Raff - Symphonies · Suites · Overtures - Schneider & Friedmann

 

Release Date: 2010 Label: Marco Polo Number of discs: 9 Composer: Joachim Raff  Performer: Urs Schneider, Samuel Friedmann  cd info/ buy

Review:

Naxos appear to have followed the lead of Tudor and produced a box set bringing together all 11 symphonies and some of the smaller orchestral works. As well as the symphonies, the "set" feature two of the Shakespeare Preludes: Macbeth and Romeo & Juliet, the Concert, Jubilee, Dame Kobold and Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott Overtures and the Fest-Marsch. The recordings are superb. From the first symphony to the last, this neglected romantic repertoire is very well presented here. Urs Schneider and the Slovak State Philharmonic along with Samuel Friedmann and the Rhenish Philharmonic are brilliant. They offer very dynamic performances and the sound recording by Marco Polo is a pure delight. Raff's orchestral writing will remind you mainly of Mendelssohn, but his own musical personality is very present. The last 4 symphonies refers to the 4 seasons with all the panache and orchestral pageantry one would expect from a romantic composer. This boxed set offers many hours of elegant, well written and well recorded romantic symphonic works.

 

flac, booklets, thank you Martin!

Joachim Raff - Symphonies · Suites · Overtures - Stadlmair, Bamberger Symphoniker

Release Date: 03/30/2010 Label: Tudor Records Number of discs: 9 Composer: Joseph Joachim Raff Performer: Hans Stadlmair, Bamberger Symphoniker cd info/ buy

Review:

Many of Raff’s orchestral works have been recorded and both the Swiss company Tudor and a decade before that Marco Polo (now fitfully migrating to Naxos) have made major inroads into the Raff discography. We may know Raff's name for a variety of one-off reasons. Some will recall his winsome piece for piano and orchestra La Fileuse. His Kavatina op. 85 no. 3 kept his name alive when it seemed that all his work would fall away to dust, pulping and landfill. Others may remember that Bernard Herrmann's taste for engaging rarities ran to recording Raff's Fifth Symphony Lenore - the Fuselli Gothic cover of the Unicorn LP will probably come to mind. Then again others, especially Lisztians, will remember that Liszt left the task of orchestrating his tone poems to Raff. Perhaps a few will know of the Candide Vox LP of the Third Symphony Der Wald. Tudor, over a period of three years, recorded the eleven symphonies with a single orchestra and conductor and at a single venue. In this they were pioneers; the earlier project by Marco Polo used a mix of orchestras, conductors and venues. The financial support of Stiftung Dr Robert und Lina Thyll-Dürr was crucial to Tudor’s admirable and needful enterprise. Nor have Tudor stopped there. The Zürich-based company’s catalogue is laced with CDs of Raff’s concertos, other tone poems, violin sonatas and string quartets. The present well designed and space-saving box has the nine discs each in a hard card sleeve designed to match the individual CDs and setting out full track contents on the reverse. As for the program notes, these are in a 127 page booklet in German, English and French. No need to fiddle around with a CD-ROM.

flac, full artwork, thank you Martin!

Overtures and ballet music of the 19th century - Richard Bonynge

 

Release Date: 11/17/2000 Label: Decca Number of discs: 2 Composer:  Various Performer: Richard Bonynge cd info/ buy

Review:

Anyone interested in 19th century French music for the theatre will find this collection of overtures and ballet fragments indispensable. And if you're none too familiar with some of these works, or their composers, you'll discover some real treasures here, for this is a set worth savoring frequently and with delight. The finely-engineered recordings were made between 1965 and 1971, principally at Decca's former premiere London recording venue, the old Kingsway Hall, with the remainder coming from the Assembly Hall, Walthamstow. All were originally of high quality, and the newly digitized transfers present this entrancing music with unprecedented clarity and pin-point definition without compromising the credible orchestral perspectives that always characterized earlier Decca productions. These scintillating performances under Richard Bonynge for the most part remain unmatched in the catalog. There have been a number of broadly similar collections (including a memorable survey from Yan Pascal Tortelier and the BBC Philharmonic on Chandos), and although there are some significant oversights here (where for example are Auber's overtures to Le Cheval de bronze and Fra Diavolo?), these discs evidence Bonynge's skill at breathing new life into forgotten gems. Good old tub-thumpers like Ambroise Thomas' Mignon, Boieldieu's Le Calife de Bagdad, and Hérold's Zampa will still be reasonably familiar to most, but these performances are so convincing that you'll wonder why they're omitted from today's supposedly more "intellectual" concert bills. And then there are the real rarities, wonderful chunks of gorgeous orchestral kitsch like Wallace's Maritana, Planquette's Les Cloches de Corneville, and Les Dragons de Villars by Maillart. They're all vivid examples of a populist genre that simply had its day; but allowing that, when did you last hear even a Suppé overture "live"? The first eight tracks on CD 1 feature the New Philharmonia Orchestra, with the balance of works included on this Double Decca set entrusted to the London Symphony. It would be hard to imagine this thoroughly enjoyable music being either better played or recorded. Superb!--Michael Jameson

 

flac, booklet