Chandos - Raff & Rufinatscha

[eschiss1]

Mightn't it depend on his tempi (even with an effective limit for CDs - on some players - of 83 or 84 minutes, even good interpretations within bounds of 3 and of 4 might together go over?...)

[Mark Thomas]

Of course. I was using Stadlmair's renditions as guide, which together come in at 77 minutes. If his first disc is anything to go by, I'd expect Järvi's to be pacier than that.

[Gauk]

...and if they could do No.4 - for me Raff's greatest, he said at the risk of offending the experts ...

We are in agreement about that; IMO Nos 2 and 4 are the most successful of Raff's symphonies, and not co-incidentally, they are the only two without subtitles. I suspect that one of the reasons why Raff's stock is not higher is that despite writing eleven symphonies, he had problems with symphonic form. His symphonies contain some wonderful music, and some of the individual movements are sublime, but they don't hang together as integrated large-scale structures. They are perhaps more than symphonic suites, but the descriptive programmes do the music no favours. This always bothered me about No 5, which for a long time was the only of the symphonies I could listen to, that despite the attractiveness of the music, there were serious formal problems. Even worse in No 3, with its lop-sided finale, or the sprawling No 1.

Incidentally, it's a shame Previn never recorded Raff - I remember him conducting the first movement of Lenore with the LSO, and wonderful it was too.

[Mark Thomas]

Incidentally, it's a shame Previn never recorded Raff - I remember him conducting the first movement of Lenore with the LSO, and wonderful it was too.

Did he? How interesting. I didn't know.

[Alan Howe]

Incidentally, it's a shame Previn never recorded Raff - I remember him conducting the first movement of Lenore with the LSO, and wonderful it was too.

Can you remember when? That'd be very interesting to know.

[Gauk]

This is stretching things - I think it was probably the early 1970s. He made a television documentary for the BBC about the art of conducting, and used the Lenore first movement as a demonstration piece. At one point he spoke over the music to say how important the conductor's role is, and that there would be chaos if he stopped. To demonstrate, he stopped conducting and turned his back on the players, who continued to play flawlessly. Previn turned round and said "You're all fired!".

That might have been over the Lenore or it might have been another piece - after the interval of 40 years it is surprising I remember it at all.

[Alan Howe]

It'd be good to have chapter and verse. Perhaps the BBC might help?

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Gauk has a good memory! When I was a schoolboy Previn was one of my heroes (after all he had longish hair and therefore must have been against all authority and the respectable establishment. Better still, both he - and Bernstein - spoke so wonderfully fluently about music).

I can still 'see' in my mind the image (on a black and white telly) of Previn turning his back on the orchestra who carried on flawlessly whilst Previn produced that impish grin and declared conductors to be redundant.

However three little niggles:

1. I reckon the incident was, not early 1970s, but pre-1966. For in that year I went off to university and, away from home and into a more vibrant environment, television ceased to be part of my life.

2. Pouring a little cold water on the validity of Previn's demonstration, there's no difficulty in imagining his orchestra composed of professional musicians could have carried on flawlessly for 45 seconds or so of television time in a presumably well rehearsed piece. Whether they could have done so for longer or over an entire work is another matter, and this 'experiment' didn't at all establish that an orchestra doesn't need a conductor. But that's entirely tangential to the thread and I'm being a real killjoy!

3. Much more to the point, I wonder if it really was Raff? I remember the incident Gauk reports, but I can't for the life of me remember which piece of music was played for the music itself would have been incidental to the point being made. I would be surprised if it was Raff. Previn surely wouldn't have dug out a then more or less entirely forgotten and neglected piece of music to demonstrate his point? Much more likely I would have thought that it was something Previn and his orchestra had recently performed or rehearsed - the Overture to Fidelio perhaps?

Alas, even if Gauk is entirely right, the chance of discovering a faultless performance of an entire Raff work conducted by Previn in the vaults of the BBC is just as unlikely as discovering a wonderful performance of a Raff symphony right now on the moon.

But if we could have altered history contemplate what might have happened had Previn taken up Raff in the concert hall and recording studio. I have an intuition he might have been a natural for Raff (that 'bounce' and 'swagger' sometimes found in Raff Previn would have pulled off wonderfully.) Perhaps by the 1970s Raff might have become a familiar composer. What a prospect. The serious downside is that in such a different world Mark's Raff website would have been redundant - and that would have been a tragedy for sure!

Tangential (yet again!) to the thread, the other night I diverted my ears from string quartets and dusted off a couple of Previn's recordings of Strauss symphonic poems. By gosh, they are astonishingly good!

[eschiss1]

not necessarily redundant. Bach's cantatas are on the whole (well... some of them) more popular than Raff's works (though not among his more popular works), and Bach among the best-known composers, but that doesn't prevent the Bach-cantatas website from being an excellent website full of useful information...

[Gauk]

Well, a couple of things re petershott's post.

1. It could not have been pre-1966, as I only started listening to music c. 1966. Late 60s would be possible. Also, it was after I had discovered Raff, so c. 1970 is more likely. It was not the first time I had heard the piece, so I had heard the Unicorn recording at this date.

2. It might not have been Raff that he did his comedy stunt on, but I am quite sure he played that movement in the programme, or part of it at least, and I think he did specifically introduce it as a little-known work. It is possible my memory might be faulty, but the musical image of that piece played with the LSO sonority is vivid yet.

Alan: the BBC was very bad at preserving records from that era, so I would not be hopeful. Would be more fruitful to write to Previn, if you can find an address for him.