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

[Justin]

I listened to the Seventh Symphony "In The Alps" while hiking through the Alps in Switzerland, and while it was a perfect experience where the music matched seamlessly with the landscapes, I can't seem to recreate that enjoyment when listening to it at home. It makes me imagine that Raff spend many days hiking waiting for the melodic inspiration to come to him, and he did an amazing job. For my favorite symphony in any setting, it would be his third, "Im Walde."

[Alan Howe]

The best performance of No.7 that I've heard was reviewed here:
https://www.raff.org/news/reviews/2001/stgallen.htm

[Mark Thomas]

My best too, obviously, but I don't think the symphony as a whole is amongst his best. Although atmospheric and boasting Raff's usual melodic generosity, it's too diffuse and too repetitive.

[Justin]

I agree. It struggles to maintain interest as "absolute music" as for me.

[FBerwald]

Symphony No. 8 "Spring" - the 1st movement has become my all time favorite piece of music by Raff. He manages to capture the joy of spring with one beautiful tune after another calumniating in a hair raising coda. Pity we don't have a stellar recording of this symphony.

[Justin]

That first movement is one of those pieces where the music is well-written; it just has to have the proper interpretation to shine.

[Alan Howe]

My strong sense is that we haven't heard the best of most of the symphonies. Järvi has done a fine job, but we need more recordings from him or someone who really 'gets' Raff.

[FBerwald]

Slowly moving through the Raff cycle (not in chronological order) I have just arrived at No. 7 and find it absolutely wonderful. All the movements are near perfect imho and don't outstay their welcome (at least for my ears). I was especially happy with the finale which in so far I have found to be Raff's weakest point. The Finale of the 7th not only keeps up with the preceding 3 but somehow manages to go a step past them - Pity he didn't combine all the 3 preceding movement themes instead of just the 1st juxtaposed with the motives of the finale. Splendid symphony. 

[Kevin]

I still find his 3-5 symphonies the most enjoyable and satisfying(incidentally that's the same trio for Stanford for me as well)

Shame we get dozens upon dozens of new Brahms symphonies, as an example, each year it seems but we don't get those above I've mentioned more often(or at all is more correct).

[Ilja]

My strong sense is that we haven't heard the best of most of the symphonies. Järvi has done a fine job, but we need more recordings from him or someone who really 'gets' Raff.

That's very true, although some of the symphonies have suffered more than others. Particularly No. 1 had been subjected to a number of - at best - lacklustre treatments that have left its reputation in tatters even among Raff afficionados.

[Mark Thomas]

As a pendant to Ilja's comment about No.1 (with which I agree), it's recently been discovered that, sometime after the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, which brought the real prospect of German unification (which came in 1871), Raff wrote to his publisher that he intended to compose a new finale, thereby excising the no-longer relevant "yearning for German unity" elements which dominate the last two movements, which it would have replaced. It seems that performances of An das Vaterland had fallen off and he hoped by this means to restore it to the repertoire. I wonder if, had he gone ahead with this plan, we'd look more kindly on a shorter four-movement Symphony, shorn of the nationalistic bombast which, after two world wars, can jar so to modern listeners, even though Raff was merely giving voice to a much more innocent and entirely understandable aspiration shared by most of his countrymen?

[mahesi]

My favourite is number 5. But on Sunday November 17 I will hear number seven in concert in Baden (Switzerland), played by an amateur orchestra. It is the first time that I have the opportunity to hear a Symphony by Raff in a concert. And I am very excited about that.

[Kevin]

I was hugely disappointed with Jarvi's take on the 5th. Far too fast and frankly I don't care if it is in line with Raff's tempo markings it just sounds awful played that way. I'm sort of glad he never did the 3rd and 4th symphonies because he would've probably ruined those as well. Hope I'm not alone in this.

[Alan Howe]

On the other hand, I suspect that if one starts with Järvi, everyone else will sound earthbound by comparison...

[Gareth Vaughan]

I don't care if it is in line with Raff's tempo markings it just sounds awful played that way

Even if that was what the composer intended? Interesting. If I were a composer I would like performers to follow, as far as possible, the instructions given in my score. Isn't it possibly the case that our introduction to the symphony was a performance in which slower tempi were adopted so we have got used to that - compare Klemperer's tempi in the Beethoven symphonies with those of Roger Norrington, for example. Yet it is generally acknowledged that Norrington's are closer to those which Beethoven wished and expected to hear. I suppose I'm only saying what Alan has written, but with examples.