Joachim Raff - Suite No.2 for Piano, Op.71

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Intro: [0:00]
I. Preludio [0:05]
II. Polka [3:21]
III. Toccatina [7:34]
IV. Romance [9:56]
V. Fuga [16:10]
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Piano : Claudio Colombo
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Joseph Joachim Raff was a German-Swiss composer, pedagogue and pianist.
Raff was very prolific, and by the end of his life was one of the best known German composers, though his work is largely forgotten today. (Only one piece, a cavatina for violin and piano, is performed with any regularity today, sometimes as an encore.) He drew influence from a variety of sources - his eleven symphonies, for example, combine the Classical symphonic form, with the Romantic penchant for program music and contrapuntal orchestral writing which harks back to the Baroque. Most of these symphonies carry descriptive titles including In the Forest (No. 3), Lenore (No. 5) and To the Fatherland (No. 1), a very large-scale work lasting around seventy minutes. His last four symphonies make up a quartet of works based on the four seasons. A complete cycle of all his symphonies and many other orchestral works was recorded in the early 2000s by the Bamberg Symphony under Hans Stadlmair.