The Treasure Chamber of Swiss Symphonic Music – Cd of the day France Musique
A DEBUT recording by Schweizer Fonogramm - and a world premiere for Joachim Raff and August Walter
December 3 2020
Even in the 21st century, Swiss Music from the Classical and Romantic periods still ekes out a shadowy existence. Lena-Lisa Wüstendörfer, conductor, musicologist and founder of the Swiss Orchestra, believes this is a regrettable fact. The two works presented on this new album, both from the Swiss Romantic period, were discovered by herself in intensive research and can now be listened to by a hopefully wide audience thanks to the DEBUT production of Schweizer Fonogramm. Together with the Swiss Orchestra, which is made up of first-class musicians of the younger generation, the conductor accompanies the Swiss mezzo-soprano Marie-Claude Chappuis in Joachim Raff’s ‘Traumkönig und sein Lieb’ op. 66, a dreamwoven and sensual orchestral song, and revives August Walter’s classicist Symphony in E flat major after almost 150 years of being lost. The treasury of the Swiss Symphonic Composition is open!
Excerpts
1 - J. Raff Traumkönig und sein Lieb op. 66
Joachim Raff - Traumkönig und sein Lieb op. 66 (E. Geibel)2 - A. Walter Sinfonie in Es-Dur I Allegro vivace
August Walter - Sinfonie Es-Dur3 - A. Walter Sinfonie Es-Dur II. Andante cantabile
August Walter - Sinfonie Es-Dur4 - A. Walter Sinfonie Es-Dur III. Scherzo. Vivace
August Walter - Sinfonie Es-Dur5 - A. Walter Sinfonie Es-Dur IV. Andante maestoso - molto vivace
August Walter - Sinfonie Es-DurEmilie Merian-Genast (1833-1905), soloist of the premier of ‘Traumkönig und sein Lieb’ and sister-in-law of Joachim Raff, portrait, oil on canvas, painted by her niece Helene Raff (1865-1942), painter and writer.
The picture was probably made towards the end of the 1890s in Munich, the then residence of mother and daughter Raff after the death of Joachim Raff (1882). The great-granddaughter of Emilie Merian-Genast (Doris’ sister), Elisabeth Janett-Bener from Brugg AG, donated the painting from her estate to the Joachim Raff Society in October 2018 on the occasion of the opening of the Raff archives in September 2018. The signature is on the reverse of the painting. Source: Joachim Raff Archive
Pictures
Recording session in the ZKO Haus Zurich, August 2020
the Set-up
Doris Raff- Genast, Emilie's sister and Raff's wife
