Unsung Composers

Hot on the heels of its Hoffman release, here's a sneak preview of Sterling's next offering:

Cor blimey! Eyes pop out. First reaction is that I guess none of us, save you, Mark, know these pieces at all - I certainly don't. So what a real treat this is going to be!

Any idea about a release date? And once again a terrific thank you to Sterling. (I wonder who they've got writing the booklet?)

Looks like some chorus and orchestra, and some a capella chorus. Nice.

Wow indeed. Great news, Mark!

They are indeed all choral works. The Te Deum is an early 12 minute work with orchestra, written for the coronation of a Grand Duke in Weimar. It's a very outgoing, celebratory piece with a fast/slow/fast structure. The other, bigger work with orchestra is De Profundis, a multiple-movement piece of about 35 minutes duration, written in the 1860s as a peace offering to Liszt. It's a lovely work with an utterly ravishing movement for soprano soloist and the choir's ladies. A very fine work. The other six works are indeed a capella ones, again dating from the 1860s. Never published, or probably even performed, in Raff's lifetime, they are Raff like you've never heard him before, combining romantic melody and harmony with a Palestrina-like polyphony.

I can't be definite about the release date, but my guess is by the end of the year. The booklet writer is Avrohom Leichtling, Peter, who has written the excellent notes for previous Raff CDs from Sterling. A purely orchestral CD will follow this one, also with Henrik Schaefer conducting the Gothenburg Opera Orchestra.

The CD must be on its way...
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2471&artikel=5405788 (http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2471&artikel=5405788)

Yes, I understand that it is imminent.

It's now up on the Sterling website, with some audio excerpts:
http://www.sterlingcd.com/catalogue/cds1098.html (http://www.sterlingcd.com/catalogue/cds1098.html)

Thanks to the Sveriges radio link provided, thank you Alan, I was able to listen to the CD review programme on Sunday. While the two reviewers - as far as my limited Swedish allowed me to understand - admitted that the composer knew his craft and this was music worth having on CD, it left them rather unmoved. I, on the other hand, felt an immediate rapport with it and immediately ordered the CD from Toccata in Sweden. I was told yesterday that the CD is on its way - can't wait to listen to it.

I suspect that the music on this CD will divide Raff enthusiasts. The big work, the 40-odd minute De Profundis, gets a majestically solemn and very lyrical performance from Henrik Schaefer, and the choral contribution is top notch. I knew the piece from the only modern live performance (since circulating on a private recording) at Speyer in 2000 (http://www.raff.org/news/reviews/2000/speyer.htm). It came across there as a rather smaller-scale and, now that I've heard this performance, less-impressive work than Shaefer makes it. Here, it seems top-notch Raff, but is very clearly a devotional work, not a secular one. The other work with orchestra, the 10 minute Te Deum, is altogether different. It was written for the coronation of a Grand Duke and is a celebratory piece. It gets an enthusiastic performance and is enjoyable at that level, but it has nothing of the depths of De Profundis (pun intended). The sound engineer has clearly struggled to get the comparatively small choir heard as the piece is written pretty much in the mf-ff range most of the time and, on my equipment at least, the choir's contribution is sometimes almost lost altogether behind the blazing orchestra.

The a capella pieces create a very different sound world and are recorded in a noticeably different acoustic. They are ravishingly performed. It's a case, though, of "They're Raff, Jim, but not as we know it." Although he clearly brings a romantic sensibility to some of the pieces (particularly the Ave Maria), these are essentially exercises in Palestrinan polyphony and, although I love them and am delighted to get to know them, they may well not be to everyone's taste.

Sounds intriguing...

A simple enquiry, perhaps directed at Mark.

Any further news as to when, so to speak, the World's End might be upon us?

This is one I'm looking forward to immensely. (And let us hope non-Raffians do not monitor this site!)

You can breath again, Peter. World's End is some months off yet, unfortunately. There are some technical problems I understand, not insurmountable but time-consuming for a small label like Sterling. As soon as I have an ETA for the realease, I'll let you know.

Now you've really got me worried Mark. Looks as if I won't have time to finish that new symphony I'm working on! :'(

Don't worry - it's not the end of the world... oh wait- right.