Joachim Raff - Symphony 모음(2) No 3, 4, 5, 번

* Symphony No. 3 "Im Walde" ( in the forest) (1869 / 47세)

Painting 1 - http://www.goodfon.com/wallpaper/4753...
Painting 2 - Gino Caspari is the artist.
Painting 3 - "Spring Dance"
Painting 4 - "Dark Forest" by VityaR83 on deviantart

I. Part one: In the Daytime. Impressions and Feelings - 00:00
II. Part Two: In the Twilight. A: Dreaming - 14:23
III. B: Dance of the Dryads - 23:02
IV. Part Three: At Night. The living stillness of night in the Forest. Arrival and departure of the Wild Hunt, with Frau Holle and Wotan. Daybreak - 27:50

Raff's fame as a symphonist was assured by the Symphony No.3 in F Im Walde (In the Forest) op.153.

Together with the later Lenore, it was amongst the most played of modern symphonies in its day, taking

his name to both England and America. Its dramatic pictorialism seems to have created a sensation when

it was first heard - an effect only lessened by his style later becoming common currency from many composers. With this work, Raff was indeed an innovator.

As a true romantic, he was greatly influenced by nature - six of his nine programme symphonies relate to nature in one form or another, as do many of his other compositions. As a German, he had a particular feeling for his country's woods and forests. He wrote the work in Wiesbaden in 1869 and it was premiered in

his old home of Wiemar on Easter Sunday, 1870 with great success.

The acclaim for it continued throughout the rest of his life: an American critic described it as "the best

Symphony of modern times, one of the very few which are worthy to go down in posterity in company with the works of Beethoven and Schumann". After one performance at which Raff was present "a complete hurricane went through the house" and Raff mounted the podium "amidst barbaric jubilation from the audience". Hans von Bülow described the symphony's success as "colossal".

The published programme for his third symphony comprises short titles for each movement, but Raff may have been working to a very much longer and highly detailed unpublished programme, which is illustrated quite literally by the music - see Carol Bevier's dissertation for more detail (pp.28-93). This programme links almost every phrase and section of the work to the experiences and feelings of a "wanderer" in the

Forest. It was not unknown, however, for composers to concoct such detailed programmes after the event to satisfy the incessant demands for literalism that developed amongst Victorian music lovers - those for Bruckner's "Romantic" symphony or Rubinstein's "Ocean" Symphony being contemporary examples. Whether this was so in Raff's case is not known.

Each of its four movements has a descriptive sub-title meant to give a general impression of the music

rather than a detailed programme which it follows. The joyful opening Allegro "Daytime. Impressions and feelings" is followed by slow Largo and fast Allegro assai movements together grouped under the title "At twilight - Dreaming and Dance of the Nyads". The extended Allegro finale depicts "Night....still murmurings.....the wild hunt of Hulda & Wotan......sunrise". The piece was hailed in Raff's lifetime as a masterpiece and it is easy to see why it made such an impression in its day with its inventive orchestration and abundance of melody.< 유튜브 해설 자료>

==============================================================================================

 

* Symphony No. 4 (1871/ 49세)

Painting Info - http://patsober.wordpress.com/2012/08...

I. Allegro - 00:00
II. Allegro Molto - 10:16
III. Andante - Non Troppo Mosso - 15:00
IV. Allegro - Vivace - 24:49

Perhaps because of his rather misleading reputation as a writer of programme symphonies, Raff's Symphony No.4 in g op.167 tends to be overlooked in his canon. His daughter recalled that he used to joke that the patter of "the little child's feet" could be heard in the work's second movement (she was six years old when it was being written), but there is no real evidence that Raff ever had a programme in mind when writing it - a distinction which it shares with the Symphony No.2 alone.

Despite being written in the Spring and Summer 1871, at the time of the Franco-Prussian war, it betrays no identifiable patriotic sentiment and was published in October 1872.

Coming hard on the heels of the successes of the "Forest" Symphony No.3 and the Opera Dame Kobold, the g minor symphony was taken up quickly by orchestras and had its premiere on 8 February 1872 in a concert at the Royal Hoftheatre in Wiesbaden under Wilhelm Jahn. More performances followed in the same year. on 25 October it was conducted by Karl Müller in Frankfurt and only six days later it was given under Raff's baton at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. Helene Raff records in her biography: "It always won enthusiastic approval from the orchestra and the public; at the time it increased the delight of [his] colleagues. 'Enormously fresh, spontaneous, spirited, lovely' - wrote [Hans von] Bülow about it to a musical friend. With greatest warmth, even enthusiasm, Franz Wüllner and Josef Rheinberger wrote to Raff after the November 1872 Munich performance of the g minor symphony. 'The splendid work in which I marvel along with all preceding ones' - wrote Rheinberger who had a deep respect and recognition for Raff and made it known on every occasion".

The work soon left Germany's borders. It was played in Brussels in February 1873 with the Belgian violin virtuoso and composer Henri Vieuxtemps conducting. He wrote to Raff about the success of the "amazing g minor symphony" and reported that there was "a unaminous call for its repeat in the next concert". He urged Raff, in spite of the distance and bad traveling season to make the trip to the Belgian capital to hear his work himself "and see how great the number of his admirers was". Raff did not go - it was not an unusual request as his fame was spreading rapidly at this time.

He was clearly particularly highly thought of in Belgium. During a later visit to the fashionable resort of Spa in September 1873, which he made for a performance of the "Forest" Symphony, "the enthusiastic members of a resident arts group sent him a giant wreath: grape leaves with guilded grapes" reports Helene Raff.

But despite its success the fourth Symphony was soon overshadowed by an even greater work, the Symphony No.5 Lenore. The public's predilection for programmes in its music may also have militated against the continued popularity of this more traditional piece, sandwiched between the two most popular and explicitly programmatic symphonies in Raff's oeuvre. - Raff.org

It begins with a large-scale Allegro which has a mostly earnest character but is followed by a light-hearted Mendelssohnian scherzo, Allegro molto and a deeply felt, nostalgic Andante, non troppo mosso slow movement before finishing with a buoyant dance-like finale Allegro vivace which has a couple of references to the more serious opening Allegro.< 해설 자료 출처-유튜브>

==============================================================================================

 

* Symphony No. 5 "Lenore" (1870 /48세)

Painting Info - "Wacom contest -matte painting" by Dafne-1337art on deviantart.

I. Allegro - Love's Happiness - 00:00
II. Andante Quasi Larghetto - Love's Happiness - 12:45
III. Marsch Tempo - Agitato - Parting - 24:41
IV. Allegro - Reunited in Death - 36:00

Raff's Symphony No.5 in E Lenore op.177 is generally regarded as being amongst the best of the eleven surviving symphonies and is probably also the best known today - there are currently no less than five CD recordings. Described by Donald Ellman as "a most important pivotal work between early and late-romantic styles", Lenore represents the high point of Raff's attempt to combine traditional symphonic structures with romantic pictorialism. Despite following a programme not wholly of Raff's own devising, it is probably the most satisfying musically of his "programme" symphonies.

Together with the much later Four Shakespeare Preludes, Lenore is unusual in Raff's orchestral output in portraying a literary work in music. Raff's "programme" music generally avoided such literal depiction of literature or paintings in favour of more generalised scene setting or mood description - though sometimes to a detailed programme of his own creation. It is not known what inspired him to depart from his usual practice for Lenore.

He began mulling over ideas for the work in 1870 and finished it during the summer of 1872. Since the huge success of the 3rd. Symphony, a new Raff symphony did not have long to wait for its premiere, which took place at a private performance in Sonderhausen in December 1872. Raff recorded that the audience (of 20!) "appeared beset with some fright". At the first public performance in Berlin the following year the work was very well received. Bechstein declared "It was an unbelievable success for Berlin". More performances quickly followed throughout Germany - followed by England and then America. Ebenezer Prout reported on Lenore's first English hearing "those who were present will remember the sensation created by its performance".


The Symphony is based upon Wilhelm August Bürger's gothic ballad Lenore - one of the greatest of the Sturm und Drang period. It is set at the end of the 30 years war in the mid-18th. century: Lenore anxiously awaits the return from the war of her betrothed, Wilhelm. He does not appear and she believes him to be dead, but her mother suggests that he may instead have found another girl. Distraught at this suggestion, Lenore rails against God, denying His existence - much to her mother's distress. That night, Wilhelm appears at her door as she sleeps and commands her to ride with him. Together at last, they gallop off on his horse. They pass all manner of gruesome sights - at each of which Wilhelm repeats "Are you afraid, sweetheart, of the dead?". The horse's pace increases until they reach a grave, which Lenore realises is Wilhelm's own, and "Wilhelm" is revealed as Death himself. They are joined by other madly dancing spectres and, as she dies at Wilhelm's graveside, Death admonishes her for quarrelling with God.

The first two movements, together entitled "Love's happiness", are however not specifically linked to events in Bürger's poem and evoke the love of Lenore and Wilhelm, a soldier - the first an ardent Allegro and the second a passionate Andante quasi larghetto. The third movement, "Separation" Marsch tempo - agitato, illustrates the lovers' parting with one of Raff's boisterous marches used to depict the approaching army by using a lengthy crescendo. The parting itself is given over to an anguished trio, before the march reasserts itself with the army leaving for the war in a matching long diminuendo. The exciting fourth movement is one of Raff's most explicitly programmatic symphonic creations. "Reunited in death" Allegro, charts the dead Wilhelm's return as a spectre, enticing Lenore into a nightmare gallop to the grave and ending with a serene apotheosis. - Raff.org. <해설자료 출처_ 유튜브>