Recording of Raff's Samson

[Alan Howe]

With Samson's composition dates being 1853-7 (with various revisions following until 1865), the only three of Wagner's mature operas that had been performed by then were The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser (Dresden version) and Lohengrin, so these would have been the major Wagner works that Raff had heard (Tristan und Isolde was performed in 1865).

I wonder whether we'll hear any influences from, say, Weber, Mendelssohn or Liszt?

[eschiss1]

Remember, when Raff was part of Liszt's circle, he may have been made aware of Wagner's unperformed works in sketch that Wagner was discussing with Liszt and his family, if the dates work at all.

[Alan Howe]

True. I wonder what it was about Wagner's aesthetic that Raff rejected...

[Mark Thomas]

His letters are surprisingly vague on that, or at least the letters which I've seen of his so far are, but a couple of things are clear: firstly that Raff's disenchantment with Wagner came at the same time as he began distancing himself from Liszt and his circle. He wrote a short book Die Wagnerfrage which analysed Lohengrin but which they took as criticism of their idol, which it only was in the sense that it wasn't a complete and uncritical paean of praise, and this led Raff to disapprove of the "cult of Wagner" and its worship of a man who was, after all, in many non-musical respects a deeply flawed and sometimes quite reprehensible human being. Secondly there's no doubt that he didn't agree with Wagner's stance that absolute music was a dead end and the way forward was a melding of all the arts into the sort of music drama he attempted in the Ring. Although it's not relevant to the genesis of Samson, there's an interesting passage in a book by the American composer William Mason, who knew Raff in Weimar in the 1850s, when he was an ardent Wagner enthusiast, and met him again towards the end of Raff's life. Talking of that later meeting he wrote: "A quarter of a century had elapsed since I had seen Raff, and naturally one of my first questions was, 'Raff, how is the Wagner cause?' 'Oh,' said he, 'the public have gone 'way over to the other extreme. You know how hard it was to force Wagner upon them twenty-five years ago, and now they go just as much too far the other way and are unreasonable in their excessive homage'". Raff made a virtue of his own eclecticism and disliked "isms" of any other sort.

[Alan Howe]

Raff made a virtue of his own eclecticism and disliked "isms" of any other sort

Yes, that must be it. Wagner's was a one-track answer to the problem that he saw post-Beethoven; but Raff's was multi-track. No wonder he fell through the cracks of musical history when the camps (New German vs. Classical) were so polarised. He didn't belong to either. The same was true of Draeseke.

[Mark Thomas]

Raff's case is complicated by being a protégé of, successively, Mendelssohn and Liszt. So the conservatives regarded him as a Lisztian revolutionary and the Liszt/Wagner school classed him as a traitor because he had distanced himself from them once he left Weimar in 1856. He compounded the problem by avoiding association with either camp and championing the one thing they both despised - eclecticism. He never made any attempt to found his own tradition, indeed he scorned the very idea when he was director of the very successful Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, and so it's no wonder that as soon as he was dead his music died with him.

[adcsound]

Dear friends,

The cast is completed.
I still wait some few weeks more: we have the "yes" from the singers, but I know that when it's not yet signed by the agencies, it can change...
If they are all confirmed, it is a wonderful cast!

I can already write that we'll have the Balthasar Neumann Chor with 60 people: the choir is very much in demand in this production.

More to come.

Fred.

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks for the update, Fred. It all sounds very exciting.

[Alan Howe]

Extremely exciting!

[Gareth Vaughan]

Hear, hear!
I should have added that the Balthasar Neumann Chor are superb in everything I have heard them sing.

[adcsound]

Dear friends,

Due to organizational problems, the production has cancelled the project with Mr. Bolton and the Basel orchestra.
We shall record this production with the Berner symphonic orchestra under the baton of Mario Venzago (with whom I have already collaborated).
An incredible piece of luck is that the Bern orchestra is available for a two-week period almost at the same time as the one scheduled with Basel, which allows me to almost keep the original cast.

This opera was marked by fate during Raff's lifetime and he never had the opportunity to perform it... I hope that we will finally break this curse with this recording!

The Weimar theater will produce the opera for the first time in september 22, in a shorter version.
We shall record the all score and give a concert just after in Bern, already planned on 2023 September the 8th.

I shall reveal the cast soon.

Cheers from Bern,

Fred.

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks for the update, Fred. That sounds like a very lucky break! Let's hope that that Samson's premiere in Weimar in two weeks time will break the "curse".

[Gareth Vaughan]

Will you still be able to use the Balthasar Neumann Chor, Fred?

[Alan Howe]

Thanks for the update, Fred. We trust that all will now go well as you record this important work.

[adcsound]

Dear friends,

Here is an update on this production.

The recording is scheduled from the 29 of August to the 6 of September 2023.
The recording label is Schweizer Fonogramm.
The Berne Symphony Orchestra and Choir will be conducted by Philippe Bach.

Delilah : Olena Tokar
Oberpriesterin : Christel Loetzsch
Samson : Pavol Breslik
Micha : Michael Weinius
Abimelech : Thomas Bauer
Oberpriester : Christian Immler

I do hope everything 'll be alright until then, it's a lot of money and it already took a lot of time and energy in preproduction to find the casting I wanted and move from one orchestra and theater to another one...
I must thank Graziella at Schweizer Fonogramm and the Bern theater team for all the work they have already done to make this possible.

I keep my fingers crossed !

Salutations de Bern,

Fred.