Joachim Raff - Symphony No. 2; Shakespeare Preludes (Neeme Järvi)

Information

Composer: Joachim Raff

1. Symphony No. 2 in C major, Op. 140: I. Allegro
2. Symphony No. 2 in C major, Op. 140: II. Andante con moto
3. Symphony No. 2 in C major, Op. 140: III. Allegro vivace
4. Symphony No. 2 in C major, Op. 140: IV. Maestoso - Allegro con spirito
5. Orchestral Prelude in G minor to Shakespeare's "The Tempest", WoO 49
6. Orchestral Prelude in C minor to Shakespeare's "Macbeth", WoO 50
7. Orchestral Prelude in D major to Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", WoO 51
8. Orchestral Prelude in D major to Shakespeare's "Othello", WoO 52

Orchestre de la Suisse Romande
Neeme Järvi, conductor

Date: 2013
Label: Chandos
https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%205117

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Review

The Suisse Romande record German-Swiss composer Raff

I had to smile when, at around 12'09" into the Orchestral Prelude to The Tempest of 1879, I noted how the change of mood, colour and rhythm bears such a close resemblance to a similar contrast that occurs in the Allegro maestoso assai coda of Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony, completed some 35 years earlier. As with Mendelssohn’s best overtures, Joachim Raff’s Shakespeare Preludes exhibit a keen sense of dramatic narrative. The openings of both The Tempest and Macbeth are fraught with tension, the former on the wings of furious string figurations, the latter with spectral woodwinds. Romeo and Juliet feeds on motifs representing the lovers and the warring families they grew from. Chandos’s annotator, Dr Avrohom Leichtling, praises Othello for its dramatic compression (a feature throughout all four pieces), with some justification.

The C major Symphony is unusual on a number of counts, the most obvious being the way the Andante second movement erupts for its C minor middle section (at around 3'06"), replete with fugal development (a favourite Raff device), before calm is restored. And Raff’s general style? Various associations, both reflective and prophetic, suggest themselves throughout – the lightness of Mendelssohn, the harmonic richness of Schumann, Wagner for dramatic tone-painting, and Richard Strauss in embryo. Neeme Järvi and his Suisse Romande players seem to be having a whale of a time, or least that’s the impression that these extremely vital performances suggest. Comparisons with the forceful if rather harder-edged Slovak State Philharmonic under Urs Schneider (coupled with just Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth) and the able Bamberg Symphony under Hans Stadlmair (part of their complete Raff symphony cycle) incline me towards this very well-recorded new disc, a perfect place to dip a toe into Raffian waters.

-- Rob Cowan, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2013/Mar13/Raff_sy2_CHSA5117.htm
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/feb/21/raff-symphony-no2-shakespeare-review
http://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/Review/354343,raff-symphony-no-2-shakespeare-preludes-suisse-romande-orchestra.aspx
http://www.amazon.com/Raff-Symphony-Four-Shakespeare-Preludes/dp/B00AOALXBG
http://www.raff.org/records/reviews/symphony/17.htm

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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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Neeme Järvi (born June 7, 1937 in Tallinn) is an Estonian conductor. He studied at the Leningrad Conservatory under Yevgeny Mravinsky and Nikolai Rabinovich, among others. Järvi was Principal Conductor and Music Director of the Gothenburg Symphony (1982-2004), Royal Scottish National Orchestra (1984-1988), Detroit Symphony Orchestra (1990-2005) and Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (2012-2015), among others. He made over 400 recordings for labels such as BIS, Chandos and Deutsche Grammophon and best known for his interpretations of Romantic and 20th century classical music.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neeme_J%C3%A4rvi

http://www.neemejarvi.ee/

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