Raff: String Quartets no.1 & 5 from Mannheimer Streichquartett?

[Kevin]

Hi there. I was just listening to Stanfords gorgeous String Quartets and realized that another unsung composer also composed 8 as well(Raff of course!) but I'd like to know when (if ever) will we get our grabby hands on the final installment from CPO -  1 & 5?

[Alan Howe]

With cpo you never can tell. Could be next month, could be in a decade. If they've been recorded...

[Gareth Vaughan]

Patience is a virtue - all things come to him who waits. They will be all the more exciting when they do eventually appear. If it is any consolation I believe they have been recorded - at least, so it is rumoured.

[Mark Thomas]

No rumour, Gareth. They were recorded last autumn. So, only another five years to wait now....

[Alan Howe]

Oh, not a decade, then? 

[Mark Thomas]

No, cpo are rushing this one through. 

[Ilja]

Whatever "rushing" may mean in Osnabrück, of course.

[Alan Howe]

I once spent a year in Detmold, not far from Osnabrück. Lovely part of the world...

[Kevin]

Okay. Thanks guys, I await with baited breath! Slightly off topic; Looks like SOMM have recorded the last disc for the remainder of the Stanford quartets. And I believe they will release his final opera The Travelling Companion as well, looking forward to that!

[Mark Thomas]

The news about The Travelling Companion is particularly welcome, thanks. See this earlier thread.

[Mark Thomas]

I suspect we won't have that much longer to wait for the final CD in cpo's survey of Raff's string quartets: Nos.1 and 5. The Mannheimer's performances of these two fine, but very different, works are fully up to the standard of the existing releases. Sometime in the first half of next year is my guess.

[Gareth Vaughan]

That's great news, Mark. Thank you so much for letting us know.

[Alan Howe]

Indeed. No.1 is an absolutely fabulous work - exciting, passionate, deeply felt.