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FERNANDO OLIVA   07/5/2004	Subject: RAFF PARTIALLY PERFORMED ON BARCELONA´S AUDITORI (?) Message: Dear Friends, I am sorry It has taken so long time to connect again on The Raff Forum, but I was involved in a office moving and I only could have short chats via Internet. I have no excuses as XXIth. Century Citizen, but as much Spanish people I don´t have Personal Computer at home yet. I plan to buy a Personal Computer with Internet connection as soon as possible my echonomy works right, surely next Fall (Autumn). Last Monday May 3rd., I have been listening to the Strauss´Apina Symphony on Barcelona´s Auditori. The Hungarian National Orchestra under the Zoltan Kocsis baton also performed two best known Liszt works: "Les Preludes" and "Totentanz for piano and Orchestra". The Totentanz Piano part was played by Dezso Ránki. I am not sure, but If "Les Preludes" was orchestrated by Raff (I am sure that Raff did the orchestration of "Tasso" and Mazeppa"), we had -perhaps- a "partial Raff performance" in Barcelona. Am I right? Well. I have seen when the Mussorgsky´s "A Night on a Bare Mountain" performance is announced, It´s also subtitled as "orchestrated by Maurice Ravel" or "orchestrated by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov". I think in the case of the Liszt Tone poems, they must be subtitled on the flyers as "Orchestrated by Joachim Raff" or "Orchestrated by August Corradi". Now as for the Concert, only tell you that the Liszt pieces were for my taste well played, specially the "Totentanz". I also liked the Strauss´Alpina, although Its slow parts were played faster than from my Karajan version in CD. I was surprised to see the "Eoliphone". I never have seen any machine to do wind. I am looking forward your answer If Les Preludes was orchestrate by Raff. Greetings to all Rafficionados from Barcelona, Fernando. Note to Avrohom: It´s for me a plesure to can read the articles from a person that have studied on the World Famous Julliard School. Note to John: Congratulations! Today´s the Brahms birthday anniversary. Note to Peter: Apologies for the Jethro Tull reference on my today´s morning private post. I think much intelectual people has a good valoration of Ian Anderson as musician (but not for the Bishop Kelly). Note to Mark: I am exciting to write my "always requesting information" messages on the paralel Neglected Composers Forum. Many thanks in advance for your efforts on Raff cause!
Jonathan 07/5/2004	RE: RAFF PARTIALLY PERFORMED ON BARCELONA´S AUDITORI (?) IP: Logged Message: Hi Fernando, While Raff certainly had a hand in orchestrating Liszt's original ideas for the Symphonic poems (details below), Liszt himself prepared the final (published) versions prior to their release. Contrary to popular belief, Liszt was a fairly competent orchestrator as early as 1834 (De Profundis) and fully competent by about 1840. He merely lacked the self confidence to go with his ideas and thus relied upon Conradi and Raff. Anyway, according to my book, Raff had no hand in "Les Preludes" but did help with: Versions 1 and 2 of "Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne", Version 2 of "Tasso" (Conradi did version 1), Version 1 of the "Festmarsche for the Goethe festival" (Conradi helping with the 2nd version) and Raff helped with the 1st versions of "Prometheus", "Heroide funebre", and as you said earlier, "Mazeppa". He also famously "tidied up" (his words) the First piano concerto but the work went through numerous revisions afterwards so I would assume many of Raff's alterations were removed or altered so it would be impossible to tell who did what! Hope this helps, Best regards from a rainy England! Jonathan