In his compositions Joachim Raff balanced the traditional lineage of Mendelssohn and Schumann with the progressive elements found in the music of Liszt and Wagner. His fondness for the piano suite gave him a suitable canvas to blend and resolve past with present, as he does in the melodically captivating Suite No. 2 in C major. Similarly, he fuses Baroque influences with hints of Lisztian Romantic bravura in his pianistic masterpiece, the Suite No. 4 in D minor. '[Raff] could ask for no better advocate than pianist Hyelim Kim' (Fanfare on Volume 1 in this series).
Almost forty years after his first recording on Chandos, this unique limited-edition release gathers some of the best and most-awarded recordings on the label by one of the most prolific conductors of all time: Neeme Järvi. It highlights a 200+ discography that explores an astonishingly wide repertoire, with selections from the legendary complete series of Prokofiev’s symphonies and Tchaikovsky’s ballets to the groundbreaking discoveries of composers such as Atterberg or Suchon. It features nearly a dozen of the numerous orchestras with which he has collaborated, including the RSNO, Chicago Symphony, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, all here celebrated at their best. Offered at a very special price and retaining the original covers, this product also includes very special notes by James Jolly, Editor in Chief of Gramophone, as well as exclusive photos and interviews with figures central to Järvi’s extraordinary musical life.
Past praise of previously released material included in this set:
Prokofiev: Symphony No 6, Waltzes Suite / Järvi, SNO
As in all of his Prokofiev symphony recordings–this was the first, by the way–Järvi really digs into the music. The engineering is as big and bold as the performances. This recording deserves classic status.
– ClassicsToday
Smetana: Má Vlast / Järvi, Detroit Symphony
Järvi and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra deliver an expansive reading of the complete work, and their feeling for the music's vivid imagery and richly Romantic expression is spot on.
Though he was known primarily as a symphonist, and despite his large portfolio of piano works, Raff's first love was the violin and his pieces for the instrument were promoted by no less a virtuoso than Sarasate, The Violin Sonata No. 1 is a powerful work teeming with expressive intensity and lyrical beauty- it remained the most performed of his violin sonatas during his lifetime. The large-scale Violin Sonata No. 2 offers his characteristic lyric impulse and virtuoso fireworks. Laurence Kayaleh has performed as a guest soloist with many distinguished orchestras, including the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich, the Russian National Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, and many others. She has recorded the complete works for violin and piano by Medtner, Honegger and Catoire for Naxos. She plays a 1742 Guarneri which belonged to the eminent violinist and pedagogue Carl Flesch.
Regarded at the height of his career as the foremost symphonist of his day, the young Joseph Joachim Raff was rescued from penury by Liszt, and the lyrical and self-assured Six Poemes were dedicated to his famous amanuensis as a gesture of gratitude. The Fantasie Op. 142 is a powerful example of Raff's mature piano music, while the Erinnerung an Venedig paints an effective sound picture with economy of language and distinctive harmonic piquancy.
Contemporaries of Joachim Raff (1822-82) valued him as an expert in the history of music and art and as a composer who knew how to produce richly colored instrumentations. Following releases of some of his symphonies and piano trios, cpo now turns to the composer's Second, Third, Fourth and Eighth String Quartets. In his »middle quartets« the classicistic control of his music from those years makes itself manifest, i.e., interpretive markings in Italian, exposition repeats unmotivated by an increased degree of difficulty, a reduction in chromatics and a return to old dance forms.
The three works on this second volume of Raff's piano works come from the very pinnacle of his career. The 1871 Fantasie Sonata is a fascinating and richly imaginative hybrid, whilst the Variations on an Original Theme is marked by fertility of invention. The Four Piano Pieces exemplifies Raff's gift for lyricism and characterization.
Joachim Raff enjoyed enormous prestige with a reputation as Germany’s leading symphonist of his time. He also wrote music for the violin, an instrument he had mastered when young, and for which he wrote with great sympathy. The enduring success of his first two sonatas prompted him to write three more: the charming, genial and joyous Sonata in D major, the symphonically conceived Sonata in G minor which, uniquely for Raff’s violin works, is cast in a single movement, and a Sonata in C minor that, while often melancholic in tone, is still suffused with his trademark lyricism.
The present release is a commemorative edition of two albums by the pianist Claudette Sorel featuring selected works for solo piano and three American Piano Concerti. Claudette Sorel was one of America’s most notable female pianists of all time. Born in 1932 in Paris, upon the Nazi invasion of France she moved with her family to New York, where she studied at the Juilliard School with Olga Samaroff-Stokowski. She was renowned throughout her live as a brilliant pianist, educator, author, philanthropist, and advocate for women in music. “Claudette Sorel is in the front-rank of American pianists... She has spirit, tone and technique. She can just about make the piano sit up and do tricks... Her playing has amazing personality.” (Harold C. Schonberg, The New York Times)
Raff: Benedetto Marcello / Nowak, Southwest German Radio Orchestra
Sterling Records
CD
$32.99Jan 03, 2020
This new release features a recording from the world premiere performance of the opera in Metzingen Stadthalle, Bad Urach, Germany, October 4th, 2002. The opera is set in Venice in 1727. In the house of Marcello, a musician and poet, two of his pupils Rosana and Faustina wait for their teacher who is late for their singing lesson. Marcello at last arrives, apologizes, and announces that instead of their lessons he wants them to sing for a guest of his, the famous composer Adolph Hasse, from Germany. Rosana sings first: a sad song about unrequited love. Hasse praises her warmly for singing from the heart, whereas Marcello is just puzzled by her sudden ability to find the correct tone. Faustina immediately recognizes that Rosana is singing about her love for Marcello and is irritated that he cannot see it himself. She then sings a joyful song about a nightingale, which leaves both Hasse and Marcello captivated. Hasse expresses his profound admiration for Marcello and she invites him to accompany her to a party that evening. Faustina is preparing for the evening and her thoughts turn to Hasse, and she realizes that she loves him. Hasse has quietly arrived and, overhearing her soliloquy, immediately tells Faustina that he has fallen in love with her too. Marcello, masked, arrives and stands outside Faustina’s rooms, consumed with love for her and intending to sing her a serenade. He hears the gondola bearing Faustina and Hasse approaching, and jealously listens to their loving conversation. Hiding while they enter her apartment, he vows revenge on Hasse. Marcello wants to pick a quarrel and both men draw their swords. Faustina, who has heard the commotion outside, opens her balcony window, sees the events below and collapses with a scream. Hasse leaves, telling Marcello that he may keep his life as a pledge of their friendship…
Joachim Raff: Chamber Music, Vol. 1 / Leipzig String Quartet
MDG
CD
$23.99Jan 15, 2021
Joachim Raff was an autodidact. Having grown up in Switzerland, he first tried his hand with moderate success in numerous places as a composer of salon pieces. Franz Liszt became aware of the young man's talents and hired him as a kind of private secretary. In Weimar Raff orchestrated some of Liszt's early symphonic poems and gained his appreciation. This first recording by the Leipzig String Quartet shows that this was no accident. Raff's first two quartets are large-format works which reveal great ambitions. By the time Raff composed his first quartet in 1855, he was already beginning to emancipate himself from Liszt and the narrow circle of his friends. The "Neudeutsche Verein" had just been founded when Raff left him for Wiesbaden, in financially uncertain circumstances but artistic independence. And indeed, Raff's music cannot be pigeonholed either in the "New German" or the "Brahmsian" category - perhaps the reason why he was admired by such diverse colleagues as Richard Strauss, Peter Tchaikovsky or even Franz Liszt. His first quartet op. 77 was premiered by the famous Hellmesberger Quartet, who had already offered the podium to Franz Schubert and the late Beethoven. The second quartet op. 90 was also quickly adopted by the Viennese. The turning away from a harmonically fixed formal scheme is a trend-setting move; chromaticism and free harmony gain the upper hand over schoolmasterly counterpoint. Self-marketing was not Raff's thing. Rather prim in his private life, he rarely performed publicly, though he was an excellent pianist. He also gave his work away rather than negotiate reasonable fees. As founding director of the Hoch'sche Conservatory in Frankfurt he nevertheless enjoyed great recognition among his contemporaries. To rekindle this in our time, the new recording of the Leipzig String Quartet is a highly welcome beginning.
History of the Salon – Morceaux caractéristiques (1823–1913)
First Hand Records
CD
$21.99Jul 10, 2020
Although the word salon derives from a room in a domestic dwelling (In 1836, Robert Schumann referred to Salonmusik (a term he incidentally coined) as a 'combination of sentiment and piano passage'), it also came to refer to private gatherings of composers and well-to-do members of society congregated in order to appreciate musical performances of a shorter and more varied nature, as distinct from those of longer chamber works. By the 1830s, the musical salon emerged as a vehicle for virtuoso performers who encapsulated the romantic ideals of enhanced emotional subjectivity and greater artistic individuality, with the piano at the center of it all. The charming, off-the-cuff pieces that so delighted audiences up until relatively recently seem to have faded away with the last performers of the romantic tradition. This album serves to illuminate the brilliant music that many of these underrated yet highly talented 19th century composers gave us. '... played with a purity, profundity and sense of dramatic architecture that truly stops you in your tracks. Really, bravo.' (Gramophone, 'Editor's Choice' - VILSMAYR Partitas [FHR38])
