Even more Raff on its way from Sterling

[sdtom]

I looked this morning and saw nothing so they must be a little behind.
Tom

[sdtom]

I researched a little further was told that Allegro was the Us distributor but saw no Sterling on their website. I've left emails with both Sterling and Allegro.
Tom

[Aramiarz]

Jeff of recordsinternational.com  said me that he has the correct Raff'cd

[sdtom]

Just received my 2CD Raff set and am listening to the Overture to Prometheus Unbound and Incidental Music to the Drama Bernhard von Weimar.
Tom

[Mark Thomas]

And what do you think, Tom?

[sdtom]

So far Mark I've only listened once to the Overture to Prometheus so no opinion yet but I've listened to the Incidental Music to the Drama Bernhard von Weimar three times and I find it very enjoyable. The orchestra is well recorded and while I have nothing to compare it to the work seems to be well played and conducted. The liner notes are like a chapter in a book about these three works, very informative and thorough. You get done listening to it and you know Raff is not unsung but as talented as Liszt, Wagner, or Brahms. A fine work. On the basis of this I would recommend the Sterling CD.

As you probably know the first piece was written by Liszt with the arranging and orchestration done by Raff.
Tom

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks, Tom. I'll be very interested to read what you make of the orchestral excerpts from the World's-End - Judgement - New World Oratorio, which date from the end of Raff's career.

[sdtom]

I'll most certainly keep everyone up to date with this.
Tom

[sdtom]

I listened to the original Liszt tone poem Prometheus this morning and found it to be somewhat different than the recording on Sterling which is six minutes longer 18:30 compared to 12:27. Was there more than one version of this work?
Tom

[Alan Howe]

Mark's opening introduction to the set explains this, Tom:

The other CD in the album has two very early works. It's fascinating to hear what Raff made in 1850 of Liszt's fragmentary and disjointed outline sketches for his Prometheus Unbound Overture, and to compare the result with Liszt's reworking of the material a few years later into his familiar symphonic poem. This was no mere orchestration job; Raff's is essentially his imagining of Liszt's intentions, much as Anthony Payne did with Elgar's Third Symphony, and it's at once familiar and disconcertingly different. There's as much Raff in its 18 minutes as there is Liszt.

[Mark Thomas]

In 1850 Liszt sketched a composition for chorus and orchestra called Prometheus Unbound which consisted of an Overture, eight Choruses with some linked melodramas and declaimed text - a setting of a poem by Herder. In all just over an hour's music and possibly a further hour's spoken dialogue. Raff had just begun working for Liszt as his amanuensis and Liszt got him to arrange and orchestrate the sketches., which were in a fragmentary state. The piece was performed just the once, after the unveiling of a statue of Herder. In 1855, Liszt completely revised and re-orchestrated the Overture as the Symphonic Poem we now know, retaining some of Raff's material, but discarding much of it. He also rewrote the choruses and both pieces were subsequently published. Listz's reworking of the choruses is available in a Hungaroton recording. Luckily, Raff's manuscript of the original piece, from which Liszt conducted the performance, and which has his scribbled performance notes, survives in Weimar.

[sdtom]

It is now beginning to make sense to me. Liszt really did an overhaul on this one. Is there a recording of the Liszt tone poem you and Mark prefer?
Tom

[Mark Thomas]

I'm being dim, I'm sure, but I'm not sure what you mean, Tom. There are just the two versions of the piece: the original 1850 Raff/Liszt Overture now recorded for the first time by Sterling, and the 1855 wholly-Liszt Symphonic Poem which he created from the material in the Overture. That's been recorded umpteen times.

[Alan Howe]

I assume Tom is just asking whether we have a favourite recording of the Liszt...

[Mark Thomas]

Ah, of course. Sorry, Tom. Blame the jet lag!

My own favourite recordings of all the Liszt symphonic poems are by the Wiener Akademie Orchester conducted by Martin Haselböck on NCA. They have a certain rawness and immediacy to them, aided by the use of a smallish orchestra and period instruments. For those very reasons they won't be to everybody's taste, I know, but I do like the way that Haselböck's approach brings out Liszt's debt to Berlioz, which is often obscured in glossier and more heavyweight performances.