Joachim Raff, Paul Juon, Anton Arensky: Works For Two Pianos

2022 was an anniversary year for the two Swiss composers Joachim Raff (200th birthday) and Paul Juon (150th birthday). To mark the occasion, NEOS CLASSICS is releasing the premiere recordings of their works for two pianos.

The performers Igor Andreev and Thomas Gerber are the most interesting pianists of their generation. Together at two pianos, they take a look at the development of Swiss music and its European and Eastern European influences.

Anyone interested in the music of the German Romantic period may well have come across the Swiss composer Joachim Raff (1822 - 1882), who was born in Lachen in the canton of Schwyz. Although his works have been played frequently again in recent years, Raff's posthumous fame is no match for his popularity during his lifetime. The Fantasia for Two Pianos, Op. 207a originates from his last creative phase. With a playing time of almost 20 minutes, the work describes an almost symphonic structure.

The rich oeuvre of Paul Juon (1878 - 1940), encompassing orchestral works, solo concertos, stage works as well as chamber music, describes a highly individual musical language between the Russian school, impressionist echoes and modernist idioms, although he never completely leaves the framework of late Romantic tonality. Juon's works span a captivating arc from highly demanding compositional concentration to salon-musical gallantry. His Tone Poem for Two Pianos, Op. 71 from 1924, with the epithet 'Jotunheimen' , evokes the mystical Nordic mountainous landscape in which the mythological Frost Giants dwell. A reference to the orchestral genre of the symphonic poem and precedents such as the creations of Jean Sibelius and other Nordic late Romantic composers imposes itself here too. Amongst Paul Juon's composition teachers was the Russian tone poet Anton Stepanovich Arensky who left behind a wide-ranging compositional "ouvre, in which particularly his chamber music work stands out. He grasped a highly effective, virtuoso treatment of the piano, which is impressively evident in his five suites for two pianos. The Suite No. 1 in G Major, Op. 15 is situated relatively early in his compositional career and yet already opens up a great wealth of musical and pianistic means of expression.