Imagine a low-voltage Liszt or a slow-witted Mendelssohn, imagine a thick-waisted Brahms, or a heavy-handed Bruch and you have some idea what to expect from Joseph Joachim Raff. As this disc of Raff's Symphony No. 6 in D minor and Suite No. 2 "In the Hungarian Style" demonstrates yet again, Raff had too few good ideas to sustain a long work and too much facility to stop before he'd gone too far, not enough style to have his own identity, and not enough taste to know that scoring a trivial tune for trumpets, drums, and cymbals will not make it seem any less tawdry. Bearing the euphonic movement titles "Gelebt, Gestrebt, Gelitten, Gestritten, Gestorben, Unworben" -- (Lived, strove, suffered, fought, died, recognized) -- Raff's D minor Symphony is anticipatorily autobiographical -- he would in fact live another nine years after the work's completion -- but unfortunately it is also unendingly pompous and bombastic. Stuffed with ethnic elements -- a Hungarian march (Honvéd), a Hungarian shepherd's song (Puszta), and a Hungarian dance (Csárdás) -- the F major Suite is no more Hungarian than goulash made with hot dogs and ketchup and less appetizing.
Hans Stadlmair is, as always in his Raff recordings, a conductor dedicated to the music but its unyielding banality defeats his best efforts. The
Bamberger Symphoniker is, as always in its Raff recordings, a little bit more than professional, but also a little bit less than polished ensemble. Tudor's sound is, as always in its Raff recordings, big and boomy. Listeners who already know every other piece of nineteenth century Central European orchestral music may want to check out this disc for comparison's sake. Listeners who don't already know all of Beethoven's, Schubert's, Mendelssohn's, Schumann's, and Brahms' orchestral music may want to go there first.