What's new at www.raff.org from 5 February 2012:

mark@raff.org — 5 Feb 2012 09:00:00 GMT

Biography of Raff published
The long-awaited English translation by Alan Howe of Helene Raff's biography of her father: Joachim Raff - Portrait of a Life has now been published by raff.org. The 292-page paperback chronicles Raff's professional and family life, his relationships with his great contemporaries such as Liszt, Wagner and Brahms and describes the circumstances of the creation of most of his major works. This definitive source for Raff's fascinating life and career has been greatly enhanced with many illustrations, painstakingly researched footnotes, a list of Raff's compositions and a comprehensive index. It is a must buy for anyone interested in Raff. Buy it now at the Raff Shop.

Save 20% on books
To mark the publication of Raff's biography, raff.org has a special promotion: buy two or more of the books about Raff and save 20% on the combined price, including shipping.

New piano music CD about to be available
There is news that Naxos is launching its new Grand Piano label later this month with the first of three CDs devoted to previously unrecorded piano music by Raff, played by Vietnamese-British pianist Tra Nguyen. The exciting new CD features three major works from the 1850s. The second volume is due out later this year.

Preview of new CD
There is a preview of the new Grand Piano CD with videos featuring Tra Nguyen playing a piece from the CD and talking about Raff's music.

Raff concerts this year
The details of twenty three concerts in Europe and the US in 2012 featuring music by Raff have been added to the Concert News page. Works being played include two symphonies, the Sinfonietta, orchestral works, the String Sextet, a string quartet, a song cycle and individual songs, piano works and Raff's only organ work.

Many more MIDI tanscriptions
Fifteen more of Segundo C Yogore's high quality MIDI transcriptions of piano scores have been added to the MIDI Pages in the Resources section and a third page has been added for MIDIs of piano works.

More score title pages
A good quality scan of the title page of the score of Aus der Schweitz op.57 for violin and piano, of six piano pieces: the Deux Morceaux pour Salon op.20, Rêverie-Nocturne op.109, Capriccio op.146, the Scherzo op.148, the Allegro Agitato op.151 and Deux Romances op.152, and of a score cover sheet advertising 14 Raff piano scores published by Rieter-Biedermann have all been added to the Gallery pages in the Resource section.

New edition of pianos score
The German publisher Edition Steingraber has produced a new edition of its 1883 publication of Raff's largest set of piano pieces.

More scores from IMSLP
IMSLP, the site for free downloadable PDF scans of Public Domain scores, has added four new Raff scores to its collection: the Piano Trio No.4, Aus der Schweitz for violin & piano and two piano works.

Bach arrangement by Raff on YouTube
Errako Ippolitov's performance of Raff's arrangement of Bach's famous "Air on a G string" has been added to the Raff on YouTube page.

Next update
The next update will be at the end of March 2012.