Joachim Raff - 교향곡 모음(1) No 1, 2

Joachim Raff ( Joseph Joachim Raff)

Raff, 1878 (published in John Knowles Paine's Famous Composers, Vol. 2, 1891)

(May 27, 1822 – June 24 or June 25, 1882) was a German-Swiss composer, teacher and pianist. 

Symphony No. 1 "To the Fatherland" (1859/ 37세)

Painting Info - The artist is Piotrek Swigut

 

I. Allegro - 00:00
II. Scherzo - Allegro Vivace - 18:12
III. Larghetto - 25:58
IV. Allegro Drammatico - 39:06
V. Larghetto Sostenuto - 50:42

 

The Symphony No. 1 in D major, Opus 96, carries the title "An das Vaterland" and was started in 1859, after the Peace of Villafranca and completed in 1861. It received an award from the Vienna Philharmonic Society with a prize jury that included Hiller, Reinecke, Ambros, Volkmann and Vincenz Lachner.

 

In the first movement Raff sets out to depict various aspects of the German character, from the opening

optimism to depth of thought, decency and triumphant endurance. Opening with an energetic sweep of Wagnerian sound, the first movement develops in more formal terms, with a strongly contrapuntal element.

 

The Scherzo allows the horns to suggest the German forest and those that work there, with the folk-song of girls and young men in the meadows of the countryside. The slow movement starts with a strongly felt theme, moving to music that is more gently lyrical in feeling, suggesting the family and the home and developed contrapuntally and dramatically, with due reference to material from the preceding movements.

 

The declared drama of the fourth movement makes use of a well-known patriotic song, a setting by Reichardt of words by the ardent nationalist Ernst Moritz Arndt, Was ist des deutschen Vaterland?, in a plea for national unity, an emphatically patriotic statement, before the sombre ending.

 

In the final Larghetto sostenuto Raff at first expresses something of the sadness felt at the troubles of

the whole of Germany, moving forward to a new hope, and culminating in a spirit of national triumph.

 

In spite of its considerable length and apparent digressions, the symphony is, all in all, remarkably unified in structure, in thematic material and in general intention.

 

< 해설  출처- 유튜브에서 교향곡 1번 부분만 발췌>

 Symphony No. 2 (1867/ 45세)

Painting Info - http://www.wallpaperpin.com/wallpaper...

I. Allegro - 00:00
II. Andante Con Moto - 11:39
III. Allegro Vivace - 22:11
IV. Andante Maestoso - Allegro Con Spirito - 27:53

The Symphony No.2 in C op 140, together with his other early symphonies, amply explains Raff's reputation in the 1860s and 70s as the leading symphonist of the age. Although this contemporary acclaim has been derided in the twentieth century the craftsmanship, melodic inventiveness, skill in orchestration and poetic appeal of this symphony go a long way towards supporting the high opinion then held of Raff as a symphonic composer. This work was premiered in 1867 - a time when there were few symphonists of stature.

By the time that Brahms' 1st. Symphony appeared in 1876 the public and critics had heard the first seven

of Raff's symphonic cycle. He was of an earlier generation - sandwiched between Schumann and Mendelssohn whose last symphonies were written in the 1840s and the later romantics such as Brahms, Dvorak and Tchaikovsky whose major works did not appear until the 1870s and later. His near contemporay Bruckner was at the time generally unknown. Viewed from the perspective of the 1870s rather than the 2000s, the reasons for Raff's fame are easy to see.

Though later overshadowed by his 3rd. and 5th. Symphonies, Raff's 2nd. must have done much to consolidate his reputation when it first appeared. It was written in Wiesbaden in 1866, some five years after its predecessor and three years after the 1st.'s triumph in the Vienna competition. It is dedicated to the Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and was premiered in Wiesbaden in 1867, with a second performance in the Leipzig Gewandhaus under Raff's baton a couple of years later. With the 4th. Symphony, it shares the distinction in Raff's canon of being untitled.

Opening with an extended lyrical Allegro, the second movement Andante con moto is a wonderfully evocative piece of almost religious intensity. The following scherzo, marked Allegro vivace, is the first example in Raff's symphonic oeuvre of his debt to Mendelssohn in this type of movement. The concluding movement - Andante maestoso, Allegro con spirito - makes a grandiose conclusion. <출처-유튜브 >

 

1843년 작품을 J.L.F. 멘델스존에게 보내 그 추천으로 브라이트코프츨판사에서 op.2∼14가 출판되었다. 여기에 용기를 얻어 작곡에 전념, 리스트의 초대로 그의 순회연주에 동행했고, 46년에는 쾰른에서 음악 잡지 《세실리아(Cäcilia)》에 그의 평론이 실리기도 했다. 

1847년에는 멘델스죤을 공부하기 위한 라이프치히의 여행이 그가 근무하는 피아노 상회의 주인의 사망으로 실패하고 슈트트가르트로 가게된다. 그곳에서 영언한 우정을 갖게되는 폰 뷜로와 만나기는 하나 1848년의 혹한기에 슈트트가르트를 떠나야만 했다. 리스트의 도움으로 함부르크에 일자리를 얻게되고, 51년 바이마르에서 손으로 리스트의 도움으로 오페라 《알프레드왕》이 공연되었다. 1853년 그의 부인이 될 바이마르궁정 극장 감독이며 배우의 딸인 도리스를 만나게 된다.

리스트와의 교류는 죽을 때까지 계속되었으며, 리스트의 교향시 몇 개는 라프가 오케스트레이션을 도왔다. 56년 비스바덴으로 옮겨와 피아노 교사로 활동, 63년에는 최초의 교향곡 《조국에》로 빈의 악우(樂友)협회상을 받았고, 77년 프랑크푸르트의 호흐음악원 원장이 되었다. 그는 나이 60세에 과로에 의한 심장마비로 눈을 감는다. 그의 방대한 작품 중 가장 대중적인, 피아노와 바이올린을 위한 《카바티나(cavatina)》 외에는 그리 연주되지 않지만, 교사로서 많은 후진을 육성한 공적이 크다.(출처: 카페'새벽출판사)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Raff was born in Lachen in Switzerland. His father, a teacher, had fled there from Württemberg in 1810 to escape forced recruitment into the military of that southwestern German state that had to fight for Napoleon in Russia. Joachim was largely self-taught in music, studying the subject while working as a schoolmaster in Schmerikon, Schwyz and Rapperswil. He sent some of his piano compositions to Felix Mendelssohn who recommended them to Breitkopf & Härtel for publication. They were published in 1844 and received a favourable review in Robert Schumann's journal, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, which prompted Raff to go to Zürich and take up composition full-time.^[2]

In 1845, Raff walked to Basel to hear Franz Liszt play the piano. After a period in Stuttgart where he became friends with the conductor Hans von Bülow, he worked as Liszt's assistant at Weimar from 1850 to 1853. During this time he helped Liszt in the orchestration of several of his works, claiming to have had a major part in orchestrating the symphonic poem Tasso. In 1851, Raff's opera König Alfred was staged in Weimar, and five years later he moved to Wiesbaden where he largely devoted himself to composition. From 1878 he was the first Director of, and a teacher at, the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt. There he employed Clara Schumann and a number of other eminent musicians as teachers, and established a class specifically for female composers. (This was at a time when women composers were not taken very seriously.) His pupils there included Edward MacDowell and Alexander Ritter.

He died in Frankfurt on the night of June 24/25, 1882.

Compositions

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. Arturo Toscanini conducted some performances of the Symphony No. 3 In the Forest in 1931.^[3]

 

The Lenore symphony (No. 5), famous in its time, was inspired by a ballad of the same name by Gottfried August Bürger that also inspired works by several other composers, including Maria Theresia von Paradis (1789), Henri Duparc, Franz Liszt (late 1850s, mentioned by Alan Walker in his Liszt biography vol. 2), for example. The world premiere recording of Lenore was made during May 27–29, 1970, by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Bernard Herrmann, who championed Raff's orchestral music.^[3] He described it as one of the finest examples of the Romantic Programme School - it deserves a place alongside the Symphonie fantastique of Berlioz, Liszt's Faust Symphony and the Manfred Symphony of Tchaikovsky".^[3]

 

Richard Strauss was a pupil of Hans von Bülow, a friend of Raff's, and it has been said that Strauss was influenced in his early works by Raff. For example, Raff's Symphony No. 7 In the Alps (1877) could be compared with Strauss's An Alpine Symphony (1915).^[3] Much of Raff's music has been said to forecast the early works of Jean Sibelius.^[3]

 

Raff also composed in most other genres, including concertos, opera, chamber music and works for solo piano. His chamber works include two piano sonatas, five violin sonatas, a cello sonata, a piano quintet, two piano quartets, a string sextet and four piano trios. Many of these works are now commercially recorded. He also wrote numerous suites, some for smaller groups (there are suites for piano solo and suites for string quartet), some for orchestra and one each for piano and orchestra and violin and orchestra

 

* 출처:위키피디아-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page