Joachim Raff’s Fourth Sonata “Chromatic” really is a find. A single movement lasting about a quarter of an hour, it has drama, arresting ideas, and as the title suggests, harmony that keeps the listener in suspense over its entire length. At the same time, the music never turns gluey, and the writing for both instruments is consistently gratifying. The Fifth Sonata, by contrast, is standard in form and grand in scale (about half an hour). It also is full of good things, and its Allegro patetico first movement reveals an unexpected depth of expression. Clearly Raff was not the mere note-spinner that his posthumous reputation seems to indicate. This is really enjoyable music from beginning to end.
The Sonatillen are arrangements of piano pieces, and they are charming. Raff really could write pretty tunes, and this set includes a vivacious tarentella, a scherzo, and a heartfelt concluding adagio. As in previous releases in this series, Ingolf Turban and his partner Jascha Nemtsov play with total conviction. I do have reservations about Turban’s somewhat tremulous tone in high positions, but this minor caveat aside, there’s little here to quibble about. Nemtsov plays very well, and the balances between the two do credit both to the players and to the Sudwestrundfunk engineers. You may have missed this series so far (this is Volume 4 of Raff’s music for violin and piano), but it certainly deserves your serious consideration.
