Very happy to see that this CD is available now, I have just ordered a copy and I am sure it will be great!
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2018/Feb/Raff_PC_GP771.htm
Hmm, not the most enthusiastic review :(
One would have to be really jaded not to be moved by this concerto.. even for the most hard-nosed listener, the beauty of this concerto should be apparent.
Don't worry, Mark
As you will read in my today's e-mail to you, reviewers are a very particular sort of human (or unhuman) beings. They really believe to be ominscient and powerful. Since I am doind recordings I have to be faced with many capricius, grotesque - and often totally wrongly founded judgements...
The reviewer's just plain wrong, Mark. Cloth ears and all that...
Thanks all. I'm not in the least bit discouraged, although I do feel a bit disappointed for Tra, who is hardly mentioned.
I trust you're archiving all the positive reviews...
This is rather a silly review. One knows straightaway that we are in the hands of a musical lightweight when such phrases as "hasn't really stood the test of time" (like Bach's music, I suppose, until it was championed by Mendelssohn!!) and "doesn't really appear to have that much truly individual to say" (as if individuality – of which, I aver in any case, Raff has plenty – was a musical virtue of itself: so, everyone who sounds like Mendelssohn, or Brahms, or Schumann, etc. is somehow second or third rate!!) appear. These are ancient, and surely by now discredited, tropes. The author implies that Raff did not write memorable music – cloth ears indeed! The sinuous, muscular theme of the first movt. of the piano concerto is one that captivated me the very first time I heard it (back in the early 1970s on that old Genesis disk) and became for a while quite an "ear-worm". I still have no difficulty in bringing it to mind. That's just one example. I won't bore members of this forum by enumerating others.
Then we have the statement: "The Internet is full of performances of obscure Romantic piano concertos, by composers many of us have still never heard of, and the vast majority of these works frankly would seem to leave Raff's somewhat-reserved offering lightyears behind..." To which I would say: "...'the vast majority' – Really? Do you seriously mean that? Have you listened to so many of them? I simply don't believe you are in a position to make that comment. Anyhow, name a few of these 'obscure composers' whose offerings are so superior to that of Raff, please, and attempt to say why they are superior, taking care to compare like with like, of course." The paragraph ends with a singularly irrelevant reference to Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole, a concertante work for violin and orchestra. Pardon me, but I thought we were talking about piano concertos.
It is an odd reviewer who makes no mention of the performers: no comments on Tra's playing or that of the orchestra. And he clearly has done no research, otherwise he would have known that Tra had already recorded the Suite for piano & orchestra, which he suggests would have made a better coupling for the concerto.
One concludes that Mr Buttall is not someone whose opinion we need take very seriously. Let us ignore him and move on.
Well said, Gareth. The review is a blot on MusicWeb's landscape.
Bravissimo, super text, Gareth :-)
I was not in a mood of complaining to MW myself, but felt furious...
And just today I had to make a clarifying observation to another MW writer concerning another CD review... And this not the first time I dare to write...
Any review of Raff that spends so much time going over his biography, restating for the zillionth time that he was a forgotten composer tells me that the reviewer really isn't that knowledgeable about music and certainly hasn't explored the recesses of the literature.
Then this: "Mark Thomas...would seem to be a card-paying member of the Joachim Raff Supporters' Club." Ya' think! So he obviously didn't do much Raff research. Anyone who knows much about Raff at all knows that Mark Thomas is far from being a "card-playing member". Heck, he's the Big Time Dealer!
In fact Mark is the prime mover and shaker as far as (recent) Raff recordings are concerned. What ignorance!
Absolutely! I forbore to comment on that obvious lacuna in the man's knowledge, otherwise my post might have become inordinately long!
To say that Raff's concerto is light years behind the vast majority of obscure Romantic piano concertos by "composers many of us have still never heard of" is just nonsense. It's one of Raff's best works. It is very strong melodically, very well written and very well argued.I know it off by heart as, I'm sure, many of us do and perhaps Mr Buttall should have listened a few more times before pronouncing judgement.
Well *I* love the CD. So nya on him. :D
And of course, funny how he mentions how the disc would have been better serviced by including the Suite instead of the Ode and Caprice....which of course has its only recording by Miss Nyugen. I just have to shake my head at that one.
I think UC should send all our commentaries to MusicWeb, just "for your information" - or let them have a direct link of this thread, without log-in. Or a succint in the form of an official letter. At the end, all of us should be brave enough to put our real names (not pseudos) as senders; Mark's on top. In any case, I have already sent - without further comments - the Sterling Catalogue link with a cover photo of the CD with the Suite to MW, c/o Philip Buttall...
Gentlemen, I'm really rather touched by your support. Thank you all. I'm not one to complain about a poor review, one shouldn't expect to please everyone, but I do think that this review displays an ignorance of the repertoire and does the reader a disservice by not commenting at all on the qualities, or otherwise to be fair, of the performances.
I've written to MusicWeb's Rob Barnett saying so.
Thanks, bravissimo, Mark :-)
The correct thing for Rob Barnett to do would be to commission a second review of the CD.
Hear, hear!
... something which, if I recall correctly, MusicWeb has done in the past.
This review shows something which I see a lot in historical work as well: an almost compulsive desire to divide the world into "first-rate", "second-rate" and "third-rate" (or even more) categories, assign a given persona (composer, in this case) to one, and then judge their work mostly on that status relative to others rather than the work itself. It perpetuates historically formed prejudices (I might actually get violent if I hear the "test of time" argument one more time), it assumes that an artist's work can be regarded as entirely uniform and, consequently, bars any honest appraisal of a specific work.
But the advantage is that your universe stays an orderly one, without too much complication, where you can given anything its "proper" place. And you can theoretically write your review without having heard a note of the CD. I'm not at all saying that Buttall is guilty of the latter, but he has erred towards the former.
The other tendency, of which Buttall is fully guilty, is that reviews of unknown works tend to forget about the performers because they entirely focus on the merit of the composition – whereas with the iron repertory, reviewers typically do the reverse, and almost forget the work that is being played in order to focus entirely on the performance. A pity, because in this case it's Tra's performance that makes this a reference recording for me. And Buttall might actually have found out if he'd taken the trouble to listen to the four or five other recordings of the concerto. Sure, it's hardly a warhorse, but it's not an entirely unknown work either.
In short, I fully agree with Gareth; the epithet "silly" for this review is fully deserved and I can say far ruder things about it.
[Edit] Changed name of reviewer, who I initially misidentified as Rob Barnett (see posts below).
I fully agree with you Ilja. Bravo for your posting! But this stupid classification mania reaches not the arts alone, but also all social, scientific and political fields. The most simple kind of human brain, apparently, works only this way, and there are too many such brains around :-) Otherwise their owners would find themselves lost or discomforted in this world.
QuoteBarnett is fully guilty
Although I agree with your sentiments about the review and reviewer, Ilja, I must point out that it was written by one Philip R Buttall,
not Rob Barnett, who is "Founding Editor" of MusicWeb International and, I have found, someone whose heart is definitely in the right place when it comes to the likes of Raff and many other unsungs, as his unstinting championing of Joseph Holbrooke attests.
Isn't Rob Barnett now responsible after Len Mullenger decided to retire?
I stand corrected, Mark, I evidently misread (or misunderstood). But while often sympathetic, I also find Barnett inconsistent, although I sometimes have the impression that it is due more to haste (the guy reviews a great number of cds) than to lack of understanding. But perhaps in this case I shouldn't complain about haste since it caused me to misidentify the reviewer. Ahem.
So apologies to Barnett. Despite everything MusicWeb is still a great resource; even more a shame that such a lazy review should appear there, then.
I've amended the name of the reviewer though; wouldn't want Barnett to remain unjustly accused.
Even one who has no knowledge of Raff could easily spot that review as a dud. To carp about an instrumental piece being included as a filler? He must have a very small CD collection, as this is a common practice. After all, the word "complete" does not precede "works for piano and orchestra" on the cover. Also, there's nothing more annoying than reviewers who criticize a recording for what's not on it, instead of focusing on what is.
Anyway, I found the CD to be quite excellent. What would really make me happy, though, would be for Ms. Nguyen to find another pianist and have a crack at the piano 4 hands version of Raff's 5th Symphony.
Dave Hurwitz gives a stunning review of Raff's Piano concerto - Played by Peter Aronsky (piano)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Fimf-nzLw
I can't say I agree with Hurwitz's contention that Raff was uncomfortable with traditional structures such as sonata form, but he's never made a secret of his enthusiasm for Raff's music generally and this is another ringing endorsement of two of Raff's most beguiling and successful works. I'm surprised and rather disappointed, though, that he isn't aware of Tra Nguyen's more recent recording for Grand Piano which, for me at least, at least matches Peter Aronsky's account pianistically, and has a signifcantly better orchestral contribution and recording.
Infected by Hurwitz's enthusiasm, I immediately called up Aronsky's recording on youtube but sadly (as with so much of Raff's music) I find I can't join the chorus of approval. My loss I'm sure, but maybe my reaction could throw some light on why he's still awaiting promotion to the big league.
Hurwitz describes the PC as "unalloyedly wonderful" which unintentionally puts the finger on one thing I miss - the cutting edge of steel! "Mellifluous" might also describe it pretty well. Themes follow one another effortlessly and I find I can often predict fairly accurately what's coming next. A short passage in the slow movement has the epic quality that's an element of all the "great" romantic piano concertos (maybe not Chopin's), but it's over too soon and seems to mean little in the overall context of the piece. Raff clearly found composition very easy. I truly believe he might have worked harder to make it sound difficult - hewn out of stone rather than moulded from clay.
We can't all like the same thing, Steve, but before you dismiss the Piano Concerto in particular look out the Grand Piano release - the orchestral contribution in particular is much punchier than on Aronsky's recording.
I'll keep trying Mark. More often than not the music I choose to listen to isn't music I know and like, but my mind-width seems to be reaching its natural limits!
Oh, I know how that feels. Anyway, there's no obligation to like everything.
The PC is one of Raff's loveliest creations. The slow movement stays with me for ages after listening to it.