Raff symphonies from Chandos

[Alan Howe]

I'm deeply grateful to CPO - and deeply puzzled by their habit of devoting what must be considerable finances into recording projects.....and then keeping the results locked away.

It is extraordinary, isn't it? I suppose that when the majority of projects seem to be joint ventures with radio companies an enormous backlog builds up. And they only release 6 CDs per month...

[Mark Thomas]

Apologies for the late reply, Peter. I've had a couple of weeks away from UC. I hope that Bo Hyttner won't mind me spilling the beans on the contents of Sterling's two upcoming Raff CDs.

The first CD is of religious choral music. The half-hour long De Profundis for soprano, chorus and orchestra of 1867 and the 1853 Te Deum for chorus and orchestra are coupled with six a capella choral works: the Four Marian Antiphones, an Ave Maria and a Pater Noster. The second CD is purely orchestral. It has Raff's 1850 arrangement and orchestration of Liszt's sketches for his original Prometheus Unbound Overture together with a number of free-standing orchestral numbers from the 1882 Oratorio Welt-Ende - Gericht - Neue Welt. The final work is what remains of the 1854 Incidental Music to the play Bernhard von Weimar: The Overture and two marches. The Overture (transposed from C major to D major and with some changes to instrumentation) is better known now as the Overture Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott and it's that final published version which has been recorded as the original, in common with most Raff manuscripts, no longer exists. The Gothenburg orchestra is conducted by Henrik Schaefer. Release date is sometime in the next six months all being well, followed by a box set of all five of Sterling's Raff CDs at some stage in the farther future.

I uploaded some time ago to the Archive Downloads board earlier performances of both some Welt-Ende orchestral extracts and the Ein feste Burg Overture here and the Raff/Liszt Prometheus Unbound Overture here.

[TerraEpon]

Both CDs sound like needed buys for me, especially the second one. Yummy.

[Gareth Vaughan]

This is very exciting news indeed, Mark. I look forward greatly to these releases. One can only hope that the orchestral excerpts from Welte Ende may eventually result in a professional recording of the whole oratorio. After all, if Hiller's "Fall of Jerusalem" can find its way onto disk, there is surely hope for World's End.

[M. Yaskovsky]

Well, I'm new here and have read through all the posts - pardon my bad Dutch-English - concerning the re-recording of
Raff Symphonies and other symphonic works. I own them all but must confess from 3 or 4 different labels and many more
conductors. I think the Tudor label has done a great job for Raff's case, which isn't easy. After all he's a second rate
first class composer of which there're many more. That doesn't mean his music doesn't need any attention. Problem with
this music is it only fares well with a first class conductor, recording and responsive orchestra.
Mr. Jarvi isn't an outsider in the recording industry but personally I was surprised to find him having any attention for
Raff's case. As stated before he doesn't excel in this kind of repertoire which needs much love and attention. That's why his Glazunov and Gade recordings - whose music can be compared with Raff's - don't go very well. For me - although he's 75 now - he's King of exaggerated tempos. I had the privilege to follow his conducting for 6 years because he was chief conductor of my very own local Residentie Orkest, The Hague. I remember a very rushed Bruckner 5, an idiotic and chaotically paced Mahler 7, which by the way was recorded by Chandos and has won a Mahler prize somewhere in Austria... a Brahms 4 where the finale was so rushed the players couldn't follow his tempo (he's a very difficult conductor to follow on the
beat, by the way).
Jarvi is THE conductor for more rough hen music like Tubin, you all know he did a very good cycle of his symphonies on BIS, for Alfvén, etc. Over here he never payed attention to any Dutch composer - of which there're many - and so he's not my man. But let's hope the Chandos - Jarvi marriage will last for many more years, they've given us many great things. But Raff............

[Mark Thomas]

Well, we'll just have to see won't we and we won't have long to wait as the first fruits of his new-found interest in Raff should be available within six months. Needless to say, I don't agree with your assessment of Raff's music, and I don't see how you can say that it "only fares well with a first class conductor, recording and responsive orchestra." How can you possibly say? To my knowledge, and with all due respect to the efforts of Herrmann, Stadlmair, Albert et al, none of their recordings have all of those characteristics (Herrmann's LSO was famously morose and unenthusiastic) and neither has any of the live performances I've heard. What's exciting about the Järvi/Chandos combo is that it potentially represents a step up in both interpretation and recording sound.

[britishcomposer]

Mr. Jarvi isn't an outsider in the recording industry but personally I was surprised to find him having any attention for
Raff's case. As stated before he doesn't excel in this kind of repertoire which needs much love and attention. That's why his Glazunov and Gade recordings - whose music can be compared with Raff's - don't go very well.

As Mark had to disagree with your assessment of Raff's music so I have to disagree with your assessment of Järvi's Glazunov cycle. To me Järvi's is the pinnacle of all Glazunov Symphony cycles I have heard so far. He pays much attention to detail, often with deep love and understanding, and he manages to instill real fire into his Bavarian band. To my mind no other conductor has been as successful in bringing out the mystical and the tragic side of Glazunov and - in the case of the 8th - an air of resignation which results not from exhaustion but from the awareness of having achieved utmost concentration. (After all, Glazunov didn't finish his 9th.)
Sorry for digressing - this was very much off-topic - but to me the Glazunov cycle is THE testimony for Järvi's greatness.

[Alan Howe]

OK - digression forgiven, but now back to the topic...

[jasthill]

First look at Chandos-Jarvi-Raff Vol 1
http://www.abeillemusique.com/SACD-Hybride/Classique/CHSA5117/0095115511725/Chandos-Records/Joachim-Raff/OEuvres-orchestrales-Volume-1/cleart-67181.html

[petershott@btinternet.com]

The eyes have feasted on the image! Whao, Chandos! What a cause for celebration! And given such a fine record company, and a top notch conductor have taken up Raff then, fingers tightly crossed, Raff might make it to the concert hall. And if that happens, then hopefully, like a snowball, we might get even more Raff recorded. A look at the work-list quickly shows how much further there is to go. And think: just a very few years ago we had virtually no Raff and he was a name occasionally encountered in music history books or biographies of composers like Liszt. I'm also pretty sure the Raff Society has been a principal agent in this increased representation of Raff. (No need for anyone to blush!)

Finally, a mundane question: anyone know the date of release of this Chandos disc?

[Jonathan]

Looks good to me too!
Peter, the release date on the page given earlier appears to be 07/02/2013 - unless my French translation is wrong!
Hope this helps...

[Mark Thomas]

What a tonic after a busy day. Whoop-de-doo!

[Alan Howe]

Yep - absolutely wonderful news. And particularly wonderful for those such as Mark who have consistently espoused his cause from their own pockets...

BTW, at 33:41 it looks as though it's going to be a very swift performance of Symphony No.2 indeed (Stadlmair comes in at 36:53; Schneider takes 36 minutes) - unless Järvi misses a repeat somewhere. Any thoughts, Mark?

[Mark Thomas]

Only the same as yours, Alan. Of course, Raff's metronome markings are notoriously fast and modern day conductors tend to play his music slower than the score indicates. Even so, Müller-Reuter, in his 1909 Lexikon, suggested a time of 35 minutes for the Symphony. Comparing Järvi's timings for the four Shakespeare Preludes with those of Werner Andreas-Albert, he takes about the same time over both Othello and Romeo & Juliet but knocks a minute off Macbeth from 12 to 11 and two minutes off The Tempest, bringing it down to 14 minutes.

[Alan Howe]

The CD's now at jpc:
http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/Joachim-Raff-1822-1882-Symphonie-Nr-2/hnum/2423084