Raff/Järvi Chandos vol. 2 - Symphony 5 etc.

[adriano]

@chill319, you are perfectly right. I do not want to compare me with Karajan, but sometimes, while relistening takes of my recordings a day later or in the afternoon of a morning session, I stop and ask the producer with an alarmed look: was I that fast/slow yesterday? He answers that everything is still in the correct tempo. I am 70 now - it must be metabolism 

[mbhaub]

At long last, I received my copy of the Jarvi Raff 5. Was it worth the wait?

The sound is glorious SACD and with the volume turned up, is excellent. Close your eyes and you feel like you're in the middle of the hall. Balances are not artificially pumped up.

Orchestral playing is superb - the OSR sure has come a long ways since the Ansermet days. Tuning is precise, rhythmically precise, phrasing is fine. No complaints here.

Movement 1: at the hectic pace it actually works, although I would still prefer a slightly more relaxed second theme.

Movement 2: I just don't know about this. It just seems so rushed - like looking at the Alps from a tour bus.

Movement 3: This is just not right. The score is marked march tempo - this is like some parody of a march, a cartoonish rush stomping off to war. I just can't believe this is what Raff wanted or intended.

Movement 4: This is just bad. Played at this tempo the introduction is robbed of all atmosphere and mystery. The main section goes ok. But then catastrophe! At the climax, rather than taking a dramatic pause, Jarvi just moves right on, not allowing the music a moment repose.

So, after a fine Symphony 2, this comes along and despite the sound and playing, the conducting ruins it. Now, the fine booklet notes by Avrohom make a case for the rapid tempos indicated in the score. But I don't like it. Maybe if we had never known Bernard Herrmann's version (he tended to slower tempos in everything) and if Jarvi's had been the first recording, this would have been the version imprinted on our brains and these tempos would be "normal". But I do know Herrmann and all the other versions done. Maybe it's Raff's fault - did he REALLY want these tempos? Is his autograph score available? Does it contain these tempo marks or did some editor add them?

I should be grateful as can be that Chandos would spend the effort and money to make this recording, but this is not going to be my Raff 5th of choice - that remains Herrmann. Maybe in time I'll come to accept this. When conductors started using faster tempos in Beethoven I rejected those too, having grown up on Klemperer and Walter. Now, I can't imagine going back to those glacial tempos. Anyway, that's my opinion. Maybe others have responded more positively. By the way, Mark's interesting digital speeded up version isn't that far off from Jarvi.

[Mark Thomas]

Just to respond to a minor point: no, Martin, the autograph of Lenore is lost. This is true of almost all Raff's published works. He placed no value on his manuscripts once the music was published, and they seem to have been disposed of by his publishers. The few Raff autographs which we have are those of the unpublished works. However, he was a punctilious corrector of the proofs of his music, so I am as certain as I can be that the printed score represents what he wanted published. With a few exceptions, he only used metronome markings from the early 1870s and they are often surprisingly fast, not following our modern interpretations of his corresponding tempo indications of Andante, Allegro etc. Whether this was deliberate and typical of his time, or the result of a faulty metronome a la Beethoven I have no idea.

[Alan Howe]

I think it's a question of what one is used to. IRR reviewer Richard Whitehouse (April 2014 issue) says that 'those coming to Lenore afresh should certainly make the Järvi their first option'. I agree. Herrmann for me is just miles too slow, but then I was never used to his performance...

[DennisS]

I read mbhaub's post with particular interest this morning. I have continued to listen to both Järvi's and Stadlmair's versions frequently - Raff's Lenore Symphony is one of my favourite Raff works - and by sheer coincidence, I was again listening to both yesterday afternoon. I have been listening to both repeatedly in an attempt to "re-educate" my thinking as regards the Järvi faster tempi. As has been stated previously, listeners are used to hearing the slower tempi of all the other conductors of this piece and it's been suggested that we are conditioned to hearing the slower tempi. I have tried to adjust my thinking but at this moment in time, I have failed miserably. I still feel strongly that the opening of the first movement in Järvi's hands stills feels way too rushed. That said, the movement sort of works but I have the strong feeling that it will always sound uncomfortably fast, even if that was the way Raff intended it to sound. Interestingly for me, listening at the same time to the Stadlmair version, I had the strange impression that , in Stadlmair's hands, the opening of the first movement now seems "faster" than I previously remembered! Strange! Maybe listening to Järvi is somehow changing my perception of the music i.e. just maybe I have become more used to hearing Järvi's interpretation of the opening movement? My biggest problem with the Järvi take is his handling of movement number three! This is simply way too fast for me! I know it is a march tempo but the way Järvi takes it, he goes hell to leather with it, leaving me with the impression that the music sounds like the accompaniment to a 1930s film i.e. it sounds ridiculously too fast and I can't imagine anyone marching that fast, even if it's a very quick march!!! I am less bothered by Järvis' tempi in movement 2. Yes it is a bit rushed but it sort of works. Listening to Stadlmair's movement no 2, it nearly felt at times that the music dragged just a little, something I didn't think I would ever say! Likewise, Järvis' movement no 4 again sort of works but I do understand mbhaub's comments on this movement and am inclined to agree with him. It's very clear to me that it's up to each listener to chose which version to favour and ultimately which version to love the most. My favourite Lenore is still Stadlmair's but I will continue to listen to the Järvi as well. who knows? Maybe I will come around to it more in time but deep down, I don't think that will happen.

[Alan Howe]

Dennis: have you tried Chailly's Beethoven?

[DennisS]

Hello Alan. No, I have not heard Chailly's Beethoven cycle. I have just googled Chailly and read a most interesting review on his Beethoven cycle - seems he has tried to be absolutely faithful to Beethoven's wishes and totally ignored what the music "should sound like"! You have whetted my appetite! I will investigate. Perhaps Chailly will put into the shade my Von Karajan cycle of Beethoven symphonies? Thanks for the tip.

[Alan Howe]

Karajan is very hard to beat, Dennis. Chailly's Beethoven is rather like Järvi's Raff - I find him exhilarating, but wonder whether he's just too fast. Or am I simply accustomed to earlier performances, some of them a good deal slower?

[eschiss1]

Speaking maybe a little too abstractly, I -am- glad when one gets to the point where one no longer _certainly_ has too few recordings of all of a composer's most important works, and in fact has some choices to make between them- it did take a few decades after the advent of recordings to get to that point with even the most famous of composers, but to have 3 competing Raff symphony cycles (etc.) (and hoping for even better ones) may be a milestone in itself (though I may for myself regard some of his chamber music as containing even better stuff- but even there, there are now competing cycles in progress of sonatas and quartets etc. ... - anyway, anyway...)

[adriano]

Yes, and there is another Beethoven I do not like at all: Zinman's! He rehearsed with a metronome on his conducting stand and always consulted it, making all kind of conferences about Beethoven's tempi! Why did he not leave the podium and have the metronome beating alone? Karajan will never be surpassed as far as Beethoven and Brahms are concerned. Chailly's Brahms is interesting, but as questionable as Harnoncourt's and D'Avalos'. If you want to play music without rubato and Romantic feelings, you better go back to pure Baroque music and don't fiddle with o Neo-Baroque homages à la Brahms. Last but not least, there is tradition, but old masters/conductors who know about it are no longer alive; still, their recordings are like masterclasses.
A reminder: the metronome marks in my score of Raff's "Lenore" are Allegro (168), Andante quasi larghetto (86), Marsch-Tempo (160; in 4!) and Allegro (162). Järvi just wanted to respect that :-)
Personally, I like Herrmann's tempi; Stadlmaier's may be a better compromise. When I recorded G.T. Strong's Suite "Die Nacht", in the "Peasant's Battle March" I was confronted with an Alla breve of 130, and this made me consider that Raff's Marches were played fast. Strong had studied with Raff and his piece is a clear homage to the "Lenore" March.

[Alan Howe]

Chailly's Brahms cycle is not really to be compared with those of the HIP brigade. For one thing, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra still play with wonderful warmth - it's just that the tempi are quite (but only quite) brisk. Nothing extreme at all - and certainly not a baroque approach to Romantic music.
As far as Brahms interpretation as a whole is concerned, there has always been a tension between classicists (such as Weingartner - now he's really swift!) and romantic interpreters such as Max Fiedler.
No, Chailly is fine. It's Norrington and Gardiner that I can't stand in this repertoire - wiry strings, horridly clipped phrasing, etc.

[FBerwald]

Since we have diverged briefly to Beethoven, Gardiner - used period instruments so I believe we must make allowances for the strings [wiry or otherwise]. Norrington - No comment!

It might be interesting to compare the version by Sir Charles Mackerras from the Edinburgh Festival (?) released on Hyperion. The tempos are brisk and the cycle is on the whole very satisfying. What is the opinion of the members here on Weingartner's Beethoven?

[Alan Howe]

What I wanted to focus on here is whether the performing tradition(s) in respect of other composers can throw light on the Raff 5 interpretation issue.

[adriano]

You are right, Alan, perhaps I exaggerated by putting Chailly in the same pot, but this comes from the fact that he (as quoted in the booklet) thinks: "the time is ripe for Brahms"!

[mbhaub]

Hadrianus: you bring up some things that make talking about music so interesting. For me, Zinman's Beethoven is terrific! One of the best. Very refreshing and exciting. Zinman has so much to say. I love his Schumann and Mahler, too! Although nowadays my go-to Beethoven is Mackerras.

On the other hand...I don't particularly like Karajan's Beethoven or Brahms. For my taste, there were several Beethoven cycles made at about that same time as the 60's Karajan that left him in the dust: Cluytens, Szell, and above all, Rene Leibowitz. The Brahms set laid down by Bruno Walter with the NYPO in glorious mono sound is still the one to beat. My favorite modern Brahms is...Mackerras, again.

So many different approaches to the same music, especially in terms of tempo. Years ago I was at a seminar with Lorin Maazel speaking, and he emphasized that during the romantic era, no composer or conductor would consider the score sacrosanct, but rather a rather plastic thing that could be molded as the performer saw fit. Listen to the old Mengelberg recordings, or even Scherchen and we get an idea of what liberties conductors took. I assume that conductors would do the same for Raff's 5th and not drive it like an out of control truck. There needs to be some give and take, some rubato and modulation of tempo. If there is ever another recording of the 5th, I would hope some deeply committed romantic would take it up, but given the current state of conducting I can't think of many.