Raff Piano Works Vol 3

[petershott@btinternet.com]

I note that Grand Piano will be releasing (in the UK) Volume 3 of Raff's piano works performed by Tra Nguyen on 29 October, and subject to postie doing her job, I shall be rejoicing on that day. One member of the Forum will no more need to be told of the release date than he needs to be reminded that night follows day, but for others of us it forms a red letter day in the diary.

It seems to me that Grand Piano has established itself very quickly as an especially welcome and valued label. Whether it is Raff or Weinberg I especially like the idea of a series devoted to a composer (and usually where other labels haven't ventured) performed by the same pianist. Not only interesting repertory, but top drawer performances and recordings - and in the case of Raff (someone blushes) accompanied with detailed and illuminating notes in the booklet.

My only regret about the Raff series is that I gather Vol 3 will be the last in the series? That's a great pity, since there must be enough Raff piano music to fill up 20 or so CDs!

[Mark Thomas]

I think that, in an idle half hour, I calculated that 45+ CDs would be needed and that would include Raff's piano reductions of his own music in other genres.

Here's a taster of vol.III's cover:

Yes, it's the final volume I'm afraid but there are Sterling's two upcoming CDs to look forward too and, who knows, cpo may even get around to continuing their String Quartet series as they've had them all "in the can" for several years now.

To be fair to Naxos, they would have been happy to have produced more in the Grand Piano series and indeed at one time intended to badge it "Raff complete piano music" but like most CDs of music by unsungs, making the recordings at all depended upon private sponsorship and, unless one is lucky enough to gain the enthusiasm of a Peter Moores, pockets aren't bottomless.

In many ways, this volume is the most characteristic of Raff's piano music output as a whole. Unlike the first CD, these works are all mature Raff and there is nothing on the scale of the second CD's Fantasie-Sonate or Variations on an Original Theme. For me, the Cinq Eglogues are the highlight: five delightful, delicately drawn miniatures, worthy of being the only work which Raff dedicated to his wife. The Album Lyrique is a big 40 minute set of nine pieces, aptly named as most of them find him at his most seductively lyrical. The Fantaisie-Polonaise is a bravura genre piece of fearsome difficulty and the Impromptu-Valse a thoroughly ingratiating confection. I think that Tra's selection here intelligently rounds out her portrait of Raff at the piano and, of course, she brings to them both her technique and her unique understanding of what made Raff tick.

As for the booklet notes, they're written by the same old hack... 

[TerraEpon]

I'm guessing the Lyric Album is the second version, yes?


Arkiv doesn't list this disc, but does list Vol. 3 in the Saint-Saens series which is the other I'm looking forward to...

[Mark Thomas]

It is indeed the second Album Lyrique, published 1874-77, but it isn't so much a "version" as a total recomposition. Despite it being published (in 1846) no copies of the original set seem to have survived. According to Schäfer's catalogue of Raff's compositions the second set was written in 1849 but I have my doubts whether that's true for all of the pieces and I did mention in my booklet notes that the final pair at least, a Scherzo and an Introduction & Fugue bear all the stylistic hallmarks of being written in the mid 1870s.  Because I can't prove it I refrained from going on to say that, although Raff probably did write a couple of the second set's numbers in 1849, I strongly suspect that he wrote most of them in the 1860s or early 1870s and put the replacement Album Lyrique together from these pairs of works which he had by him, adding the final two numbers immediately prior to their publication in 1876 and 1877 respectively. Quite why the new set was published (by the same publisher as the original, Schuberth) as a replacement and not as Album Lyrique No.2 I don't know but it obviously gave Raff the idea to follow the same practice soon after with the eight recompositions of his earliest piano works, including the Piano Sonata, which he made for Breitkopf & Härtel.

[TraNguyen]

Wow, what a great forum - and lots of nice things about Raff!

Thank you Mark for devoting much of your time and resource for all the Raff's projects. It has been a tremendous journey with Raff for the last few years!! I would just like to add that I hope this is not the last Raff's CD from Grand Piano - there's much more to offer and you never know, as much as I adore his music, the Raff vol.3  might not be my last Raff's venture!!

What a great forum, so much to explore!!

[Mark Thomas]

Welcome Tra, what a nice surprise.

[Alan Howe]

Indeed, Tra. It's good to have you looking in...

[JimL]

I'd love to hear you commit the Raff PC to disc, Tra, if not with Sterling, with somebody!

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Well, of course I wouldn't even dream of disagreeing with that! But then there is such a wealth of unrecorded (and to most of us quite unknown) solo piano music - and that to me would be first priority.

A heartfelt 'thank you', Tra, for the three discs in the Grand Piano series .....and if, by any chance, there might possibly be more to come then (despite my age!) I do a little hop and skip of joy.

I was enormously glad to read Mark's earlier comment that the series had sold quite well - just shows the world isn't wholly made up of dull people!

[Alan Howe]

The CD's now being advertised as a 29th October release by MDT:
http://www.mdt.co.uk/raff-piano-works-3-tra-nguyen-grand-piano.html

[Jonathan]

Yes, I've had an email from Amazon saying my pre-order has been delayed 

[TraNguyen]

Many thanks for your kind words!

Raff's PC is a very fine work (my first Raff's piece in concert!) and I think we do have Ponti's wonderful rendition recorded somewhere. The unrecorded piano solo are varied - but some of his miniatures and the opera transcriptions (Meyebeer pops up a lot there) are quite appealing. We shall see what future brings!

[Mark Thomas]

I reviewed Tra's performance of the Piano Concerto here. As for the opera arrangements, there are a couple of CDs worth at least. Some (particularly the several Wagner works) are transcriptions, whereas perhaps those which are more interesting these days are the freely-composed fantasias based upon themes from operas such as Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots and Halèvy's La Juive.

[JimL]

Many thanks for your kind words!

Raff's PC is a very fine work (my first Raff's piece in concert!) and I think we do have Ponti's wonderful rendition recorded somewhere.

I sure wish that Genesis would re-release Frank Cooper's pioneer LP performance of the PC on CD.  Dr. Cooper must have some sort of legal injunction against them doing so.  Bob Commagère has re-released almost everything they put out on LP with Gerald Robbins, Adrian Ruiz and Jorge Bolet (in the Sgambati PC).  But the Raff and Brüll PC 2 with Cooper remain mysteriously absent...

[TerraEpon]

As for the opera arrangements, there are a couple of CDs worth at least. Some (particularly the several Wagner works) are transcriptions, whereas perhaps those which are more interesting these days are the freely-composed fantasias based upon themes from operas such as Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots and Halèvy's La Juive.

I enjoy many of Liszt's (and Thalberg's and others) pieces of this type and would love to hear Raff's.