New Raff books

[Mark Thomas]

Some of you wanted to know when we had published the long-awaited biography of Raff and I'm delighted to say that we can part you from your cash now:

Helene Raff: JOACHIM RAFF: PORTRAIT OF A LIFE Translated by Alan Howe
Paperback. 292 pages. ISBN 978-1-4710-6025-0.
£13 plus shipping.

The only biography of Joachim Raff, originally published in Germany in 1925, is available in English for the first time in another authoritative and extremely readable translation by Alan Howe. Helene Raff's distinctively brisk voice, unsentimental in her judgement of her father, chronicles Raff's professional and family life and his relationships with his great contemporaries such as Liszt, Wagner and Brahms. She also describes the circumstances of the creation of most of his major compositions. This lively account is supplemented by extensive illustrations, most of which are new to this edition, together with painstakingly researched footnotes which amplify all aspects of the book and particularly Raff's compositions. There is a modern, newly-compiled list of all Raff's compositions and, unlike the original, a comprehensive index. This book is the definitive source for Raff's fascinating life and career and is a must buy for anyone interested in Raff.

To buy, and to see how you can save 20% on the price, go here.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Yippee!! Order placed, and within a few days I shall set up a perching stool behind the letterbox.

That I enjoyed 'Leaves from Life's Tree' so much, and hugely admired the real scholarship that had so clearly gone into it, is, I suppose, a fact about me and of no ultimate concern to the rest of the world. What is far more worth saying is that the book seemed to me a first rate contribution to our knowledge of Raff's family circumstances, his nature and character, the environment in which he lived and worked, and of utmost importance to our understanding of German history up until the Great War. So the new book has some high standards to meet!

Incidentally, Mark, too late now - but maybe you should have 'tendered' for expressions of interest on this Forum for the work of compiling an Index? It can be an irksome task (though it depends on the text in question), but strangely it is less irksome and in fact can be immensely rewarding to do the work on a text of which you yourself are not the author or editor. Provided the text 'grabs' you, indexing can be real fun and a great learning exercise. Sure, indexing a scholarly work on 9th Century Northumbrian chant would be equivalent to me of being a member of a jury on an immensely complex fraud trial that lasted a few months, but doing so on a well translated Raff biography would be....well, great!

[Mark Thomas]

Had I but known, Peter!

Now, of course, I worry that the index (all 12 double-column pages of it) may not be up to your high standard. As you imply, the difficulty for me was that I'd already read Alan's text three times during the layout and proof-reading stages and, in any case, was broadly familiar with it from earlier draft translations which others have done. What I should have done was index it as I was proof reading the final layout, but you learn these things only afterwards.

Anyway, I'm sure that you'll enjoy the book - it's well up to Helene Raff's standard and (I'll not spare his blushes) Alan's translation is superb.

[John H White]

Congratulations, Mark & Alan, on this splendid book production. I've only just started reading it but I've enjoyed it very much so far. I particularly like the way it is set out with a summary of each chapter at the start.
  I do hope you have sent review copies to the various music magazines such as the Musical Times, The Gramophone and BBC music Magazine. I don't know if it still applies, but years ago it used to be a legal requirement to submit a copy of any publication in the UK to the British Museum Library which I believe is now called the British Library. I know this because an uncle of mine landed up in prison for a while around 80 odd years ago when he published a book and failed to comply with that requirement.

[Alan Howe]

Very kind, John.
The matter of sending out review copies is, as they say, in hand...

[Mark Thomas]

I particularly like the way it is set out with a summary of each chapter at the start.

Thanks John. In fairness, that's a feature of the original 1925 book which we retained. But then it didn't have an index, which the new edition has, of course.