Joachim Raff - Works for Choir and Orchestra (Henrik Schaefer; Bo Aurehl) mp3

Information

Composer: Joachim Raff

• (01-03) Te Deum, WoO 16
• (0-09) De Profundis 130.Psalm, Op. 141
• (10 Pater Noster, WoO 32
• (11) Ave Maria, WoO 33
• (12-15) Vier Marianischen Antiphonen, WoO 27

Susanna Anderson, soprano (7)
Karlstads Kammarkör
Stockholm Singers
Anders Horngren, chorus master
Gothenburg Opera Orchestra (1-9)
Henrik Schaefer, conductor (1-9)
Bo Aurehl, conductor (10-15)

Date: 2011 (10-15), 2012 (1-9)
Label: Sterling
http://www.sterlingcd.com/catalogue/cds1098.html

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Review

We have not been exactly overrun with recordings of this composer’s music for choir and orchestra - still less his music for the church. For this and other reasons this disc, arriving as part of Sterling’s rather special Raff series (CDS1085-2 ~ CDS1089-2 ~ CDS1075-2), is multiply welcome.

The first two works are for voices and orchestra while the last six are a cappella.

We launch with a stirringly regal Te Deum in three segments: a clamorous and forthright Te Deum laudamus, a romantic and all-but Tchaikovskian Te Ergo and a gloriously exciting In Te Domine speravi. It’s compact and enjoyably theatrical. Played to an innocent ear audience I wonder how many would guess this was the work of Raff.

This is followed by a seriously symphonic length De Profundis. It has an emotion-stilling orchestral introduction which is followed by five meaty choral episodes. The writing sounds weightily Brahmsian yet manages serenity also. The mood is suitably grave yet lightened by many well calculated orchestral touches like the pizzicato near the start of Si inquitates and the jaunty fanfares that open the fugal finale, Et ipse rediment. Susanna Andersson can be heard in the serenely ambling Quia apud te - she is a devoted advocate for this Mozartian music, if a little tremulous. Those who have a taste for Brahms’ German Requiem should try this for a change. It’s by no means the same but is in the same mood territory. Only in the Allegro finale is the spell broken with a joyously active celebration. Raff knows how to end proceedings in grandeur. One can see here part of the mulch from which Schmidt’s much later Book of the Seven Seals sprang.

The a cappella Pater Noster, Ave Maria and Vier Marianischen Antiphonen are all prayerfully impassioned and are redolent of the devotional music of earlier times - Raff connecting with roots in the 16th and 17th centuries. The final Salve Regina - the last of the Marian Antiphons - is quite delightful.

The orchestra gains an emphasis at times at the expense of the choir which at various times I suspect could, with advantage, have been larger. There were no such thoughts when it came to the purely choral works.

The disc is completed by a 32 page booklet stuffed to the edges with useful and readable English-only notes by Dr Avrohom Leichtling.

Thus another portal is opened on Raff’s dust-covered heritage to show us that he is not to be celebrated merely as the orchestrator of the Liszt tone poems and the writer of eleven symphonies (Tudor; Marco Polo).

For more about Raff don’t miss Mark Thomas’s Raff website and the invaluable Joachim Raff Society where I learn that Sterling has recently completed sessions for the final salvo in the series. It will involve a double CD of orchestral music including Raff's orchestration and arrangement of Liszt's  Prometheus Unbound overture, the intermezzi from the Welt-Ende oratorio and a reconstruction of the incidental music to Bernhard von Weimar. Henrik Schaefer will again conduct the Gothenburg Opera Orchestra.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2013/July13/Raff_choral_CDS10982.htm
http://www.raff.org/records/reviews/vocal/03.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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Henrik Schaefer (born 1968 in Bochum) is a German conductor and violist. After his studies in Essen and Freiburg, he became the youngest member (playing viola) of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of 22. In May 2000 he was chosen from numerous applicants to become Claudio Abbado’s assistant with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Since then he has conducted the orchestra on many occasions. As a guest conductor he works regularly with renowned orchestras such as Tokyo Symphony and Tokyo Metropolitan, Prague Symphony, and the BBC Scottish Symphony.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrik_Schaefer
http://www.henrikschaefer.com/

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Bo Aurehl (born 4 september 1954) is a Swedish music producer, conductor, music educator, writer and concert manager. Aurehl is the founder of Stockholms ungdomskör (1981), Kammarkören Svenska Röster (1988) and the Stockholm Singers (2005). With Stockholm Singers, Aurehl won first prize in the International Choir Competition in Pécs, Hungary (May 2013), the Grand Prix in the International Choir Competition in Venice and Caorle, Italy (May 2015), and the Grand Prix in the International Choral Festival and Competition in Budapest (July 2016).
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Aurehl

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MP3, 320 kbps

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