Raff symphonies from Chandos

[Gareth Vaughan]

Certainly Alan is absolutely right about the orchestral playing and the rich sound - also the light and shade - in Jarvi's recording. It's marvellous to hear Raff played by a first class orchestra in good sound with a conductor sensitive to the composer's demands.
As to the question of tempi it probably does come down to what one understands by "andante". Classical "andante" was certainly faster than the speed some conductors have taken Romantic "andante", but should there be a difference? For years we were told that Beethoven's metronome markings were the result of a faulty metronome. Then along comes Roger Norrington and, by and large, observes them pretty faithfully - and, goodness(!) how the music springs to life suddenly. I'm not saying one should rush things (that too is a fault) or avoid being expansive - but so often there has been an indulgent wallowing in Romantic lushness, and slow movts. always seem to get the worst of this, which often does the music a great disservice and produces a turgid mush of sound which I think would probably have horrified the composer.

[eschiss1]

For awhile wasn't andante less a tempo indication, than a request to keep the _walking_ bass marked and regular?

[petershott@btinternet.com]

A wise man heeds those whose understanding towers above his own. I take Gareth's point completely about how slowness can result in a turgid mush of sound (ooh, horrors!).

But then being far too fast can also produce a maddening result. In parenthesis in my previous post I gave the example of the Takacs Quartet playing Schubert on a recent Hyperion disc. It is taken far faster than any Quartet I've heard. All the reviews I've read have praised the disc and lavishly covered it with gold stars and 5 pluses. I wanted to do the same when I bought it. But I thought their fast performance although technically brilliant utterly murdered Schubert.

Am I quite alone in the world? Has anyone else heard the CD? I'd love to know other reactions, if only to confirm that I am indeed alone in the world in holding this opinion!

[Alan Howe]

We probably ought not to go down the Schubert route here. Perhaps anyone with thoughts on the subject could send Peter a private message...

Anyway, Järvi's Raff 2 has certainly provoked an interesting debate. Further thoughts anyone?

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Thanks Alan. I wasn't intending to divert a Raff thread into a Schubert one. But then I suppose this very interesting Raff thread has given rise to issues that go beyond Raff, and that poses a challenge to moderators in knowing where to best place some responses.

All I was after was that whilst it might effect an improvement in the 'delivery' of an andante movement to adopt a brisker tempo than has become customary among a large number of conductors (as in perhaps the case of Raff), sometimes adopting a brisker tempo can ruin the music. And the Takacs recording of the Death and the Maiden quartet perfectly illustrates the point - or at least in my view, which is doubtless a minority one! Maybe all this simply reflects my stubborn and inflexible prejudices, the result of worshipping at the feet of the Amadeus in my student days when I first started to listen to quartets!

In a concert over the summer I also heard the Doric - a marvellously competent young quartet - give a really thrusting and almost hectic performance of one of the Haydn Op. 20 quartets. Wow, the technique was astonishing...but I almost fell off my chair in anguish. Far, far too fast! I'm sure Haydn would have curled up for the elegance, wit and good humour of the work were suffocated. Interestingly, they also gave a performance of the d'Indy quartet (a far superior quartet to the Debussy!) that was slower than I've heard it performed before by a good number of quartets.....and by gosh, it was the best performance of that quartet I've ever heard and showed it to be a real masterpiece. (At the time the Doric were recording d'Indy for Chandos up the road in Potton Hall - disc out on January 28 in the same batch as Raff and I'd encourage all to place advance orders, for both discs of course!)

All this maybe explains why, a few posts earlier in the thread, I was wondering whether, if there is a case for thinking a brisker tempo than what we've got used to in post-Klemperer days might do an orchestral work wonders, a similar brisker pace effects similar rewards in the case of chamber and instrumental works? My hunch is a 'no' to that question. But that's a general issue that goes way beyond Raff - maybe I should have initiated a distinct thread?

[Alan Howe]

Do initiate, Peter...

[Mark Thomas]

I've listened a few times now to the Second Symphony's Andante in this new recording and I can reassure you, Peter, that it most emphatically does work. It is certainly radically faster than we are used to hearing but it isn't fast; rather, Järvi has imbued it with the "motion" which Raff requests in his tempo indication. The result is music which is much more dramatic in places and, as I mentioned in yesterday's post, quite thrilling in the climaxes. Listen with an open mind and I practically guarantee a Pauline conversion. Couple this with an expansive, but never dragging opening movement and a finale played with real conviction and, even though I have yet to hear the recording in proper sound, I can say unequivocally that this is my Raff Second of choice. I have always reckoned it to be amongst Raff's best symphonies and here that is amply demonstrated. Hearing the four Shakespeare Preludes will have to wait until I get home, but I have very high hopes that Järvi will again eclipse the so-so performances which have so far been available to us. On the strength of this first release I hope and pray that we may get a full symphonic cycle from Järvi and this orchestra - it would be a revelation.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Damn - the brain is obviously going at far too slow a tempo.

In my post above I referred to a forthcoming Chandos CD of the Doric String Quartet performing the d'Indy quartet.

The ever astute Eric asked me: which one (of the three)?

And I then realised I meant to refer to Chausson's Op. 35 quartet - which was completed by d'Indy.

Apologies to all, and especial thanks to Eric for drawing my attention to my sloppy habits. (There is now a bruise on my shin where I kicked myself.)

The Doric played this very fine quartet more slowly than I remembered of performances by other quartets. And not a trace of "a turgid mush of sound" in Gareth's memorial phrase. I think it is going to be a very exceptional disc. Quicker tempi might well work for Raff, and maybe for a lot of orchestral music (maybe we're still affected by the legacy of Klemperer and Karajan-itis and need to blow away those particular cobwebs). But I don't think a more brisk delivery works for most chamber and instrumental music).

Now back to Raff and the thread. (I can't wait to get hands on the new Chandos Raff disc and I eagerly await my Pauline conversion!)

[Alan Howe]

the legacy of Klemperer and Karajan-itis

Actually, Karajan is much harder to pigeon-hole than Klemperer. His Beethoven was always pretty swift, his Schubert 9 even more so, his Mendelssohn and Schumann athletic and his Brahms pretty middle-of-the-road. What people often objected to was his liking for smooth and blended textures. For me he was the greatest conductor who ever lived - I'd love to hear what he would have done with Raff 2, although I suspect he wouldn't have been as daring as Järvi...

[Alan Howe]

Friends may like to read Avrohom Leichtling's stimulating sleevenote to the Raff recording here:
http://www.chandos.net/pdf/CHSA%205117.pdf

[eschiss1]

... good, but I think he's confusing "objective" with "objectivist" (whatever that word's come to mean) (or versa-vice) on page 8. Otherwise, (and assuming he is not making some sort of odd very compressed joke)... HUH?

[petershott@btinternet.com]

I think, Eric, it is a reference to Ayn Rand's 'objectivist' philosophical system in which she insisted that reason (or rather Reason) was the key to proper knowledge of reality, rather than emotion, feeling, passion or whatever. All rather ramshackle (and hardly novel I think). Ignore it - Raff is what matters here!

[Alan Howe]

I'm not going to defend Dr Leichtling's philosophical aside (it's a bit of a stretch, I think, as well as being pretty unintelligible without any further explanation) - but I do think that he has a genuine handle on Raff's creative processes in general and on his decidedly classical/rational approach to composition in particular - especially in an era when the composers Raff was identified with (wrongly, as it turns out!), i.e. those of the New German School such as Liszt, Cornelius, etc., had moved towards much freer and more extended modes of expression.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Avrohom's essay is, indeed, a model of its kind.

[Mark Thomas]

In an earlier post, I mentioned how instructive it can be to look at Müller-Reuter's Lexikon, to get an idea of late 19th century performance timings. I've now returned home and, interestingly, his suggested timings for the Second Symphony are:

     Schneider                      Stadlmair                   Järvi                   Müller
1.      11:43                         11:33                       12:38                 12:00
2.        9:54                         10:29                         7:26                 10:00
3.        5:33                           5:39                         5:31                   5:00
4.        8:50                           8:55                         8:13                   8:00

So, against my expectations, it turns out that Järvi is still considerably faster in the second movement than was common by 1909. Still, the proof of the pudding etc., and I find it an invigorating listen.