I've always regarded Raff's Sixth as one of his weaker creations and can well understand the puzzlement and disappointment of the critics at its premiere, expecting as they no doubt were something which carried on in the epic scale of the Fifth, Lenore, which had preceded it by only a year. No doubt the portentous motto only fuelled their expectations: Gelebt: Getsrebt, Gelitten, Gestritten - Gestorben - Umworben (Lived: Struggled, Suffered, Fought - Died - Glorified). What they got, judging initially by the Schneider performance on Marco Polo, was a much smaller, much less grand, creation than they no doubt anticipated, which had an enjoyably lively Sherzo and a nicely lugubrious slow movement but with outer movements characterised by hectic note-spinning noodling.
Stadlmair's interpretation when it came changed my view somewhat; the first movement was given more urgency and gained in stature tremendously, but he was disastrously fast in the slow movement and still couldn't rescue the tail-chasing finale. To be honest, I haven't listened much to the Sixth in the last couple of years, preferring not to dwell on one of Raff's duds.
In the last few days, though, I have published at raff.org the late Alan Krueck's withering deconstruction of the Symphony and, whilst I greatly respect Alan's stature as the doyen of Raff academics, I found myself thinking "Surely it's not that bad?"
And it isn't. Using the opportunity of a recent long flight, I've listened several times to each of the recorded interpretations and the work has grown on me with each listen. To be sure, Stadlmair's is much the more persuasive reading of all bar the slow movement, where for me Schneider gets the funeral march spot on, but even there the work's characteristic busyness is carried over in Stadlmair's reading and its speed doesn't seem as out of place as it once did. Although I don't like saying it, it seems to me that Alan's disparagement is quite misplaced. He contends that in this Symphony Raff was trying to match both Beethoven's Fifth and the Ninth, but there is no evidence either historically or musically for that assertion and Alan presents none. He places much significance on the work's admittedly rather ridiculous alliterative "title", but in fact it was only ever a motto, was withdrawn by Raff before publication and doesn't appear in the score. The motto doesn't even fit the programme that well: the jolly Scherzo hardly illustrates struggle, suffering or fighting and the finale is celebratory rather than glorifying, even though the slow movement is obviously funereal. Yet Raff shows in all his other overtly programmatic symphonies that he is perfectly capable of giving powerfully appropriate musical expression to a non-musical concept. The Symphony is certainly a busy piece and is even busier-looking on paper but Alan, who felt that the busyness and cleverness of Raff's construction had blinded him in particular to his poorly chosen motifs, hadn't heard the work when he wrote his critique and repeated listening has certainly given me a much more favourable impression of it. Heck, the finale even works for me now!
I now think that the Sixth essentially follows the pattern which Raff established with his Second Symphony: it's a deliberately smaller scale, ultimately programme-less, classically proportioned work intended as a conscious contrast to its predecessor, just as the Second contrasted with the vast An das Vaterland and the Fourth with Im Walde. That's not to say that Raff, as a true romantic, didn't have some non-musical inspiration kick-starting his composition of the Sixth's untitled predecessors. Indeed, his daughter in her biography of him makes it clear that the Fourth's Scherzo was inspired by her running around the Raff apartment as a child. I suspect that, whilst the work might have begun with the notorious motto as an inspiration, it took another path as he wrote it and, had he kept as quiet about it as he did about the triggers for writing the Second and the Fourth, the Sixth would have had at least as good a reception as his Fourth had, even though it would still have disappointed critics hoping for another Im Walde or Lenore.
I may be way off beam here and, sparked by a contrary reaction reaction to Alan's criticism, just been persuaded by too many listens to a work in too short a time, so I'd be very interested in seeing what others, not as immersed in Raff as I am, think.
Stadlmair's interpretation when it came changed my view somewhat; the first movement was given more urgency and gained in stature tremendously, but he was disastrously fast in the slow movement and still couldn't rescue the tail-chasing finale. To be honest, I haven't listened much to the Sixth in the last couple of years, preferring not to dwell on one of Raff's duds.
In the last few days, though, I have published at raff.org the late Alan Krueck's withering deconstruction of the Symphony and, whilst I greatly respect Alan's stature as the doyen of Raff academics, I found myself thinking "Surely it's not that bad?"
And it isn't. Using the opportunity of a recent long flight, I've listened several times to each of the recorded interpretations and the work has grown on me with each listen. To be sure, Stadlmair's is much the more persuasive reading of all bar the slow movement, where for me Schneider gets the funeral march spot on, but even there the work's characteristic busyness is carried over in Stadlmair's reading and its speed doesn't seem as out of place as it once did. Although I don't like saying it, it seems to me that Alan's disparagement is quite misplaced. He contends that in this Symphony Raff was trying to match both Beethoven's Fifth and the Ninth, but there is no evidence either historically or musically for that assertion and Alan presents none. He places much significance on the work's admittedly rather ridiculous alliterative "title", but in fact it was only ever a motto, was withdrawn by Raff before publication and doesn't appear in the score. The motto doesn't even fit the programme that well: the jolly Scherzo hardly illustrates struggle, suffering or fighting and the finale is celebratory rather than glorifying, even though the slow movement is obviously funereal. Yet Raff shows in all his other overtly programmatic symphonies that he is perfectly capable of giving powerfully appropriate musical expression to a non-musical concept. The Symphony is certainly a busy piece and is even busier-looking on paper but Alan, who felt that the busyness and cleverness of Raff's construction had blinded him in particular to his poorly chosen motifs, hadn't heard the work when he wrote his critique and repeated listening has certainly given me a much more favourable impression of it. Heck, the finale even works for me now!
I now think that the Sixth essentially follows the pattern which Raff established with his Second Symphony: it's a deliberately smaller scale, ultimately programme-less, classically proportioned work intended as a conscious contrast to its predecessor, just as the Second contrasted with the vast An das Vaterland and the Fourth with Im Walde. That's not to say that Raff, as a true romantic, didn't have some non-musical inspiration kick-starting his composition of the Sixth's untitled predecessors. Indeed, his daughter in her biography of him makes it clear that the Fourth's Scherzo was inspired by her running around the Raff apartment as a child. I suspect that, whilst the work might have begun with the notorious motto as an inspiration, it took another path as he wrote it and, had he kept as quiet about it as he did about the triggers for writing the Second and the Fourth, the Sixth would have had at least as good a reception as his Fourth had, even though it would still have disappointed critics hoping for another Im Walde or Lenore.
I may be way off beam here and, sparked by a contrary reaction reaction to Alan's criticism, just been persuaded by too many listens to a work in too short a time, so I'd be very interested in seeing what others, not as immersed in Raff as I am, think.
