Joachim Raff's Dornröschen

[tpaloj]

Raff's elusive Dornröschen (WoO.19) has sadly not yet been graced with a modern revival. Besides two instrumental extracts that have been recorded: the Vorspiel (twice) and the intermezzo Dornhecken, there is no complete recording of this four-part "fairy-tale epic".

I edited a score of the first of the four parts last year, and just now uploaded a Noteperformer demonstration on youtube. I don't plan to continue with the score: I'm sure Edition Nordstern is going to get to it eventually, and they will surely have better access to study all the MS sources in preparation for their complete edition of this work.

All in all, the autograph which the Berlin Staatsbibliothek have digitized is pretty long at around 510 pages. The first part was the shortest of the four, only some 73 pages, lasting circa 18-20 minutes. This part focuses on soloists and dialogue with a short chorus in the end – the later three parts promise much more involved choral and ensemble numbers etc.

The first part, played without pauses inbetween, consists of four sections:
   1) Erzählender Tenor (the narrator)
   2) Wasserfee und König (dialogue)
   3) Erzählender Tenor
   4) Chor die Elfen (chorus)

The treatment of themes by Raff here is quite Lisztian; they are easily recognizable as they appear and reappear throughout. I want to highlight the reserved and sublime way Raff brings the chorus to its end. Needless to say Raff's orchestration overall is exquisitely realised.

I should mention that Raff's autograph is very nicely written most of the time but in some sections it's very messy, due to corrections in red ink that have been written in apparent haste. For example the ending of the chorus has some funny stuff with accidentals that didn't make much sense to me. I'm wondering if these corrections were made before or after the work was premiered? I cannot tell – not having seen any of the other MS sources that are preserved – if the Berlin Staatsbibliotek score even is the final version of the work, after all.

https://youtu.be/4jZ034k4IAA

Score PDF: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0zphhlhyre15kdi/Joachim%20Raff%20-%20Dornroschen%2C%20First%20Part%20%28B4%29.pdf?dl=0

Genast's libretto (German): https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/werkansicht?PPN=PPN746833040&PHYSID=PHYS_0001&DMDID=DMDLOG_0001


Happy 200th, Joachim!

[Mark Thomas]

What a wonderful surprise, Tuomas. Thanks so much for marking Raff's bicentenary in such an appropriate way. I'm very much looking forward to hearing the first part of Dornröschen - a very important work in Raff's canon, perhaps as significant as the roughly contemporary opera Samson. I estimate that the whole work would last around two hours, of which half is the fourth part.

[Mark Thomas]

Although the Dornröschen Prelude is familiar from a couple of commercial recordings, hearing Part 1 proper of the work is new to me and what a gorgeous piece of writing it is, very much in the same style as the previous year's orchestral song Traumkönig und sein Lieb. The late and sadly missed Raff pioneer Alan Krueck thought Dornröschen to be one of Raff's most beautiful and important scores and judging by this tantalising sample he wasn't wrong. Thanks once again Tuomas for your hard work - maybe you might be tempted to try your hand at at least the next two shorter Parts, even if Part 4 is too big a task?

[tpaloj]

Thanks for your kind words Mark. Dornröschen certainly is something very special in Raff's body of work, and the fact it was never published and only seldomly performed even in Raff's time is a loss worth correcting. I faintly recall reading somewhere that someone prepared a piano reduction of the whole work, but that the arrangement was lost already during Raff's lifetime. I wonder who that author was – I believe it was not Raff himself who had made it. But someone should correct me if I might be confusing this with some another anecdote.

maybe you might be tempted to try your hand at at least the next two shorter Parts, even if Part 4 is too big a task?

Oh, never say never. And never is anything, in the realm of music, impossible either! It's something to think about. The amount of work and time would be comparable to Franz Lachner's oratorio Moses that I reproduced in full in Dorico some years ago. A big project, but the issue really is not Dornröschen's length, just that those things take a big time commitment. For now, too early to say.

[Mark Thomas]

Understood of course, Tuomas, although a smaller commitment might be the several purely instrumental movements within the work, each only a few minutes long. Still, it's your time... As regards a piano reduction, I haven't come across any mention of one, and certainly Raff himself never prepared one.

[tpaloj]

Ah, I found the reference I was looking for about the piano score. In the book Joachim Raff: Portrait of a Life (Helene Raff's), p.128 footnote 1 says that Karl Klindworth had made piano arrangements of excerpts of the work (so not the full work, as I incorrectly recalled) in 1884. The same footnote says that this arrangement has unfortunately disappeared.

By the way, a minor error which persists in multiple sources about Dornröschen is the name of the 1856 premiere's Freier, incorrectly often given as "Lemaster", but according to the original playbill – is in fact Herr "Lemaistre".

The score is pretty thick. If anyone wishes to point me (with page numbers) towards those smaller instrumental sections I could happily to take a look.

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks Tuomas. How embarrassing. Considering I published a translation (masterfully done by Alan) of Raff's biography, I should have remembered the Klindworth footnote - no doubt yet another "senior moment". Bear with me on the orchestral interludes and I'll PM you the details.