RAFF, J.: Violin Sonatas (Complete), Vol. 2 - Nos. 3, 4, 5 (Kayaleh, J.-F. Schneider)
Joachim Raff enjoyed enormous prestige with a reputation as Germany’s leading symphonist of his time. He also wrote music for the violin, an instrument he had mastered when young, and for which he wrote with great sympathy. The enduring success of his first two sonatas (8.573841) prompted him to write three more: the charming, genial and joyous Sonata in D major, the symphonically conceived Sonata in G minor which, uniquely for Raff’s violin works, is cast in a single movement, and a Sonata in C minor that, while often melancholic in tone, is still suffused with his trademark lyricism.
Tracklist
Schneider, Jean-Fabien (piano)
Schneider, Jean-Fabien (piano)
Schneider, Jean-Fabien (piano)
Schneider, Jean-Fabien (piano)
Schneider, Jean-Fabien (piano)
Schneider, Jean-Fabien (piano)
Schneider, Jean-Fabien (piano)
Schneider, Jean-Fabien (piano)
Schneider, Jean-Fabien (piano)
Schneider, Jean-Fabien (piano)
Schneider, Jean-Fabien (piano)
Schneider, Jean-Fabien (piano)

Laurence Kayaleh has performed as guest soloist with many distinguished orchestras, including the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Russian National Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra (Washington, D.C.), Orchestre Lamoureux, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, and the major orchestras of Cleveland, St. Louis, Caracas, Basel and Mexico City, under conductors such as Leonard Slatkin, Mikhail Pletnev and Hiroshi Wakasugi.
She has performed at the Bolshoi and Tchaikovsky Concert Halls (Moscow), the Salle Pleyel and Salle Gaveau (Paris), Suntory Hall (Tokyo), Victoria Hall (Geneva), Verdi Hall (Milan), Teatro Teresa Carreño (Caracas), Place des Arts (Montreal), The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington) and Mie Center for the Arts (Japan).
A guest of major festivals such as Lucerne, Blossom and Cervantino, she has shared concerts with Victor Pikayzen, Ida Haendel and Igor Oistrakh.
For Naxos, she has recorded the complete works for violin and piano by Medtner, Honegger and Catoire, the complete violin sonatas by Raff, and Rebay’s complete sonatas for violin and guitar, and viola and guitar.
She plays a 1742 Pietro Guarneri of Venice which belonged to the eminent violinist and pedagogue Carl Flesch.

Jean-Fabien Schneider is a French Canadian pianist, regularly performing as a soloist and chamber musician in both Europe and North America. His broad musical activities range from classical concerts to the areas of musical theatre, art direction and avantgarde music.
Schneider graduated with honours from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and holds a doctorate in performance from the University of Montreal. He has won several awards in international competitions, notably First Prize in the Maria Yudina International Piano Competition, and has given recitals in more than ten countries.
Schneider is a member of various chamber music ensembles including the Montreal Piano Duo, with which he performed throughout Canada, and Ensemble Quatrix, comprising two pianists and two percussionists.
An active pedagogue, Schneider is the chair of the piano department at the McGill Conservatory in Montreal, and the director of Les Saisons Russes de Montréal, the first Canadian classical music festival entirely devoted to Russian repertoire.
For more information, visit www.montrealpianoduo.com.

Joachim Raff enjoyed the highest reputation in his lifetime but was later remembered only for his famous Cavatina, an attractive short piece that appeared in many arrangements. Encouraged by Mendelssohn and then by Liszt, he served the latter as an assistant at Weimar, orchestrating Liszt’s earlier symphonic poems. His own work as a composer started in earnest when he left Weimar in 1856, to settle in Wiesbaden and then, from 1877, in Frankfurt as director of the Hoch Conservatory, a position he retained until his death in 1882.
Orchestral Music
Recent attempts have been made to reassess Raff’s music. His 11 symphonies go some way towards a synthesis of pure music and the programmatic element of the Neo-German school exemplified in the symphonic poems of Liszt. Most of the symphonies have titles of one sort or another, the last four representing aspects of the four seasons. He wrote concertos for piano, for violin and for cello, and other works for solo instrument and orchestra, as well as a series of suites and overtures.
Chamber Music
Raff contributed to the repertoire of German chamber music with works ranging from piano quintets to duo sonatas, the last including five sonatas for violin and piano.
Piano Music
Equally prolific in his work for the piano, Raff wrote a large number of shorter pieces, as well as transcriptions and fantasies derived from the current operatic repertoire.
Vocal and Choral Music
In addition to works for choir, including several psalm settings, Raff published four volumes of part-songs, three of them for male voices.
Opera
Raff enjoyed some success with his first opera, König Alfred, first staged in Weimar in 1853. One other of his six operas, Dame Kobold, received some contemporary attention.