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I tried to download it when this was first posted but, despite having a MediaFire account, I couldn't.

That's setting the bar a bit low, though, Alan.

I'd missed this. It's an attractive work, certainly, but an oddly unbalanced one if the whole piece is played in this performance. The first two movements are each a substantial 10 minutes long and then the final two appear to be played attacca and last no more than 6 minutes in total. 

Recordings of the broadcasts this week of the Symphony No.4 and Piano Concerto are now available in our Downloads Board here. The final movement of the Symphony wasn't broadcast (an odd decision) so I've added it from the poorer quality version of the same recording which is available on YouTube.

People, including members here, have tried to explain to me the commercial logic for performers or labels doing this and it still makes no sense. Paid-for streaming platforms, yes, but YouTube?

... and with that, let's focus on Raff and his oratorio, please.

I do very much like the site and the administrators

Thanks for the thumbs up on both counts, Maury. Much appreciated.

It doesn't look like it, as Heymann has bought it personally, not via Naxos. I imagine that he will get economies of scale by using Naxos' worldwide distribution arm for Chandos CDs but that doesn't mean that they'll be merged. It was only a matter of time before Chandos followed Hyperion and BIS, but I wasn't expecting it to remain a more-or-less independent label after the sale. Interesting.

Franck's Symphony dates from 1888 and Chausson's from 1890, so it's very likely that Becker, writing 17 years later, knew of them.

Becker's Symphony really is the business! Excellent material, tightly argued, great variety of mood within a very consistent and personal style and commendably compact. It appears to be Becker's only essay in the medium and yet is so masterful, surprisingly so given that his other large scale purely orchestral works only seem to amount to a Suite, a couple of violin concertos and a symphonic poem. It isn't innovative for its time except in the sense of melding together the New German and conservative traditions of the late 19th century and, to me, has an "end of an era", summing up feel to it, but there's plenty of vigour in the writing, maybe more than one would expect from a 65 year old nearing the end of his career. Plaudits to Reverie for persevering with completion of his superb realisation but the quality of this Symphony really does cry out for a full orchestral recording.

This is very thin stuff, I'm afraid. It's not downright bad, just devoid of any substance. That Prout didn't include it in his oeuvre and referred to "some rubbish perpetrated" says it all, I think.

I've done some digging Thomas and, as you suspect, it appears to be an error generated when using a VPN and particularly if you're using Google Chrome as your browser. It's actually not generated by the UC software (a standard forum called Simple Machines SMF 2.1.4) but by the hosting server itself. As such, there's nothing I can do and I'm sorry that I can't be of any more help at this end.

I'm sorry, Thomas, I haven't come across this myself and have absolutely no idea what this means. Has anyone else seen this message and, if so, can they give me the context of it being generated so that I can investigate it?

Yes, Thomas, COTW is available on catch-up.

Yep, Esclarmonde for me too. That was only the second complete opera LP set I bought and the sheer musical spectacle of the Prelude, with the Emperor Phorcas intoning between massive organ chords and then the sweeping entry of the chorus still thrills me after all these years. I love almost everything Massenet wrote, but Esclarmonde remains my favourite.