and utterly great. I love many others: Gernsheim, Reinecke, Herzogenberg, etc. But none of these attains the individuality and greatness of the three I have mentioned. I urge anyone who has not yet heard all of Rufinatscha to make haste to acquire everything that is available and then to pester as many people you know to do the same - and then start making contacts with people in the recording industry. There must be a breakthrough soon...

[JimL]

I didn't mean to imply that Brull is superior to his mentor.  I still want to call attention to him as a wonderful composer in his own right and to attribute his many excellences to their source.

[Peter1953]

Alan, I fully agree with you, well, almost (you know which composer I prefer above Draeseke but what can I say about Draeseke, since I only have 3 CDs. I'm very impressed by his 3rd Symphony and the Piano Sonata; but his PC is more difficult to me).
But we're talking about Rufinatscha, and I wonder whether it is possible to get in touch with broadcasting companies, asking friendly if not persuading, to broadcast Rufinatscha's music, and if possible, not between 00:00 hours and 07:00 hours. I think that will cause some impact and creates a demand. Or would the Tiroler Landesmuseen Ferdinandeum object?

[Alan Howe]

The CD is now available...

http://www.tiroler-landesmuseum.at/shop.php/de/cds/klingende_kostbarkeiten_62

[febnyc]

Oh God! Not another recording of the Schumann Concerto.  That's one of the last things I need.  The hammerflügel doesn't do it for me - rather too tinkly and, as mentioned, "clattery."   And the orchestra appears under-powered.

Danke, aber nein - I'll keep the powder dry and wait for a full-blooded recording.

[JimL]

I'll take what I can get.  And thank God I don't have a recording of the Schumann anymore.  Didn't need one - until now.  Besides, I've never been satisfied with the solo/tutti balance in any of the performances of the Schumann that I've ever heard.  Maybe a period instrument performance with a smaller orchestra will provide the proper sound.  But I'll still have to wait to order, 'cause I'm movin' at the end of the month and I don't want it to arrive where I used to be.

[Alan Howe]

The performance is perfectly good enough to demonstrate the quality of Rufinatscha's inspiration - and I've heard much more clattery early pianos. Who knows when a better recording will come along....?

In any case, the Schumann coupling hardly counts against the CD: there are two substantial overtures by Rufinatscha in addition to the PC - easily enough to justify the outlay.

Personally I'll just pretend the Schumann wasn't on the CD...