Peter Varley:

>I don't know Raff's music well either, althought I've enjoyed what little
>of it I've heard (the 3rd and 4th Symphonies, on a Hyperion CD).  It's
>possible that those people in the last century who enthused over Raff
>knew something we don't.

I think they probably liked tuneful well-orchestrated symphonies.  Yes, I
must share one of my guilty secrets - I own all the Raff symphonies.  For
years the only ones available on LP were Bernard Herrmann's version of the
5th on Unicorn and Richard Kapp's of the 3rd on Candide.  When Marco Polo
started releasing them, I eagerly grabbed each new instalment.  OK, the
inspiration mightn't be uniformly high - hardly unique to Raff - but I
return to these highly attractive symphonies often.

The other mystery about these recordings is that although the Bratislava
orchestra plays like angels for the conductor in all the symphonies but the
first, Urs Schneider, he does not appear to have made any other recordings.
Some time ago, I mentioned that someone like Thomas Dausgaard, who's given
us some terrific recordings of JPE Hartmann and Hamerik on Da Capo, is the
sort of conductor you need to make the most of unfamiliar music.  Urs
Schneider, IMHO, is another of the same mould.  I look forward to some
more work from either of them.

Richard Pennycuick
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