page_title: Symphonic poems (Liszt)
section_title: Raff's role
hierarchical_section_title: Symphonic poems (Liszt) / Raff's role
caption_attribution_description: Depicted person&#58; &#32;Joachim Raff&#32;– Swiss composer
context_page_description: The symphonic poems of the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt are a series of 13 orchestral works, numbered S.95–107. The first 12 were composed between 1848 and 1858; the last, Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe, followed in 1882. These works helped establish the genre of orchestral program music—compositions written to illustrate an extra-musical plan derived from a play, poem, painting or work of nature. They inspired the symphonic poems of Bedřich Smetana, Antonín Dvořák, Richard Strauss and others.
  Liszt's intent, according to musicologist Hugh MacDonald, was for these single-movement works "to display the traditional logic of symphonic thought." In other words, Liszt wanted these works to display a complexity in their interplay of themes similar to that usually reserved for the opening movement of the Classical symphony; this principal self-contained section was normally considered the most important in the larger whole of the symphony in terms of academic achievement and musical architecture. At the same time, Liszt wanted to incorporate the abilities of program music to inspire listeners to imagine scenes, images, or moods.
context_section_description: When Liszt started writing symphonic poems, "he had very little experience in handling an orchestra ... his knowledge of the technique of instrumentation was defective and he had as yet composed hardly anything for the orchestra." For these reasons he relied first on his assistants August Conradi and Joachim Raff to fill the gaps in his knowledge and find his "orchestral voice". Raff, "a gifted composer with an imaginative grasp of the orchestra", offered close assistance to Liszt. Also helpful were the virtuosi present at that time in the Weimarian Court orchestra, such as trombonist Moritz Nabich, harpist Jeanne Pohl, concertmaster Joseph Joachim and violinist Edmund Singer. "[Liszt] mixed daily with these musicians, and their discussions must have been filled with 'shop talk.'" Both Singer and cellist Bernhard Cossmann were widely experienced orchestral players who probably knew the different instrumental effects a string section could produce—knowledge that Liszt would have found invaluable, and about which he might have had many discussions with the two men. With such a range of talent from which to learn, Liszt may have actually mastered orchestration reasonably quickly. By 1853, he felt he no longer needed Raff's assistance and their professional association ended in 1856. Also, in 1854 Liszt received a specially designed instrument called a "piano-organ" from the firm of Alexandre and fils in Paris. This huge instrument, a combination of piano and organ, was basically a one-piece orchestra that contained three keyboards, eight registers, a pedal board and a set of pipes that reproduced the sounds of all the wind instruments. With it, Liszt could try out various instrumental combinations at his leisure as a further aid for his orchestration.
  While Raff was able to offer "practical suggestions [in orchestration] which were of great value to Liszt", there may have been "a basic misunderstanding" of the nature of their collaboration. Liszt wanted to learn more about instrumentation and acknowledged Raff's greater expertise in this area. Hence, he gave Raff piano sketches to orchestrate, just as he had done earlier with Conradi—"so that he might rehearse them, reflect on them, and then, as his confidence in the orchestra grew, change them." Raff disagreed, having the impression that Liszt wanted him on equal terms as a full collaborator. While attending an 1850 rehearsal of Prometheus, he told Bernhard Cossmann, who sat next to him, "Listen to the instrumentation. It is by me."
  Raff continued making such claims about his role in Liszt's compositional process. Some of these accounts, published posthumously by Die Musik in 1902 and 1903, suggest that he was an equal collaborator with Liszt. Raff's assertions were supported by Joachim, who had been active in Weimar at approximately the same time as Raff. Walker writes that Joachim later recalled to Raff's widow "that he had seen Raff 'produce full orchestral scores from piano sketches.'" Joachim also told Raff's biographer Andreas Moser that "the E-flat-major Piano Concerto was orchestrated from beginning to end by Raff." Raff's and Joachim's statements effectively questioned the authorship of Liszt's orchestral music, especially the symphonic poems. This speculation was debased when composer and Liszt scholar Peter Raabe carefully compared all sketches then known of Liszt's orchestral works with the published versions of the same works. Raabe demonstrated that, regardless of the position with first drafts, or of how much assistance Liszt may have received from Raff or Conradi at that point, every note of the final versions represents Liszt's intentions.
caption: Joachim Raff, who made claims about his role in Liszt's compositional process.[56]
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "102", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "286", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8603", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "701", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "762", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}