Raff's Dornröschen to be recorded

[Mark Thomas]

Raff's two hour long "fairy tale epic" Dornröschen (Sleeping Beauty) for soloists, choir and orchestra will be recorded by Germany's SWR broadcaster during the first week of June next year. The sessions will culminate in a public performance and the recording should be released commercially. The soloists have yet to be confirmed, but the other performers will be the Bachchor, Stuttgart and the Württembergische Philharmonie, under the baton of Jörg-Hannes Hahn.

The work is roughly contemporaneous with his opera Samson, so it's early Raff, dating from his time with Liszt in Weimar. It was extravagantly praised by Liszt when it was premiered and is unusual in featuring a number of purely orchestral interludes, much as Raff did many years later in his Welt-Ende oratorio. The Prelude and one of the interludes Die Dornhecke have already been recorded by Sterling and the Prelude also by Neeme Järvi on Chandos.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Very exciting news, Mark. Thanks for letting us know. I must say, I never expected this.

[Alan Howe]

An unexpected, but wonderful surprise!

[Mark Thomas]

Once Dornröschen is released, the only major works of Raff's left unrecorded will be a couple of the operas and a pair of nationalistic works for chorus and orchestra, each of which last only 20 minutes at most. Remembering Herrmann's single ground-breaking LP of the Lenore Symphony, 55 years ago, it's staggering how much of Raff's substantial output is now available.

[Alan Howe]

Quite so. Extraordinary - and for this we are hugely indebted to your advocacy, Mark.

Do you think we'll ever hear König Alfred?

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks, Alan, that's very kind of you, but it's increasingly become a team effort. Volker Tosta, publisher of Edition Nordstern and its series of Raff first editions, has also been heavily involved over the years. He was the prime mover behind the upcoming release of Dame Kobold, and he's also doing much of the spadework for the Dornröschen recording.

There are no plans, but I suspect that, if we're lucky enough to be able record one of the two remaining operas, it will indeed be König Alfred because, from a musicological point of view, it's the more interesting of them. It's Raff's second major work (the first is lost), it was successfully staged in Weimar and Wiesbaden, and is supposedly influenced by Meyerbeer's grand operas, as opposed to Samson, which reflects his exposure (pro and anti) to Wagner. So, it's as near "raw-Raff", if you like, as we're likely to get. That said, if I'm honest, my preference having heard Dame Kobold, would be for Die Parole, another comedy which followed it only a couple of years later, purely because if it's Raff in the same vein as its predecessor, it will be a delight. The sensible choice would, of course, be König Alfred though.

[Alan Howe]

Thanks for your thoughts, Mark. We owe you an immense debt of gratitude.

[tpaloj]

As an aside, I've been noticing new Raff scores appearing at my local music shop's catalogue lately. A couple of years ago, there would have been nothing. I believe the continued dedication to Raff's music by Edition Nordstern and Mr. Volker Tosta (and even some other publishers, too) is already having an effect on Raff's name recognition.

I wish everyone involved great success with Dornröschen! If the latest opera releases are any clue, it's going to be a wonderful production.

[Justin]

Hi Mark,

Any updates on this?

[Mark Thomas]

Dornröschen will be recorded in Reutlingen, Germany during the first week of June and there'll be a public performance of the work (the first in 170 years) in Bad Canstatt, Stuttgart on Saturday, 7 June, which will be broadcast in the near future by SWR, the German radio station. All being well, the recording will be released by cpo. The eagle-eyed will spot that three of the male soloists were involved in the excellent recording of Raff's opera Dame Kobold, recently released by Naxos.

I'll be going to the recording sessions and the concert and will report here, of course.

[Mark Thomas]

I've been observing the final day and a half of the scheduled three and a half days' recording sessions for Raff's Dornröschen in Reutlingen, Germany. Everyone involved seems to be on top form and tomorrow's public performance in Stuttgart, the first in 170 years, can be looked forward to with confidence, although, contrary to my earlier understanding, unfortunately it won't be broadcast.

I won't get a complete impression of the work until then, as the recording process isn't linear, but it's clear already that this is a magical work. It couldn't be more different than Samson, which followed it after only a couple of years. There's little trace of Wagner here, but it's the earlier Raff of Ode au Printemps or La Fèe d'Amour writ large: sublimely lyrical, gossamer fine, endlessly-inventive orchestration, illustrating a fairy tale in the most attractive fashion. If you know the Prelude or the Dornhecke interlude from existing recordings, you'll have a good idea of the delights in store. There are some lovely vocal pieces for the soloists, the harmonic writing for the choir is gorgeous, while the woodwind timbres combine with fiercely difficut and high writing for the violins to produce a convincing faerie atmosphere, on a par with Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream.

Excuse my gushing enthusiasm, but I've heard a lot of Raff's music in my time, and this is hands down the most attractive piece of them all.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Praise indeed, Mark. I look forward to hearing this recording very much.

[Mark Thomas]

That may be some way off, Gareth, as it'll be released by cpo.

[Gareth Vaughan]

One will just have to be patient. (Sigh!)

[Mark Thomas]

Last night's concert performance gave everyone: audience, orchestra, soloists, choir, and even conductor their first chance to hear Dornröschen from end to end - there had been no time to rehearse the complete work beforehand. It was, nonetheless, something of a triumph with the large audience in the church in a Stuttgart suburb standing, clapping and cheering at the end.

For me, it was a opportunity to fill out, and to some extent, correct the impressions of the work I'd gathered during the final two days of recordinpg sessions. It's a more robust and dramatic piece than I'd thought. The delicate faerie atmosphere, which was to the fore in the sections I'd heard recorded is balanced by a couple of comedy numbers for baritone and chorus, a wedding march, a huntsmen's chorus and an upbeat finale. If I'm honest, I think some of the more boistrous elements felt a little out of place, but the church's very reverberant acoustic did make them all the more prominent.

I'd also feared that the tenor narrator's contributions would be long and dull, but not at all, this device works really well in propelling the story forward to the next set piece for one of the six soloists, the chorus or the orchestra. The several orchestral interludes are well placed, generally exciting, and work as well as they do in Raff's Welt Ende. Although this is clearly too static a piece to be staged: it lacks true duets and trios, etc., relies heavily on a narrator and those half dozen orchestral interludes, it's dramatic and musical variety and narrative momentum take it much nearer the stage than I'd imagined it would.

Judging by the reaction of yesterday's audience, this is a real crowd pleaser of a work, unlike anything of Raff's I've heard before. It received a persuasive and impressive performance yesterday, which I'm confident will transfer to SWR's recording when it's broadcast and is issued by cpo on disc.