Joseph Joachim Raff was born in Lachen, on the Lake of Zurich,
Switzerland, on May 27, 1822. He was mostly self-taught in music, while
pursuing the career of schoolmaster. Some of his early compositions were
published through Mendelssohn’s influence, a development that finally
encouraged Raff to give up schoolteaching and devote himself completely
to music. An intimate association with Liszt led to the première of an
opera, _King Alfred_, in Weimar in 1851. In 1863, his symphony, _An das
Vaterland_, received first prize from the Vienna Gesellschaft der
Musikfreunde. From 1877 until his death he was director of Hoch’s
Conservatory in Frankfort, Germany. He died in that city on June 25,
1882.
A prolific composer of symphonies, concertos, overtures, quartets,
sonatas and sundry other works, Raff was a major figure in the German
Romantic movement, highly regarded by his contemporaries, but forgotten
since his death. Only some of his minor pieces are remembered. The most
popular is the _Cavatina_ in A-flat major, op. 85, no. 3, for violin and
piano, a perennial favorite with violin students and young violinists,
and no less familiar in various orchestral adaptations. A “cavatina” is
a composition for an instrument with the lyric character of a song.
Raff’s broad and expressive melody has an almost religious stateliness.
Another popular Raff composition in a smaller dimension is the
picturesque piano piece, _La Fileuse_ (_The Spinner_), op. 157, no. 2,
in which the movement of the spinning wheel is graphically reproduced.