Joachim Raff - Piano Works Vol. 3 (Tra Nguyen)

Information

Composer: Joachim Raff

• (01-09) Album lyrique, Op. 17
• (10-14) Cinq Eglogues, Op. 105
• (15) Impromptu-valse, Op. 94
• (16) Fantaisie-polonaise, Op. 106

Tra Nguyen, piano
Date: 2012
Label: Grand Piano
http://www.grandpianorecords.com/Album/AlbumDetails/GP634

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Review

Raff wrote a massive amount of piano music, so this is a long way from being a 'complete works' series. It has at least provided a taster of the considerable genius of a composer haunted by intemperate critics prejudiced by his prolific writing and by the many potboilers and pretty salon pieces he wrote to earn a living.

Volume 1 was in fact Nguyen's debut solo recording - for details of her recordings in a chamber and concertante capacity, see either of the reviews above. Her belief in Raff's music is further evidenced by the fact that she regularly performs his music - her 2012 calendar reveals six different recitals in England, all featuring pieces by Raff. In April at Pushkin House in London she gave a recital combined with a talk on his music.

She opens this final recital with the ostensibly massive Album Lyrique, although in fact Raff divided the work into five distinct volumes - three outstandingly lyrical Rêveries (pace the notes, not "decidedly sad"), a neo-Schumannesque Romance coupled with a Griegian Ballade, two gorgeously seductive Nocturnes, a lively, serious Scherzo and finally a powerful Introduction and Fugue. This was actually Raff's third op.17: the first, Three Character Pieces from 1844, he destroyed after showing them to Liszt!; the second was the original Album Lyrique, written in 1845. After its publication the following year, Raff soon rewrote what were ten pieces in four volumes to arrive at the present set, for some reason not published until the 1870s. At any rate, the Album Lyrique is a superlative work whose cause other pianists must now surely take up.

Next come the Five Eclogues of 1861, an exquisitely fragranced work of musical passion and reminiscence dedicated to 'Doris', his wife of a couple of years. Two shortish, hyphenated pieces mark the end of Nguyen's fabulous survey. The Fantaisie-Impromptu was Raff's follow-up to the Eglogues, and sounds very much like a tribute to Chopin - although the Joachim Raff Society's Mark Thomas in his notes hears something quite different: "shows little trace of the Polish master's influence". The equally dazzling Impromptu-Valse op.94 dates from the previous year, and once again the influence of Chopin, though less overt here, still seems rather self-evident.

According to Grand Piano, these are all premiere recordings, and with almost 80 minutes of music, this must be considered a bargain for pianophiles even at full price. Its value is enhanced all the more by another top-class performance by Nguyen, her technical prowess augmented once again by an intuitive sense of expression and phrasing that brings this magical music to life.

As in previous volumes, sound quality is very good. Ditto Thomas's English-German booklet notes of the invaluable. All releases so far on the new Grand Piano label have featured cover paintings by the Norwegian artist Gro Thorsen, which if nothing else adds to the collectable value of the series. On the other hand, the gloomy urban pictures will not be to all tastes, and the one adorning this cover does not entirely convince on either an artistic or technical plane.

-- Byzantion, MusicWeb International

More reviews:
http://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/raff-piano-works-vol-3
http://www.classical-music.com/review/raff-piano-works-vol-3
http://www.raff.org/records/reviews/piano/15.htm
http://www.naxos.com/reviews/reviewslist.asp?catalogueid=GP634&languageid=EN

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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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Tra Nguyen is a British-Vietnamese pianist. Tra made her first solo performance at the Hanoi Grand Opera House when she was ten and has continued to engage audiences in other prestigious venues worldwide. Tra Nguyen studied with Lev Naumov in Moscow Conservatory and with Christopher Elton at the Royal Academy of Music, London, where she received the academy’s highest award for her final recital. Her imaginative programming balances core repertoire and lesser-known music, winning critical praise. Her discography introduces many world première recordings of neglected music.
http://www.tranguyen.org/

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