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 poemTasso. In 1851, Raff's operaKönig Alfred was staged in Weimar, and five years later he moved to Wiesbaden where he largely devoted himself to composition.[1] From 1878 he was the first Director of, and a teacher at, the Hoch ConservatoryinFrankfurt. 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 seriously.) His pupils there included Edward MacDowell and Alexander Ritter. See: List of music students by teacher: R to S#Joachim Raff.
This cavatina for violin and piano (Op. 85) performed in 1920, violin solo by Elias Breeskin (1896-1969), pianoforte by Rudolph Gruen (1900-1966)
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. A complete cycle of all his symphonies and many other orchestral works was recorded in the early 2000s by the Bamberg Symphony under Hans Stadlmair.[1]
Raff's Symphony No. 3 "In the Forest" was enthusiastically received by the audience at that time, spread quickly to England and America and was one of the most played orchestral pieces in the world at the end of the 19th century. It fell into oblivion together with Raff himself, but influenced many later romantic composers including Tchaikovsky in his famous "Pathétique" for example. Arturo Toscanini conducted some performances of the symphony in 1931.[4]
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).[4] Much of Raff's music has been said to forecast the early works of Jean Sibelius.[4]
Raff also composed in most other genres, including concertos, opera, chamber music and works for solo piano. His chamber works include 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.[1]
Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott, Ouvertüre zu einem Drama aus dem Dreißigjährigen Krieg (A mighty fortress is our God", Overture to a drama about the Thirty Years' War), Op. 127 (1854; revised 1865)
Rhapsody for Orchestra "Abends", Op. 163b
Festival March, Op. 139
Sinfonietta, Op. 188
Elegy for Orchestra, WoO. 48
Orchestral Prelude to Shakespeare's "The Tempest", WoO. 50
Orchestral Prelude to Shakespeare's "Macbeth", WoO. 51
Orchestral Prelude to Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", WoO. 52
Orchestral Prelude to Shakespeare's "Othello", WoO. 53
