Joachim Raff - Cello Concertos (Daniel Müller-Schott)

Information

Composer: Joachim Raff

1. Cello Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 193: I. Allegro
2. Cello Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 193: II. Larghetto
3. Cello Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 193: III. Finale. Vivace
4. 2 Fantasiestück for cello & piano, Op. 86: 1. Begegnung (Andante, quasi moderato)
5. Duo for cello & piano, Op. 59: I. Andantino
6. Duo for cello & piano, Op. 59: II. Allegro appassionato
7. Cello Concerto No. 2 in G major, Op. posth.: I. Allegro
8. Cello Concerto No. 2 in G major, Op. posth.: II. Andante
9. Cello Concerto No. 2 in G major, Op. posth.: III. Allegro vivace

Daniel Müller-Schott, cello
Robert Kulek, piano (4-6)
Bamberg Symphony Orchestra
Hans Stadlmair, conductor

Date: 2004
Label: Tudor
http://tudor.ch/produktinfo.php?id=397&sid=pY888aa93lx6d93lpYaca98a@f

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Review

Undemanding concertos played with intensity by a fine young cellist

After moving to Weimar as Liszt’s assistant in 1850, Joachim Raff liked to identify himself with the progressive ‘new German school’. But whereas his symphonies draw on picturesque or (in No 5, Leonore) macabre programmes, his two cello concertos from the 1870s are formally unadventurous works in the Mendelssohn-Schumann tradition.

The First, which seems to take Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto as its distant model, has the better tunes – say, the sighing, epigrammatic ‘second subject’ of the opening movement, or the plangent song that momentarily stills the chattering animation of the finale. The Second Concerto is a more relaxed and expansive piece, with a skittering finale that at times suggests Offenbach. Both works, though, are inclined to suffer from mellifluous blandness. Melodies never escape their four-bar straitjackets, harmonic tension is at a premium, and when Raff indulges in a spot of counterpoint, as in the finale of No 2, the results sound stiffly academic.

Still, explorers of Romantic byways will find undemanding enjoyment here, especially with such an accomplished soloist as the young Daniel Müller-Schott. Deploying a lean yet intense tone, he shapes the lyrical melodies with ardour and finesse, and conjures miracles of elegant virtuosity in the finales. The Bamberg Symphony play decently enough, though they are rather short-changed in the balance, to the detriment of the cello/woodwind banter in the finale of No 1.

Of the two piano-accompanied makeweights, Begegnung (‘Meeting’) is a sentimental, sub-Mendelssohnian song-without-words. There is more creative vitality in the attractive early A major Duo, where pianist Robert Kulek proves a stylish, nimble partner.

-- Richard Wigmore, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.raff.org/records/reviews/orch/06.htm
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2005/Aug05/Raff_cello_7121.htm
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2005/Sep05/Raff_cello_TUDOR7121.htm
http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Joachim-Raff-Concertos-Begegnung/dp/B00070FWGK

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Joachim Raff (May 27, 1822 – June 24 or June 25, 1882) was a German-Swiss composer, teacher and pianist. He worked as Liszt's assistant at Weimar from 1850 to 1853, helping in the orchestration of several of Liszt's works. From 1878 he was the first Director of, and a teacher at, the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, where he employed Clara Schumann and a number of other eminent musicians as teachers. His pupils there included Edward MacDowell and Alexander Ritter. Raff was very prolific, and by the end of his life was one of the best known German composers, though his work is largely forgotten today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Raff

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Daniel Müller-Schott (born 1976 in Munich, Germany) is a German cellist. He studied with Walter Nothas, Heinrich Schiff, Steven Isserlis and had one year studying with Mstislav Rostropovich. Aged 15, he aroused enthusiasm by winning the first prize in the International Tchaikovsky Competition for young musicians in Moskow in 1992. Müller-Schott has already built up a sizeable discography under the ORFEO, Deutsche Grammophon, Hyperion, Pentatone and EMI Classics labels, collaborated with artists such as Anne-Sophie Mutter and Angela Hewitt. He plays a cello by Matteo Goffriller, Venice, 1727.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_M%C3%BCller-Schott

http://www.daniel-mueller-schott.com/en/

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