Recording of Raff's Samson

[Alan Howe]

Great. It's a date!

The sight of that consignment of CDs is almost too much to bear...

[Alan Howe]

The set's now being advertised by jpc at EUR39.99 for the three CDs:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/joachim-raff-samson/hnum/11860991

[John Boyer]

Great. It's a date!

The sight of that consignment of CDs is almost too much to bear...

O-ho the Wells Fargo Wagon is a-comin' down the street,
Oh please let it be for me!

O-ho the Wells Fargo Wagon is a-comin' down the street,
I wish, I wish I knew what it could be!

I'm a-hopin' for an opry by a guy named Raff
That's the music that I really want to hear

Though the singing to my standards may be far far off
Still I want that Schweizer package to be near!

[Alan Howe]

Well done, John-Boy! A poet - and don't 'e know it...

[John Boyer]

Is "The Music Man" as much a staple of the English musical theatre as it is here in the colonies, or does its nostalgic Americana not survive translation?  Meredith Wilson composed two symphonies, recorded for Naxos, but I've never taken to them, despite my best efforts. 

Meanwhile, I'll keep an eye out for that delivery wagon.  I'm confident it will be worth the wait. 

[Mark Thomas]

I sang in a choral medley from The Music Man a few years ago and really enjoyed the songs but, apart from 76 Trombones from time to time, I can't remember hearing any of the other numbers, let alone the whole musical, getting an airing over here. Willson's two symphonies were a disappointment, I agree. None of the spark and colour of the musical, just rather academic and tedious as I recall. Anyway, as we moderators say, back to Raff's Samson,

[Alan Howe]

Audio samples are now available at Schweizer Fonogrammm:
https://www.schweizerfonogramm.com/cd/die-schweizer-opernsensation-samson-von-joachim-raff-1822-1882/

[Alan Howe]

My order's in!

Orders can be placed here:
https://www.schweizerfonogramm.com/produit/joachim-raff-1822-1882-samson-oper/

[Justin]

Has anyone who donated to the fund received any updates yet as to their copies?

[Mark Thomas]

No, I've heard nothing, but if the CDs have only been received in Bern this week it's going to be a few days at least, I imagine.

[Justin]

I figured. Just double checking.

[Alan Howe]

The eleven excerpts at Schweizer Fonogramm give a good idea of the general 'feel' of this large-scale opera which, had it been performed in the late 1850s, would surely have sounded very modern in the age of Meyerbeerian grand opera, rivalling even early Wagner.

I must give Cornelius' Der Cid (1865) another listen, for comparison purposes.

[Mark Thomas]

The selections do indeed give an excellent survey of what Samson has to offer, and also a good idea of the quality of the performance and recording. Buy with confidence!

[Alan Howe]

Even more excerpts are now available at jpc:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/joachim-raff-samson/hnum/11860991

[Alan Howe]

So: the 'Swiss Lohengrin' is here! And a most welcome arrival on the operatic scene it is too. Samson was completed in 1857, some seven years after Wagner's Lohengrin (1850); other important operas written in roughly the same period include those of Verdi's early maturity (Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Traviata) and his grand opera The Sicilian Vespers (1855), Meyerbeer's Le Prophète (1849), Schumann's Genoveva (1850) and Berlioz's Les Troyens (1856-8); Gounod's Faust (1859) lay two years in the future. Raff's opera, however, was never staged in the composer's lifetime.
   How, then, does Samson stack up? In a word: excellently. It's simply amazing that music of such quality should have remained unperformed and unrecorded for so long. In common with Wagner's operas up to this point, Samson would surely have seemed very modern: although it has some of the trappings of Grand Opera, it sacrifices mere crowd-pleasing to the dictates of music drama just as seriously conceived as Lohengrin. This is no Meyerbeerian spectacle; neither, however, is it a mere imitation of Wagner, although Raff does employ musical motifs - such as, for example, Samson's triumphant fanfare. In terms of structure, Raff is actually more consistent than Wagner in creating a continuous musical narrative. A CD of highlights might be tricky to devise!
   As in so much of his compositional oeuvre Raff is the consummate synthesizer of musical opposites – in this case, Grand Opera and Wagnerian music drama. The result is something typically Raff, albeit in a synthesis he was soon to abandon altogether.
   The performance does this fine work proud. Philippe Bach conducts the Bern Symphony Orchestra with a sure sense of the need in Raff for taut rhythms and clarity of expression. The cast is good, although not of the very highest class, I think. The best singing comes from the powerful, gleaming soprano of Olena Tokar as Delilah and the firm bass-baritone of Christian Immler as the High Priest. As Samson, Magnus Vigilius is better in lyrical passages than in the strenuous sections where his tenor is sometimes sorely taxed, but he certainly doesn't let the side down. The best of him is probably to be heard in his ardent singing in Act 2 scene 2. The chorus give an excellent account of themselves (and they have a lot to do!)
   I don't imagine that this release will ever have a commercial competitor. It is the reference recording that Samson so urgently needed – and deserved.

Prosit Raff! Prosit Schweizer Fonogramm!