Joachim Raff - Symphony No. 5 "Lenore"; Overtures; Abends (Neeme Järvi)

Information

Composer: Joachim Raff

1. Overture to "Dame Kobold", Op. 154
2. Abends, Op. 163b
3. Overture to "König Alfred", WoO 14
4. Prelude to "Dornröschen", WoO 19
5. Overture to "Die Eifersüchtigen", WoO 55
6. Symphony No. 5 in E major, Op. 177 "Lenore": Erste Abtheilung. Liebesglück: Allegro
7. Symphony No. 5 in E major, Op. 177 "Lenore": Erste Abtheilung. Liebesglück: Andante quasi Larghetto
8. Symphony No. 5 in E major, Op. 177 "Lenore": Zweite Abtheilung. Trennung: Marsch-Tempo - Agitato
9. Symphony No. 5 in E major, Op. 177 "Lenore": Dritte Abtheilung. Wiedervereinigung im Tode: Introduction und Ballade (nach G. Bürger's 'Lenore'). Allegro

Orchestre de la Suisse Romande
Neeme Järvi, conductor

Date: 2014
Label: Chandos
https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%205135

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Review

Volume 2 in Neeme Järvi’s Raff series for Chandos brings the Fifth (and best-known) of the prolific Swiss-German composer’s 11 symphonies. Finished in 1872, it was a hugely popular concert item in the years prior to the Great War and derives its programme from the poetic ballad ‘Lenore’, written a century earlier by Gottfried August Bürger (1747 94). It’s the finale, entitled ‘Reunion in Death’, that draws most heavily on the grisly narrative (a soldier returns to his lover after his death and whisks her off on horseback to the grave that will be their wedding bed) and leaves the listener in no doubt that Raff certainly knew how to handle the orchestra: the apotheosis even brings spooky premonitions of the close of Also sprach Zarathustra. Audiences of the period lapped up the third movement’s rousing march to war, which starts and finishes in the distance, but by far the most rewarding music is to be found in the thrusting opening Allegro – a really fine achievement, this, boasting some genuinely indelible melodies. The slow movement, too, is very touching (gorgeous woodwind-writing towards the close).

Happily, Järvi’s performance is an absolutely splendid one – both markedly more propulsive and, to my ears, more excitingly cogent than any other I have encountered, yet with no loss in terms of technical sophistication or affectionate glow. Playing of beguiling sheen also illuminates all five items with which the symphony has been most generously coupled. In addition to three operatic overtures, we are treated to the delectable Prelude from Raff’s epic oratorio based on the Grimms’ Dornröschen, and there’s also the pretty 1874 rhapsody Abends (a reworking of the fifth movement from the Piano Suite No 6 completed three years previously). Chandos’s non-interventionist SACD production (which hails from Geneva’s acoustically superb Victoria Hall) wraps you in a warm cocoon of sound. Collectors with a sweet tooth will find this irresistible.

-- Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2014/Jun14/Raff_sy5_CHSA5135.htm
http://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/content/raff-symphony-no-5-suisse-romande-orchestra
http://www.raff.org/records/reviews/symphony/18.htm
https://www.amazon.com/Raff-Orchestral-Works-Vol-2/dp/B00I5302IO

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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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