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The first of Raff’s eleven numbered symphonies, An das Vaterland, was completed in 1861 and was awarded the Vienna Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde prize. Symphony No. 5 in E major, Op. 177, was completed in 1872 and published the following year. Raff’s division of the work into three Abteilung (sections) does not coincide here with the four movements, two of which form the first section of the symphony, under the title Liebesglück, the happiness of love. The first movement Allegro is in broadly classical form, its exuberant first subject contrasted with the more lyrical second, with suggestions of the tragedy to come. An A flat major Andante quasi larghetto completes the first section. The movement is introduced by the strings, the melody poignantly echoed by the French horn, which then pursues its own operatic theme. A dramatic G sharp minor passage moves into the intense lyricism of a secondary theme, now heard a semitone higher, in E major, before the return of the opening theme, now played by the flutes.
The second part of the symphony has the title Trennung, “Parting”, continuing the implied events that precede those of Bürger’s poem Lenore, on which the symphony is based. The third movement opens as a C major March, with a contrasting minor continuation. This is followed by an F major section, the first violins doubled by the French horns in the march theme. The return of the first march theme leads to an agitated C minor passage in which violins and cellos plead one with the other, before the march again intervenes, disappearing gradually into the distance, as the soldiers march away.
It is the third section of the symphony, the fourth movement Allegro, Wiedervereinigung im Tode, “Reunion in Death”, that is based directly on Bürger’s Kunstballade Lenore in music that follows much of the poetic narrative. Göttfried August Bürger was associated with the group of poets that formed the Göttinger Hainbund and in 1773 wrote his famous poem Lenore, published the following year in the Göttinger Musenalmanach. Based on the Scottish ballad Sweet William’s Ghost, Bürger’s poem tells of the grief of Lenore for her lover Wilhelm, killed in the Seven Years’ War. The girl turns against God in her despair, but at night the sound of a horse is heard outside (“Und außen, horch! ging’s trapp trapp trapp, Ais wie von Roßeshufen”) and Wilhelm calls her down to him. She joins him and the couple ride away together through the night, through the countryside, meeting a funeral procession now bidden to the wedding-feast. The dead ride fast, and the figure before her asks again if she fears the dead, but “Doch lass die Toten”, she replies, “Let the dead be!” On they ride, past the gibbet and through a gate into the graveyard, as dawn approaches, and suddenly the horseman’s uniform drops away, piece by piece, his head becomes a skull, his body a skeleton, with hour-glass and scythe. The poem and the symphony end with the moral, proclaimed by the spirits that had followed the couple, that men must be patient in adversity: “Geduld! Geduld! Wenn’s Herz auch bricht! Mit Gott im Himmel hadre nicht!” (“Patience! Patience! Even if your heart breaks! Do not quarrel with God in Heaven! ”)
Raff’s Overture Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, Opus 127, was written in 1865 and dedicated to Hans von Bülow. It is described as an overture for a drama of the Thirty Years War. The work opens ominously, its slow introduction, Andante religioso, starting with a soft drum-roll, accompanied by muted double basses, before the contrapuntal entry of the first violins, followed by cellos, second violins and violas in turn. The familiar notes of Martin Luther’s most famous hymn appear first in the woodwind, to be joined by other instruments of the orchestra, before the succeeding Allegro eroico, marked non troppo vivo, ma vigoroso. This faster section, changing from the earlier D major to D minor, with its sharply rhythmic string figure, is punctuated by the loud intervention of the wind instruments, introducing music in tripartite sonata-form, derived from the chorale of the title. A passage for solo cello, accompanied only by sustained viola chords, leads to a final Andante, where the lower strings announce again Luther’s famous melody. The overture ends in victory with a final grandiose and triumphant Allegro.
Keith Anderson
Joachim Raff (1822-1882)
1-4. Symphony No. 5 In E Major, Op. 177 'Lenore' (1872) (51:22)
5. Ein Feste Burg Ist Unser Gott ('A Mighty Fortress Is Our God') – Overture, Op. 127 (1865) 19:02
Credits :
Orchestra : Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra, Košice
Conductor – Urs Schneider
Cover Painting - Ferdinand Hodler.jpg)
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