We've been having another Raff mini-festival here in Arizona recently. Last Sunday (Oct 18) the wind ensemble at St. Anthony's Espiscopal Church performed the Sinfonietta for winds. Today, Musica Nova String Orchestra did the Raff string quartet no. 6 in an arrangement for string orchestra. I've never heard the quartet at all, and boy, what a treat this was! This is great, great music. Enjoyable start to finish. The slow introduction for the first movement was very moving and had some harmonic surprises that kept the ear totally engaged. The Aria was so beautiful and very deeply felt. Sometimes I find the symphonies glib and the slow movements not "honest". This one was. It was very heartfelt and touching. The finale, the Gigue, is a riot. What fun, exciting music. I have no problems at all with playing quartets with larger ensembles. It works so well. Mahler used to do it a lot, and I like it. I don't know how much conductor Warren Cohen changed the music, but it didn't matter. It was just so beautiful. This quartet would be a fine thing to play for people who think of Raff and a second rate composer.
The performance was enthusiastic, energetic and exciting. It was also rough at times. The intonation was really spotty at times and ensemble suffered at more than one attack. Pickup notes and phrases were particularly troublesome. And if it were me who did the arrangement, I would have done one thing that Warren steared clear of: I would have added a bass player and double the cellos down an octave at times. It certainly wouldn't have been the sound Raff scored for, but the extra depth would have added a lot.
The rest of the concert had a sinfonia by Stamitz and a word by Robert Washburn. Raff proudly stood head and shoulders above the others. Wondeful music, wonderful concert -- and just the right length at about 60 minutes. I'm just so ashamed that so few people showed up -- 23 by my count.
