Symphony No. 7 (2004)/ Jubel-Ouvertüre

"The maestoso opening {of the Seventh symphony] has never portrayed the majesty of the alpine landscape more effectively - a very impressive start. In the rest of the first movement, the music never drags or lacks sparkle. There's plenty of variation of speed within the overall tempo, and this keeps the interest up too. Whatever their shortcomings in the earlier recordings, CPO's engineers have done a good job of capturing the excellent virtuosity of the Philharmonia Hungarica's wind players in this piece. It's a confident and inspiring start. In the larghetto movement, 'On the Lake ', the sultry afternoon, with the threat of distant thunder is captured to magical effect. The Celebration Overture is one of a series of pièces d'occassion which Raff wrote in the 1860s. Based upon the anthem of the duchy of Nassau (more familiar to us now as "God save the Queen"), it is a technically very proficient but conventional work which doesn't really justify it's quarter of an hour." (Mark Thomas, Raff.org)