Neeme Jarvi - Raff: Symphony No. 5, 'Leonore' - Overtures - Abends (2014) [Hi-Res]

A real shock awaits you if your lodestar for Raff’s Fifth Symphony has been the old LP performance conducted by Bernard Herrmann, later transferred to CD by Unicorn-Kanchana (CD2031). Even if you picked up Hans Stadlmair’s disc (Tudor 1605), as I did, you will be in for a jolt, or - as Sinatra sang - a boot. Shock is generated by the compression and electric speeds generated by Neeme Järvi, as he takes almost ten minutes off Stadlmair’s performance and an even more remarkable quarter-of-an-hour off Herrmann’s. One’s first thought is that he must have imposed cuts or has taken a reckless approach. In fact what seems to have happened is that Järvi has taken a Beethoven-at-face-value look at the implications of tempi via the metronome markings. This is a matter that annotator Avrohom Leichtling goes into in his booklet notes, adding that Raff’s four movements are all effectively to be taken at one tempo. This implies a narrative swiftness, and a lack of deviation from the established tempo, that might – in lesser hands - lead to stiffness and to a doctrinaire approach. However it’s evident that no such strictures really apply to Järvi, who vests the work with constant motion, vivid colour and plenty of orchestral incident.

Cast in four movements but in three programmatic ‘sections’ the symphony gains, in this recording, from a sheer, indeed visceral intensity. The music is exultant and driven, and the sense of implacable élan is palpable. Whereas others drag the slow movement, Järvi observes that Raff’s movement heading is Andante quasi Larghetto, not Andante and performs it thus. There is some especially appealing wind phrasing in the movement, notably towards its eloquent close. One senses that the conductor has spent a deal of rehearsal time over balancing wind and string lines. The March that opens the second part of the work is a real quick-step but it generates an almost phantasmagorical quality at this tempo. Both competitor recordings offer altogether more conventional, even formal readings – though they are both attractively done on their own terms and in the context of their readings as a whole. The ride to hell that drives the finale - with its stoic and beautiful chorale theme - offers Lisztian vibrancy and Grand Guignol elements. There’s no doubting the conviction in this magnetic traversal, and it caps something of a triumphantly revisionist look at this symphony.

After the shudder and bombast of the Leonore Symphony one can turn to the substantial disc companions for works that tap Raff’s penchant for the operatic. The Overture to Dame Kobold sees him mine comic Rossini in well-constructed sonata form. Abends is a rhapsody for orchestra but also an orchestration of the fifth movement of Raff’s Piano Suite No.6. More heroic, and occasionally just a bit pompous, is the Overture to his grand heroic opera, King Alfred. It’s rather the equivalent of Bismarck in music. Raff seems to have operated on the kitchen-sink principle here, asking for a four-man percussion section, and a suitably big orchestra, trying to emulate Tannhäuser, one supposes. This was the product of a vaulting 26 or 27 year old but the later Prelude to Dornröschen reveals defter qualities, even though he uses much the same orchestral forces as King Alfred. Finally there is the overture to Die Eifersüchtigen, composed shortly before Raff’s death. It’s serio-comic buffo, from the sound of things, but remarkably it was published as late as 2009, and the work has never been performed on the stage.

These overtures amplify the qualities embodied in the performance of the symphony. Järvi encourages the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande to give of their very best and, abetted by excellently judged SACD sound, the results are biting, driving, refined and brilliantly exciting. I suspect that those used to one of other of the two cited recordings will find Järvi’s tempi in Leonore hard to take at first, but I hope that they will accept the challenge of this scintillating and often nightmarish ride. ~ Jonathan Woolf