The Raff Symphonies: which one is your favourite and why?

[Peter1953]

Fernando, I'm happy to welcome you as a Spanish member! But why do you have to hurt my feelings... because I love Raff's An das Vaterland most of all... 

[Steve B]

Hey, fernando; welcome back. Forum(s) havent been quite the same without you!

Steve

[Alan Howe]

No.1 is surely the weakest of Raff's symphonies - but it's hard not to be won over by its sheer invention and patent sincerity. I love it too!

[Peter1953]

Dear Raffians, after reading all your interesting comments I have decided to create my own ideal Raff symphony. I just replace the Allegro of the 1st by the Allegro of his 4th, and let it follow by the four lovely other movements of An das Vaterland 

[FBerwald]

The no 6 is usually called the weakest. I listened to it. It still leaves me a bit confused ... (I can't make out weather I hate it or otherwise!)... The finale of this one is certainly weak

[John H White]

I think its just a good all round symphony. I particularly like the funeral march but must admit its not quite up to the standard of the march in No 5.

[Peter1953]

I just came back from a weekend meeting in a little village alongside the Rhine, near Wiesbaden. My German hosts asked me to give a short table speech, and after a few minutes business talk I thought to take this opportunity.
My first question to my audience was whether they thought Wiesbaden was a beautiful city with a lot of cultural sights. O yes, of course. (I agreed, for I have visited Wiesbaden a few times). And secondly if there are classical music lovers around our table. Almost everyone responded positive. A lot of names, of course including Robert Schumann. My last question was: does anybody know which famous composer lived and worked for some two decades in Wiesbaden, a city with a rich cultural history? Silence. 
Nobody familiar with the beautiful music of Joachim Raff? Believe it or not, one person said Aber der Raff ist doch nicht ein Deutscher sondern ein Schweizer? Then I raised my glass and told my audience about Raff's first symphony "An das Vaterland".

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks for your contribution to the Raff cause, Peter! Although there are monuments to Raff in his birthplace of Lachen, Switzerland and a very big memorial over his grave in Frankfurt, there is nothing which commemorates his 20-odd years in Wiesbaden. What a shame.

As to the question posed by the person at your dinner, my take on the answer is here...

[Peter1953]

Thank you for your interesting reply, Mark. Thinking of that memorable Saturday evening dinner, the most funny thing was that I succeeded in keeping some 25 Germans quiet for a few seconds.    Thanks to Joachim Raff!

[peter_conole]

Hi all

Herr Raff would love this kind of thread, partly because it will always be part of an endless but enjoyable and profitable discussion.

I do have a couple of favourites among the symphonies. But after various listening sprees, I have only one very firm impression of his entire corpus of symphonies. That impression is recognition of their individuality. There is no  standard formula - each work has to be taken on its own merits/demerits.

I think it was Don Luis (in an archived thread) who pointed out a way to appreciate his true greatness. Compare the movements of symphonies - eg, try listening to second movements from a random selection of the words - 5 or 6, or all of them. And other movements, in the same way.   

Numbers three and five are still my favourites. The final movement of the 3rd (when I first heard it) remains my most surprising experience of romantic era music, and the splendid coda (D'Avalos conducting) the best of all 'grand finales' among Raff's works.

regards
Peter

[DennisS]

As a new member as of today, I would like to start by saying that I am a committed Raff enthusiast, who firmly believes that Raff should be far better known than he is!

I am hugely impressed by both the official Raff site and also this site and look forward to having many interesting conversations with other members, not only on Raff but also on other lesser known composers ( I am also very fond of Kurt Atterberg for example), many of whom I have discovered thanks to the CPO label.

For my first posting, I would like to give my view on the topic of favourite Raff symphony. I have read other members views on this topic with keen interest. Generally, I am in agreement with both Mark and Alan that both historically and emotionally, symphonies 2-5 rank among his very best works, with the nod going perhaps to symphony no 5 as being his very best. Obviously the answer to this question is highly subjective and everyone has his or her own particular favourite. I love the Lenore symphony and although Mark finds the third movement march a little simplistic in a sense and I can certainly see why he might say that, at the same time, I find this particular movement very appealing and never tire of listening to it! So it seems I am saying number 5 is my favourite? Let me say however, that I enjoy all of Raff's symphonies and in each one there is always at least one favourite movement for me. At the same time, I would add that some movements succeed less well than others for me and we can all share that particular feeling.

That said, I have a particular liking for symphony no 11 and just like Ilya, I keep coming back to this symphony often. I find the first movement particularly evocative of winter with the first downfall of snow and easily imagine a scene of great beauty, with a winter landscape dressed in the purity of freshly fallen snow ( I get the same feeling when listening to Tchaikovsky's symphony no 1 Winter Dreams!).

So there it is - for me a toss up between no 5 and no 11.

[Alan Howe]

I have just acquired a copy of Bernard Herrmann's recording of No.5. Although the sound is not quite up to the finest modern standards, the performance is the best I have ever heard: it raises the piece to another level as far as I am concerned - which brings up another intriguing, if frustrating question, i.e. what would it sound like in the hands of one of today's great conductors and played by one of today's great orchestras?

[Mark Thomas]

Firstly, welcome Dennis and many thanks for the compliments about raff.org. I can never get too many, you know!

Secondly, it's interesting that so many people have a soft spot for No.11, considering that Raff himself was unconfident enough about it to actually suppress it in his lifetime. I always assumed that this was because he was subject to an uncharacteristic fit of self criticism but Avrohom Leichtling, in his essay on the work, contends that it was more likely because it represented a radical departure from his previous style and that in the succeeding symphonies, published as Nos.8-10, he moved more gradually to the sparer and more modern aesthetic he established in Der Winter. It was conceived as the first in the cycle, of course, although it was published posthumously as the last of the Seasons. From the recordings which I had heard I had always regarded it as one of his poorer efforts. Then Stadlmiar's superb interpretation quite changed my view of it.

Finally, Bernard Herrmann. Alan is right. His is still the definitive reading of Lenore I think.

[DennisS]

Thanks Mark for your comments on symphony no 11. I was aware that this symphony was published posthumously from the liner notes but it was stimulating to read your quote from Avrohom Leichtling suggesting that Raff was moving towards a sparer and more modern aesthetic.  This seems to make very good sense. Yes, I have a soft spot for this symphony but prefer the outer movements, as I find movements 2 and 3 marginally les satisfying.

Re- the Raff site, I tried to stream the extracts from the piano quartet no 2 but initially was not able to do so as the message came up in I tunes as "continuous". This has also happened with other more recent entries on the Raff site. As luck would have it, my daughter's friend was staying with us and he is, unlike me very computer literate. He said that the "links within .m3u files need spaces to be replaced by "%20". He showed me how to do this and I now have no problem streaming the newer musical additions on the site. Does this make sense to you or was it merely a problem on my computer?
Cheers
Dennis

[Mark Thomas]

I an understand what your friend is saying, but it's the first I've heard of it being a problem. Maybe it's a Mac thing, iTunes being an Apple product. I've certainly experienced no problems myself, but in my set up Windows Media Player takes care of streaming audio. I'll investigate...