Joachim Raff - 교향곡 모음(3): 6,7,8번

* Symphony No. 6 (1874/52세)

 

Painting Info - Bringing home the body of King Karl XII of Sweden by Gustaf Cederström

I. Allegro non troppo - Lived - Struggled - 00:00
II. Vivace - Suffered - Fought - 10:00
III. Larghetto, quasi Marcia funebre - Died - 15:22
IV. Allegro Con Spirito - Glorified - 27:44

The symphony had been composed in the summer and autumn of 1873 and it was published by Bote of Berlin in October 1874. As was his habit, Raff made his own piano four hands arrangement. The disappointment of critics and public in the score is easy to understand. The new work had much less in common with its flamboyant pictorial predecessors than with Raff's other untitled symphonies, No.2 and No.4. Its scherzo is very much in the same mould as those of the two earlier works and the first movement has the same confident momentum as theirs do. The funeral march slow movement, the most overtly programmatic of the four, has its parallels in the religiosity and solemnity respectively of the two earlier Andantes. Despite Raff's protestations, this piece wears its programme more lightly than any of the other symphonies.

The initial Allegro non troppo depicts the noble aspects of an artist's life and the Vivace second movement the humorous ones. The death of the artist is portrayed in the lugubrious self-explanatory Larghetto, quasi marcia funebre third movement which is followed by an Allegro con spirito finale which ends in a triumphant apotheosis.< 유튜브 해설 자료에서 일부만 발췌>

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* Symphony No. 7 "In The Alps" (1875 / 53세)

Painting Info - "Mountain Kingdom" by KarlSchulschenk on deviantart.

I. Wandering in the High Mountains - 00:00
II. At the Inn - 18:42
III. on the lake - 29:41
IV. At the wrestling contest - Farewell - 40:47

Unlike Richard Strauss, the composer of another Alpine Symphony, in his own programme music Raff generally betrayed little that is clearly personal to him, born of his own feelings and experiences. His Op.201, the Symphony No.7 in B flat In den Alpen (In the Alps) is therefore unusual. He wrote it from the start as his musical homage to the country of his birth and childhood - Switzerland. Into it he poured his memories of the landscapes and people of his youth in Lachen, by the side of Lake Zürich.

By the time he came to compose the work in the spring and summer of 1875, Raff had been hailed as the greatest symphonist of his age following the runaway successes of his Im Walde and Lenore symphonies. The 6th Symphony, composed two years earlier, had not met with much more than a successe d'estime, however, and this may have influenced Raff to return in his new work to the more overt pictorialism of his earlier triumphs.

The public was still eager to hear each Raff novelty as soon as it was finished and so the premiere took place in Wiesbaden's Kurhaus concert hall on Thursday, 30 December 1875 under the baton of Raff's friend Louis Lüstner. It was repeated at the New Year's Day concert. Raff himself conducted the third performance, which took place in Stuttgart in October 1876, amidst much feting of this belatedly-recognised son of Württemberg. A few days later the wider musical establishment took up the work - it was the centrepiece of a Leipzig Gewandhaus concert conducted by the renowned composer and pedagogue Karl Reinecke.

The symphony was published that same year by the Leipzig company of Seitz (later Ries & Erler) and, as was his custom, Raff himself prepared the piano four-hands adaptation.

The public's response was disappointingly unenthusiastic. They wanted more wild hunts and ghoulish sensation and instead the maestro had produced a pastoral, almost bucolic, celebration. This reception, together with the indifference with which some of his other recent works had been received seems to have brought on in Raff an artistic crisis which lasted a couple of years and was only finally broken by his appointment to the directorship of the Frankfurt Conservatory.

It is amongst the longest of Raff's symphonies and in the wrong hands it can seem a diffuse work. In contrast to his two earlier explicitly programmatic symphonies, the four movements here have short descriptive titles but no detailed programmes - as in his 6th. Symphony, Raff was relying upon the music to convey impressions and feelings to the listener. There is a wealth of incident contained within each movement but it is only hinted at by the constantly shifting textures and recurring thematic references. It is a deceptively subtle piece.

The first movement Andante-Allegro "Wandering in the high mountains" has a grandiose opening depicting the Alpine massif, as a prelude to its general Alpine scene painting in which the characteristic sound of

the alpenhorn is often heard.

The following Andante quasi Allegro "In the Inn" is a gentler dance movement portraying a (rather restrained) evening of merry making, whilst the slow movement Larghetto on the lake" is a tranquil piece, with

just a hint of distant thunder.

The Allegro finale "At the Schwingfest; Departure" portrays a Swiss wresting contest and concludes with a return to the opening material of the whole symphony. - Raff.org <해설자료 출처-유튜브>

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* Symphony No. 8 "Sounds of Spring" (1876 / 54세) 

Painting Info - the artist is Michael Whelan

I. Allegro - Spring's Return - 00:00
II. Allegro - During Walpurgis night - 12:51
III. Larghetto - With the first bunch of flowers - 19:48
IV. Vivace - Wanderlust - 27:29

Works about Spring appear throughout Raff's creative output and two of his greatest creations, the Symphony No.8 in A op 205 Frühlingsklänge ( Sounds of Spring) and the song collection Sanges Frühling, celebrate the season. Throughout his life, as a true romantic, Raff delighted in nature and the countryside and he certainly shared an almost primeval release of energy at the onset of Spring. In her biography of her father, Helene Raff sheds no more light on why he decided to write a symphony celebrating Spring, and whether it was always his intention for it to be the first in a cycle of four celebrating all the seasons. The fact that the next one he wrote was about Winter and was not published or performed in his lifetime perhaps hints that the A major symphony was written as a stand-alone work, rather than consciously as the first of a series.

Raff composed the work in Wiesbaden during the Summer and Autumn of 1876 at around the time that he was appointed to head the new Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt and at the end of what appears to have been a period of creative uncertainty and self doubt. It was premiered the following year in Wiesbaden's Kurhaus and was well received - no doubt a relief after the mixed reception of the previous Symphony, In the Alps. The first two movements were particularly well received. The work soon crossed the Atlantic and the conductor of a performance there later in 1877 reported to Raff, "I want only to share with you that I have had the pleasure of introducing your Spring Symphony here (in New York) and with great success".

In this work, Raff produced three successive movements of surging vitality, demonic excitement and pastoral delicacy which go a long way towards explaining his huge success in his lifetime. The finale is rather more diffuse - although as colourfully orchestrated and structurally sound as its predecessors it is not so melodically memorable; Helene Raff records in her biography that audiences "did not understand" this movement. It is somehow not on quite such a high level of inspiration as the others and, as such, it underscores the reasons for the posthumous decline in Raff's reputation.

The first movement, Allegro, is entitled "Spring's return" and is fittingly exuberant after an atmospherically dark beginning.

The succeeding movement is a demonic Allegro "During Allergies night" - Raff had a penchant for writing circumspectly devilish music in a number of his symphonies.

The slow movement Larghetto "With the first bunch of flowers" is a beautifully lyrical piece of writing which is followed by the Vivace finale "Wanderlust", which begins quietly but gathers pace to a rousing conclusion.

In common with most of his "programme" symphonies, none of the movements has an explicit programme. <해설 출처-유튜브>