New Raff scores

[MartinH]

Please forgive me if this has been addressed already. Today at the Colorado MahlerFest I was talking to an editor from Breitkopf music publishers who was introducing and explaining the work behind their new edition of the Mahler 3rd. It came to light that they are also preparing new scores and parts for Raff symphonies 3 and 5! That's great news to me. Maybe people will take it seriously and we'll see some performances and even new recordings. They're also issuing new edition of some of the chamber music. With a company like Breitkopf behind it wouldn't it be awesome to see Im Walde or Lenore taken up by say the Berlin Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw, the London Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic? I can always dream.

[Mark Thomas]

B&H are indeed pushing Raff quite strongly, aided by money from Switzerland where the Joachim Raff Gesellschaft (Society) is doing a serious job of celebrating Raff's bicentenary with concerts, seminars, exhibitions etc. On top of that long-time Raff publisher Edition Nordstern is publishing the full score of the Raff's operatic magnum opus Samson, and is just finishing work on the score of his last opera Die Eifersuchtigen in advance of  performances of both pieces this autumn. That'll be followed by recordings which in turn may well lead to more performances of these works.

[Alan Howe]

Really good news!

[Gareth Vaughan]

Good news indeed! Hip, hip, hooray!

[tpaloj]

Let's not forget the man's birthday is coming up this Friday. 

It would be good if B&H continued this effort with the other later symphonies too – to me, some of the "seasons" are just as or almost as good and exciting as nos. 3 or 5.

[Christopher]

Raff in today's Daily Telegraph (mostly in passing....)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/what-to-listen-to/who-controlling-taste-classical-music/

Who is controlling our taste in classical music?
Chopin is 'in', Liszt is marginal, Raff is 'out' – but why do composers fall in and out of fashion?

...

Franz Liszt had to wait much longer, and even now it's not certain that he actually is in the canon. I know some music lovers who would shudder at the very idea, because Liszt seems too much of a showman to be taken seriously (the same problem haunts Paganini, who was once vastly influential but now lurks at the margins of classical music). And some composers who at one time seemed indubitably canonical, such as the German-Swiss symphonist Joachim Raff, have faded away.

[Alan Howe]

Let's ignore the ignoramuses who write this stuff and get on with our task of promoting composers who deserve recognition.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Well, I can't read the article because I don't (and never will) subscribe to The Telegraph. I don't think I'm missing anything!

[John Boyer]

Let's ignore the ignoramuses who write this stuff and get on with our task of promoting composers who deserve recognition.

I found it a fairly balanced article about the various forces that drive what gets heard in concert.  What did you dislike about it?

[Alan Howe]

I would prefer writing which seeks to expand the canon rather than simply explaining why the canon is as it is. So any suggestion that the 19th century symphonic canon is complete without proper appreciation and understanding of, for example, Raff, seems to me not only historically illiterate but incredibly mean-spirited. In other words, I'm looking for advocacy of music that deserves to be heard rather than reasons why we don't get to hear it any more.

Also: the question of whether Liszt is in the canon can't be answered with a simple 'yes' or 'no'. Some of his music assuredly is in the canon, e.g. the great Piano Sonata in B minor. But much of his output is seriously neglected and lies outside. In fact there are very few composers all of whose music is clearly canonical. No - the reality is that it is certain works that are canonical, not particular composers. And this is what gives us reason to hope for the expansion of the canon, because to add a great neglected symphony, such as Raff 4, surely takes much less effort than attempting to add a composer's entire oeuvre.