Are there plans to mark Raff's bicentenary?

[eschiss1]

Looking at other anniversaries - the centenary of Scontrino's death this month, e.g. - it's understandable (if to me a little unfortunate) that they will pass wholly unmarked, but I'd hope that the bicentenary of Joachim Raff's birth later this year will get something special concert or recording-wise!

[Alan Howe]

I'm sure Mark T. can enlighten us...

[Mark Thomas]

I certainly can. There are indeed plans to mark Raff's bicentenary, both in Switzerland and in Germany. The Joachim Raff Gesellschaft (Society) website has a summary of the highlights here and a full calendar here. Lots of concerts and recitals have been arranged as you can see, and Raff's birthday will be marked by a performance of Welt Ende - Gericht - Neue Welt. Later in the year a performance of his final opera Die Eifersüchtigen is planned. In addition there'll be a fully staged performance of Raff's second opera Samson in Weimar, Germany in September. Both those operas should be recorded (although the Samson recording will not be the Weimar production) and there's a possibility that a third one, Dame Kobold, will also be. I imagine that we'll have to wait until next year for any of them to be available, though. There are a couple of more modest recording projects in the air too, at least one of which may be released this year. As far as research is concerned, I know that a lot of articles are due to be published in various Swiss and German publications, there'll be a symposium, and Simon Kannenberg's huge survey of all the correspondence between Raff and the conductor Hans von Bülow has only recently been published, as has my own Illustrated Catalogue of Raff's Music.

Just out yesterday is a very good and very professional 26 minute documentary about Raff's life and music made by the Joachim Raff Gesellschaft - it's in German, of course, but should be easy enough to follow and is well worth a watch.

I'm not aware of anything planned in the UK or USA. I did try to interest the BBC in marking the bicentenary by making one of their week-long "Composer of the Week" series about him, but only had an acknowledgement of the "send usual bug letter" variety.

[FBerwald]

Wonderful selection. I'm happy to see that the Piano Concerto (Fabienne Romer) & Cello Concerto No. 1 (Johannes Moser) are slated to be performed, but why just the 1st movement of Fruhlingsklange. Happily Lenore & Symphony no. 10 seems to be offered as a whole. 

[Alan Howe]

Here are the details of the concert featuring Raff 5:
https://joachim-raff.ch/events/orchester-der-zhdk/

[Alan Howe]

Just a thought: is a major orchestra anywhere in the world going to perform a Raff symphony this year?

[tpaloj]

The upcoming Raff operas are probably the highlights of this coming year. I'm sure some of you have been waiting for those for decades! Samson's score is just breathtaking and there's no place better for it than in Weimar, knowing Raff's history.

[Mark Thomas]

Fingers crossed that it all happens, but if it does then there'll only be two of the six operas left unrecorded. Who would ever have thought it?

[Mark Thomas]

I've had confirmation that Raff's final great work, the oratorio Welt-Ende - Gericht - Neue Welt will be recorded by the Leipzig Gewandhaus choir. They gave a thrilling performance last week on Raff's 200th birthday at a concert in his birthplace of Lachen in Switzerland and will perform it again at the Gewandhaus itself next Monday. No details on the other performers, but the upcoming concert features the Camerata Lipsiensis, Andreas Wolf (baritone) and Marie Henriette Reinhold (alto), conducted by Gregor Meyer. I assume the recording will be issued by cpo (eventually) as part of their intermittent romantic oratorio series. It'll be wonderful to have a high quality replacement for the 1987 3 LP private-issue box set with it's un-Raffian stodgy tempi. So, we now have the prospect of modern commercial recordings of at least two more of Raff's operas and the oratorio in the near future.

[Alan Howe]

Woweeeeeeeeeeeee!

[Gareth Vaughan]

This is really such marvellous news I can hardly contain myself. To have a first class performance of Welte-Ende... recorded will be a huge treat. It is close to a masterpiece of oratorio writing, IMHO. Furthermore, I never expected to hear a Raff opera and now, it seems, we may be not far off having recordings of them all! Whoever would have thought it back in the 1970s when I first became interested in, and excited by, Raff's music.

[Mark Thomas]

As I wrote above a few months ago, there's the possibility, but only that just yet, that Dame Kobold (his third opera) will be recorded next year and if it is then only the first, König Alfred, and the fourth, Die Parole, would be left unrecorded, which really would be quite amazing. Amongst the major genres for which he wrote it would leave just the music for piano four hands as substantially unexplored on disc, and even that omission should begin to be addressed within the next year...

[britishcomposer]

I've had confirmation that Raff's final great work, the oratorio Welt-Ende - Gericht - Neue Welt will be recorded by the Leipzig Gewandhaus choir. They gave a thrilling performance last week on Raff's 200th birthday at a concert in his birthplace of Lachen in Switzerland and will perform it again at the Gewandhaus itself next Monday. No details on the other performers, but the upcoming concert features the Camerata Lipsiensis, Andreas Wolf (baritone) and Marie Henriette Reinhold (alto), conducted by Gregor Meyer. I assume the recording will be issued by cpo (eventually) as part of their intermittent romantic oratorio series.

Yes, this source mentions that cpo will release it:
https://www.nmz.de/artikel/ein-weltstar-eigener-ordnung?utm_source=newsletter-1097%22&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=info-update-1097+

[Alan Howe]

Here's the crucial excerpt:

Die Leipziger Gewandhauschöre bringen rund um Raffs Geburtstag das Oratorium ,,Welt-Ende – Gericht – Neue Welt" in Leipzig und in Lachen zur Aufführung und veröffentlichen eine Einspielung des Werks bei CPO

[Mark Thomas]

Good oh! I see that the Lachen performance was recorded by Swiss Radio and will be broadcast on SRF 2 Kultur 6 June at 19:30. I do hope that some kind soul will record it and upload the recording here.