Raff, Joseph Joachim 05/27/1822 - 06/25/1882

Joseph Joachim Raff (1822-1882), Swiss composer and pedagogue. In 1844 he left his first teaching position in Rapperswil and moved to Zürich, where he met Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Franz Liszt. He became Liszt's assistant and orchestrated his early symphonic poems. His own career as a composer began only when he freed himself from his master and moved to Wiesbaden in 1856. From 1877 on he directed the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main, where he worked with Clara Schumann, among others. He enjoyed great respect and recognition in his own time; his works were often performed.



Besides several operas and eleven symphonies with programmatic content (e.g. "Im Walde"--"In the Forest", "Zur Herbstzeit" -- "In Autumn", "Leonore" etc.) he wrote many pieces for piano, along with spiritual and secular works for chorus and vocal soloists.