Two "new" Raff works discovered
What appear to be two previously unknown piano works by Raff have come to light. Whilst preparing a new Liszt thematic catalogue, eminent Liszt researcher Michael Short found the two pieces in a bundle of Liszt manuscripts in the collection of the Nederlands Muziek Instituut in The Hague. Both works are identifiably in Raff's clear hand and he is given as the composer on the title page of each.
The shorter piece is another of his arrangements of airs from popular operas. Titled Etude de Concert sur un motif des "Puritani" de Bellini par Joachim Raff, the 10 pages are endorsed by Raff as Manuscript des Verfassers (author's manuscript) and contain 117 bars of music. Raff's op.37 of 1847 is a piano fantasy on motifs from Bellini's La Sonnambula, but there is no record of his having composed one on I Puritani.
The other piece is a 20 page manuscript and is a wholly original composition. Simply titled Fantaisie, it is in B major and is 160 bars long. Although Raff wrote a number of piano fantasies throughout his career, none is in B major or begins with a 6/8 Andante. Confirming that these appear to be hitherto unknown compositions, Raff expert Volker Tosta writes "It is obvious that both scores are in Raff's hand-writing and that both are fiendishly difficult to play."
What is less clear is when they were written. Each manuscript also has markings in Liszt's hand, so it may be that he had the works to play through whilst Raff lived in his household, between 1850 and 1856, and that they remained there when Raff left for Wiesbaden. The manuscripts themselves offer no clues beyond stylistic ones, which also indicate that they were composed between the late 1840s and the early 1850s. The Liszt manuscripts in the bundle were of no help, either. In allocating WoO numbers to the pieces, the assumption has been made that the I Puritani work was completed in December 1849. Helene Raff's biography of her father mentions that this work remained unfinished in October and November 1849and it seems possible that it was completed during his relaxing time in Bad Eilsen the next month and so a December 1849 completion has been assumed.It is WoO.12A. The Fantaisie, because of the influence of both Chopin and Liszt which it demonstrates, is dated slightly later at 1850-1852, during the first two years of Raff's time in Weimar with Liszt. It is WoO.15A.
Dr Alan Krueck
Dr Alan Krueck, who for forty years had been in the forefront of the efforts to gain due recognition for the music of Raff, died suddenly at his home in Brownsville, PA, USA on 24 June 2010. He was 70 years old.
Alan Krueck was born on 15 November 1939 in Rochester, NY, received his BA from nearby Syracuse University in 1961 and, five years later, a Doctorate in Musicology from the University of Zürich in Switzerland. He also held a Masters in German Language and Literature. Shortly after his return to the USA, he joined the faculty of California University of Pennsylvania, where he remained for the rest of his career as a Professor in the Departments of Music and Modern Languages, retiring in 2004.
Although his most impassioned and consistent advocacy was reserved for the music of Felix Draeseke, on whom he was undoubtedly the world authority, he coupled it with an deep and sincere desire to see Raff's oeuvre accorded a much more prominent place in the history of 19th century music. He worked tirelessly to secure performances and recordings, deliver papers to seminars and conferences. He conducted his student ensembles in performances of the symphonies and issued four CDs of piano music on his own AK Coburg label. In his earlier years he carried out a substantial, as yet unevaluated, body of research into Raff's life and music, much of it at the Raff archives in Munich. One of his cherished projects, sadly unrealised, was to write a biography of the composer.
In the last fifteen years of his life he took justifiable pride in seeing all this activity bear fruit in a significant upsurge in the number of concert performances of Raff's music worldwide and in the tremendous growth in recordings of his music which the CD made possible. The enthusiastic encouragement and selfless generosity with his time and researches which he showered on the later generation of Raff enthusiasts, who emerged in the late 1990s to take his work forward, was rewarded by the universal affection and esteem in which they held him.
Alan Krueck was the doyen of Raff advocates. He will be sorely missed but remembered with great affection by all who knew him, some of whom have shared their memories in the longer tribute published at the Felix Draeseke Pages.