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Raff
Posted by Michael Bullivant on May 24, 2022, 8:21 am
I wonder how many will be celebrating the once highly regarded, now largely (and unfairly!) forgotten Joachim Raff on Friday, the two hundredth anniversary of his birth? I’ve been hosting ‘Record Evenings’ in Bulawayo for close on 45 years (we’re up to 834 and they started before CDs so we still call them that!) and devoted the most recent to Raff, including his First Cello Concerto, Piano Concerto and Second Symphony. The music was unknown to all who were there, even the composer’s name to several, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it.
Why do we never hear Raff other than on record, and even that not so often? – the piano concerto still hasn’t featured in Hyperion’s wonderful Romantic Piano Concerto series, now up to 84. Is there a live performance of it anywhere this year, I wonder? It’s a splendid work that I first got to know fifty years ago via the Genesis recording with Frank Cooper and of which I have never tired – I'm sure that it would bring the house down if anyone had the courage to programme it.
Re: Raff
Posted by Eric Schissel on July 22, 2022, 1:10 am, in reply to "Raff"
I asked a similar question elsewhere not long ago and was informed that there have been some Raff performances this year, though not as many as for some others with multiple-of-50 birthdays and deaths. (I wonder how Scriabin's music is faring this year on his 150th, come to think. But 1872 was also RVW's birthyear, e.g. And I think BBC has paid some attention to Clementi recently whose 250th it is this year too. I wouldn't mind hearing some of the new Raff recordings on widely-broadcast radio stations, either :), which include previously inconceivable recordings of some of his operas.)
Previous Message
I wonder how many will be celebrating the once highly regarded, now largely (and unfairly!) forgotten Joachim Raff on Friday, the two hundredth anniversary of his birth? I’ve been hosting ‘Record Evenings’ in Bulawayo for close on 45 years (we’re up to 834 and they started before CDs so we still call them that!) and devoted the most recent to Raff, including his First Cello Concerto, Piano Concerto and Second Symphony. The music was unknown to all who were there, even the composer’s name to several, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it.
Why do we never hear Raff other than on record, and even that not so often? – the piano concerto still hasn’t featured in Hyperion’s wonderful Romantic Piano Concerto series, now up to 84. Is there a live performance of it anywhere this year, I wonder? It’s a splendid work that I first got to know fifty years ago via the Genesis recording with Frank Cooper and of which I have never tired – I'm sure that it would bring the house down if anyone had the courage to programme it.
Re: Raff
Posted by Jeffrey Lague on August 25, 2022, 5:04 pm, in reply to "Re: Raff"
While I'm not adept enough in the art of orchestration to endorse or oppose the opinion, I thought I'd just mention that Frederick Corder, in his treatise on the subject, singled out a passage from the Raff Piano Concerto as a particularly poor piece of orchestral writing !
Re: Raff
Posted by carl yanowitz on August 30, 2022, 5:38 pm, in reply to "Re: Raff"
Try the Raff Society web site for for a over view of Raff`s life, recent concerts of his music and recordings.