Joachim Raff’s symphonies have a reputation as being diffuse, bloated, and just not terribly interesting. On the basis of some of his programmatic works in the form, perhaps this is true, at least some of the time, but his Second is a lively, compact, formally shapely and melodically rich work that does not deserve its neglect. Maybe the first movement, which is based on a triadic theme not terribly susceptible to development, lacks drama, but it certainly moves well, as does the entire symphony for that matter. The finale in particular maintains its momentum from start to finish, unlike so many other romantic symphonies. At only 33 minutes (in this performance), you can’t say that the piece outstays its welcome. Järvi typically does not see profundity where none exists, but leads the orchestra in a joyful romp through the piece that proves consistently entertaining.

The four Shakespeare preludes also prove to be lots of fun. All are relatively short but well-orchestrated and atmospheric. Perhaps Romeo and Juliet is the tamest–it’s only nine minutes long and it’s not Tchaikovsky, but Othello is punchy and tense (and even shorter); The Tempest opens with an effective storm and features music that challenges you to figure out who the characters are that Raff illustrates; and Macbeth, possibly the best of all, spends a lot of time focused on the witches and, seemingly, the final battle. It’s great to have this music recorded, and terrifying to realize that the symphony is Raff’s Op. 140 and the preludes his WoO 49-52. My but that man could churn it out, couldn’t he? Fine playing and excellent sonics round out a release that deserves your attention.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

This release includes one of Joachim Raff's major chamber works, the sonata for Cello and Piano of 1973, in its first recording. All the pieces here underline the importance of melody in Raff's music. This anthology is a treasure trove of lovely tunes, which Raff can spin with Schumannesque urgency and Schubertian charm.

Järvi encourages the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande to give of their very best and, abetted by excellently judged SACD sound, the results are biting, driving, refined and brilliantly exciting. A scintillating and often nightmarish ride.

– Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

A year on from the opener, this is a very generously filled second volume of Chandos's promising Raff symphony cycle. There are two previous recordings of the composer's eleven highly idiomatic, imaginative symphonies, long unjustly neglected by programmers and critics alike. The Bamberg Symphony Orchestra under Hans Stadlmair, recently released by Tudor in handy boxed set form (review, with further discographical information) is probably the critics' favourite, although it comes neither cheap nor without flaws. The forerunner was an early-Nineties series on Marco Polo with different orchestras, mainly from the Czech Republic and Slovakia, all but one under Urs Schneider: these are currently available from Naxos as mp3 downloads only (9.40248). In 2001 Naxos had the good idea of reissuing the Marco Polo recordings as physical discs under their own brand, but only two appeared (8.555411, 8.555491) and then the label either had a change of heart, or forgot.

Raff's programmatic 'Lenore' Symphony has three further modern recordings. One comes from a local rival to Järvi's ensemble, the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, conducted by Nicholas Carthy. A satisfactory, rather than compelling recording, it was brought out by Italian label Dynamic (CDS 283) well over a decade ago, and there has been no sign of any kind of follow-up since. Another version is Yondani Butt's with the Philharmonia Orchestra on ASV (DCA 1000), one performance in a long line by this determinedly uncontroversial conductor of almost clinical neutrality.

Finally there is Matthias Bamert and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra on Koch Schwann, re-released as 367932, but dogged by poor sound. As for Chandos, despite the fact its audio quality was not as good as the SACD/24-bit/96kHz tags – abetted by one or two prominent reviews – implied, the first release immediately became the new standard for the Second Symphony. This is above all for the fact that Järvi is such a fine all-round conductor and the Suisse Romande a pedigree orchestra with a definite aptitude for Raff-era music. Back at the same Swiss location, that slight lossy edge to the audio is still there on this latest disc, yet the Chandos sound is still much superior to all its predecessors', and despite the imperfections constitutes a further plus-point for Järvi's cycle.

On the other hand, no further incentive should be required when the offering is one of Raff's most memorable works, the tune-packed, masterfully orchestrated Fifth Symphony. He chooses to focus – and then expatiate - on the nervous drama of Gottfried Bürger's famous but second-rate poem 'Lenore', rather than on its cold-blooded religious mania. The story is similar to Dvo?ák's later cantata Svatební Košile, known in English as The Spectre's Bride, which was based on a similar-themed ballad by Karol Jaromír Erben. This is doubly pertinent: Raff shares Dvo?ák's intuitive feel for lyrical drama. In Bürger, the eponymous Lenore is duped and then effectively buried alive for thinking herself in a state of despair neglected by God, but Raff's final-movement 'ride into hell' is jauntily mesmeric and ends with an uplifting chorale – moving, but certainly diverging from the implications of Bürger's chilling poem.

It is worth noting here that Järvi's account is a full ten minutes faster than Stadlmair, Carthy and Schneider. This is interesting enough in itself, but these three were already seven or eight minutes quicker than Bernard Herrmann's pioneering recording with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1970 — (most recently available on Unicorn UKCD 2031, but originally funded by Herrmann himself. Järvi is taking Raff at his word with his astonishingly fast metronome markings, but those who have had their opinions as to how this work should sound coloured by more leisurely approaches will likely need time to get used to these tempos, and those many long in thrall to Herrmann's account may possibly never accept them. The third movement Marsch-Tempo in particular will raise many eyebrows: Raff asks for, and Järvi gives – where no one else seemingly dares - 160 beats per minute, a good 50% more than what would normally be expected from a march. Yet odd as it initially sounds, the speed is still well within the bounds of a military double march.

Järvi's programme is amplified by a selection of overtures from Raff's operas, plus one of his own transcriptions – his only such, in fact - the 'Abends' Rhapsody. One or two of these are take-them-or-leave-them works by comparison with the symphony, though their Rossini-meets-Beethoven idiom is undeniably attractive, and their realisation here by the ever-dependable Swiss Romandes elegantly winning. Best of the four extras is the most substantial, the 'King Alfred' overture. Scored for large orchestra, it is a dramatic tone poem in all but name. The notes describe it as "grandiose in design, comparable in sweep and scope to Wagner's recent overture to Tannhäuser". The Rhapsody itself is a lovely, moodily crepuscular work, over all too quickly.

As for the CD booklet, Chandos continue apace with their shrinking-font policy, their texts tiny islands of ink in blank paper seas, legibility further hampered by the greyish ink. Still, the notes themselves are usually excellent, as indeed those here by Avrohom Leichtling are - detailed, informative, enthusiastic, trilingual. Bürger's poem might usefully have been included, if only to make use of some of that blank space.

– Byzantion, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

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.

JOACHIM Violin Concertos: in G, op. 3; in d, op. 11, “in the Hungarian Style” • Suyoen Kim (vn); Michael Halász, cond; Staatskapelle Weimar • NAXOS 8.570991 (65:57)


From a position of near-obscurity in the early 1960s (at least in so far as recordings went), Joseph Joachim’s Hungarian Concerto received a lift-off from Charles Treger’s early complete recording with the Louisville Orchestra (Louisville LS 705) and from Aaron’s Rosand’s more brilliant but cut-down version on a Vox LP, reissued many times; while Takako Nishizaki recorded Joachim’s Third Concerto for Marco Polo (now available on Naxos 8.554733).


That leaves the First Concerto, a one-movement affair lasting about 20 minutes from the early 1850s, when Joachim had hardly reached or passed the age of 20. Already the work displays a certain individuality: Joachim integrated the violin’s first entry into the opening tutti, after which initial statement the orchestra continues on its own. The solo part offered its youthful composer a great number of opportunities for virtuoso display, but the Concerto’s high symphonic seriousness sets it apart from more display-oriented vehicles written for their own use by his contemporaries Ernst and Wieniawski. In its harmonic and melodic style, so heavily tinged with nostalgia, the work resembles the first (or only) movements of Bruch’s later works (such as his Allegro appassionato and, especially, his Third Concerto). Suyoen Kim, producing a slender but pure tone in all registers (but with a steelier core on the G-string) from a 1742 Camillus Camilli, nevertheless projects the mix of pyrotechnical excitement and poignant lyricism the score demands. Joachim exerted a strong influence on the history of violin playing through his students, who included personalities as diverse as Jenö Hubay, Bronislaw Huberman, and Leopold Auer (who, having studied with him for two years, claimed that Joachim had opened his eyes). If the Concerto seems to wander, that’s neither Kim’s fault nor Halász’s.


The Second Concerto, “in the Hungarian style” has been described as the most difficult of concerted works for the violin (although certainly not for the listener); it requires strength and stamina as well as sustained brilliance, demanding a very occasional sacrifice of tonal beauty to achieve the requisite tonal strength. Kim demonstrates a rock-solid technique and the same compound of brilliance and warmth she displayed in the composer’s First Concerto, while the Halász and the Orchestra find both imposing rhetoric and human warmth in the orchestral part (as in the First Concerto, the engineers have balanced the solo and orchestra parts, creating a striking profile for the former against the highly detailed backdrop of the latter). Both soloist and orchestra emphasize the Concerto’s overt ethnicity (an element perhaps most obviously missing from alternative recordings by Treger, Rosand, Elmar Oliveira (Masters 27, 15:3), Rachel Barton Pine (Cedille 90000 068, 26:6), and Christian Tetzlaff (Virgin 502109, 31:6), all of whose readings nevertheless realized a great deal of the Concerto’s potential—except for Treger’s, which fell somewhat short of the work’s technical demands, and, in any case, isn’t any longer available. But Kim’s brilliant while offering a structurally synoptic view of this prolix Concerto (just over 45 minutes in this performance), brings an occasional poignancy that relieves the dramatic tension in the first movement—compared to Tetzlaff and Dausgaard’s thrustingly craggy symphonic reading of that movement, she and Halász take by comparison a more relaxed, expansive view (skirting the danger in such a long-winded movement, that offers no extra time to pause and smell the flowers). And after a long respite in the slow movement, a passage hardly bereft of difficulties and violinistic posturing, she opens the finale with an energetic flash that rivals Rosand’s and surpasses it in Hungarian verve.


For an imposing reading of the Hungarian Concerto, Kim’s and Halász’s could hardly be beat, and the program offers the relative novelty of the First Concerto, both in stunning performances. Strongly recommended to all kinds of listeners.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham

Raff: Piano Works, Vol. 4

Includes work(s) by various composers.

Classical Music

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.

Classical Music

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.

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 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.

Hard to believe but true: at the beginning of the 1870s Joseph Joachim Raff numbered among those composers whose works were most often performed in German-speaking countries. He satisfied the taste of the times like no other composer and published one work after another. The prizewinning Ensemble Villa Musica again turns to a chapter of music history too quickly and not closely enough read during other times. Not a few Raff contemporaries regarded his musical language as the summit of Central European artistry. In 1869 Hans von B�low effusively declared that Raff's Grand Quintuor op. 107 was "the most important work in the field of chamber music since Beethoven." Raff's parents, who lived in Switzerland, did not have the means to finance the education of their talented son. He developed his compositional capabilities autodidactically and later had to make ends meet with occasional work, as a salesperson in a Cologne music shop, as a music teacher, or as Liszt's private secretary. Renown It was from Wiesbaden, where his wife was an actress, that Raff's works finally found the dissemination that he had hoped for. At the height of his public renown Raff assumed the post of director of the recently founded Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt in 1877. Under his leadership the conservatory became one of the leading institutions of it's kind.