Raff Piano Four-Hands Sonatas (Sterling)

[Alan Howe]

Is this something we knew was coming?
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9371583--joachim-raff-piano-four-hands-sonatas



N.B. Op.73b is an arrangement of Violin Sonata No.1, Op.73; Op.90b is an arrangement of String Quartet No.2, Op.90.

[TerraEpon]

Interesting. Was the Op. 90 arrangement known? I have the other quartets showing a piano duet version but not #2 for some reason. Might just be a mistake on my part...

[Mark Thomas]

Is this something we knew was coming

We, maybe not. Me? Yes, as I wrote the booklet notes . As Sterling is a label with several pioneering Raff recordings, Bo Hyttner wanted to contribute to Raff's bicentenary celebrations.

There are four extant piano four hands sonatas, arrangements of the Violin Sonata No.1 and the String Quartets Nos. 2, 4 and 5. Raff also arranged the 3rd Quartet, but the manuscript is lost. Only the E minor Op.73b was published, but Edition Nordstern will be publishing modern editions of both these works soon. Interestingly, Raff also arranged the 2nd Violin Sonata and the other four String Quartets for piano four hands, but didn't call them sonatas, just arrangements. It's clear that he made a conscious decision to make these five arrangements as pianistic as possible and certainly neither of the two recorded here betray their origin.

[Alan Howe]

A rather nice tribute from Bo, I thought. Well done to him.

[Jonathan]

Another must buy for me!

[Mark Thomas]

The full second movement of the Op.90b Sonata can now be heard on YouTube here and each track of the CD can be sampled here.

[TerraEpon]

So now that it's out....is the disc a CD-R like other recentish Sterling releases?

[Mark Thomas]

I haven't received my copy yet, but I'd be very surprised if it wasn't as all Sterling CDs are manufactured by Wyastone, who only produce CD-Rs.