Another pair of discs in the ongoing Raff series from the composer's Swiss compatriot, Urs Schneider. Both No. 4 (1871) and No. 11, which Raff had not quite finished at the time of his death in 1882, are full of agreeable ideas and typically colourful, alfresco wind scoring, though both suffer from a lack of rhythmic variety and staying power, and tend to rely on sequences and conservatoire counterpoint to generate symphonic momentum. No. 4, one of only two Raff symphonies without a programmatic title, has a scurrying, picturesquely orchestrated scherzo a la Mendelssohn (something of a Raff speciality), an attractive Andante that builds a free variation structure on a skeletal theme (the Allegretto of Beethoven's Seventh surely a direct model here) and a relaxed, almost skittish finale stiffened by a solemn chorale theme and some earnest fugato writing. No. 11, last in a cycle of Raff symphonies evoking the four seasons, is more fetching in its thematic material, though both the first movement, with its plaintive, distinctly Slavonic atmosphere, and the brash finale depicting a carnival have a fragmentary, episodic feel. There is a homely lyricism—and some over-sweet harmonies—in the slow movement and a suggestion of Tchaikovsky in the balletic, luminously scored Allegretto.
The Lenore Symphony, No. 5, was one of Raff's greatest popular hits, partly due, no doubt, to the programme behind the finale, a grisly gothic ballad by Gottfried Burger in which Lenore gallops through the night with her dead lover's ghost and as his body turns to a skeleton, is abandoned in an open grave while spirits pray for her soul. But programme apart, the Lenore is by some way the richest and most arresting of the three symphonies here. The opening Allegro has a fine ardour and impetus, the counterpoint in the development for once creating real dramatic tension, the gorgeously coloured A flat Andante quasi Larghetto is love music of haunting tenderness, rising to a powerfully agitated central climax; and the finale, moving from an evocative introduction, with ghostly reminiscences of earlier themes, through the gruesome perpetuum mobile ride (echoes here of Berlioz and Wagner) to a Tod und Verklarung coda, is a tour de force of orchestral virtuosity.
Schneider and his Slovak players give vigorous, straightforward performances, decently recorded that will serve well enough for anyone who fancies investigating these symphonies. That said, the rival versions of Nos. 4 and 5 listed above do have rather more to offer. The Kosice woodwind are characterful, with a faintly rustic tang, but, when the pressure is on, the strings can sound scrawny and the distinctively East European brass raucous. In the Unicorn-Kanchana recording of the Lenore, made in 1970 but still sounding well, the LPO play with altogether more opulence and sophistication, while Herrmann moulds the lyrical music with greater freedom and passion and handles the transitions more subtly. The new Marco Polo recording, incidentally, lops off the dotted drum figure at the start of the third movement march. In Symphony No. 4 the strings of the Milton Keynes orchestra on Hyperion can also be stretched at climaxes. But the performance under Hilary Davan Wetton is noticeably more polished than the new one, especially in matters of tuning and balance, and scores decisively in the scherzo, far fleeter and more deftly detailed than in Schneider's rather prosaic, po-faced reading.'