Willow Pond Concert 1995

By 1920, after the First World War, even Raff's most celebrated works had faded from the repertoire, his name synonymous with the silly and the sentimental, a periwinkle tunesmith engendering teardrops at tea time in the salon. The derision was often laced with malice-a biographer of Edward MacDowell claimed that the noted American composer had "ruined his talent by studying with Raff." Generations of musicians grew up reacting to his name with a smirk or a joke, smugly complacent in their judgments and secure in the self-assurance of ignorance.

It is impossible to single out any one reason for Raff's fall from fame. Born in Lachen, Switzerland (Canton Schwyz), of a family originally from German Swabia, Raff was basically auto-didactic in his musical education. As a young man he was drawn back to the land of his forebears, by encouragement first from Felix Mendelssohn and later by Franz Liszt. Liszt took him on as amanuensis and musical confidante at Weimar in the early 1850s, establishing Raff's association with the avant-garde of the time, the so-called New German School. From 1855 to 1878 Raff worked independently in Wiesbaden, writing most of his successful compositions. In 1878 he was named the first director of the recently founded Dr. Hoch's Conservatory of Music in Frankfurt-am-Main, where he remained until his death four years later. Although noted for his care and generosity both professionally and personally, he could erupt in fits of irascibility, abandoning all tact and restraint, at times literally biting the hand that fed him (Liszt comes immediately to mind). Allied early in his career with Liszt and the New German School, Raff dared to question Wagner's ideas polemically. Unwanted by the conservatives, and himself rejecting the circle with which he was most often associated, he isolated himself between the two most important poles of musical politics during his life. An impeccable craftsman for whom all matters of music were second nature, he could be totally uncritical of the materials he used in his compositions, placing movements of soaring inspiration and incredible invention next to ones of embarrassing dross, pairing the simpleminded with the sublime.

One constant in Raff's career, however, gives at least partial explanation for the lack of attention given to his music. Almost from the beginning of his career as a composer he was cautioned by colleagues and friends about his penchant for overproduction, his compulsive facility for writing. Vielschreiber was the word that haunted him throughout his life and the term that echoed loudest in the posthumous condemnation of his output. Vielschreiber, one who writes (too) much, carries with it the pejorative connotation of one who has little to say as well. The term has been used to characterize such composers as Telemann and Reger and could certainly describe such twentieth-century composers as Darius Milhaud and Alan Hovhaness. In its most basic meaning-someone who writes a lot-Vielschreiber could be justifiably applied to the likes of Vivaldi, Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and, in our day, Hindemith. What then is the difference between the two groups of names? Too many subjective elements enter any single explanation, but one thing is certain: in the latter group, technique is malleable and not merely facile and one senses an instinct for realizing when the maximum potential in the compositional materials has been reached. Raff lacked this perception in many of his works and, though technically secure, his reliance on standard patterns of melodic and harmonic sequence, not to mention recurrent basic rhythmic patterns, could assure Raff that all was well in the progress of a movement when, in fact, a musical treadmill was in play. Yet, despite the harshest criticisms leveled at him, no one can deny that the man was touched by genius and it does not take a sophisticated music lover to respond to the best in Raff's works. What those works are, though, is still a matter of debate. A fair assessment of Raff's compositions has really only recently begun, focusing with good reason on his orchestral music. That is only part of Raff's rich lode. Today's performance of Raff's string quartet, Die schöne Müllerin, probes another vein of Raff's output, a successful work from his extensive catalog of chamber music.

In the biography of her father, Helene Raff claims that the Schöne Müllerin quartet was Raff's most popular work in the genre. That may or may not be true. Since the quartet is the only one with a literary title, it is certainly easier to recall than works with only a key signature or opus number as identification. Die schöne Müllerin also boasts a movement, The Mill, which, with the Cavatina from the Suite for Violin and Piano, Op. 85, and the March from the Lenore Symphony (No. 5, Op. 177), made Raff's name a household citation in family music albums the world over. It was the stupefying popularity of precisely those three pieces at the turn of the century which, though representative of Raff's powers in a positive manner, sowed the seeds of disdain for Raff's general output and ironically became the examples that helped remove Raff from a rank beside Wagner, Liszt, and Brahms to a level shared by Drdla, Godard, and Toselli--from celebrated symphonist to foppish saloniste. From the standpoint of the actual numbers of performances of the complete Schöne Müllerin quartet vis-à-vis other quartets of Raff, Helene Raff may be in error, since both the first (Op. 77 in d) and second (Op. 90 in A) string quartets had become firmly ensconced in late 19th century chamber music repertoire, thanks to champions such as Joseph Joachim, Josef Hellmesberger, and Hugo Heermann, and appeared with regularity on chamber music concerts well into the early 1920s.

The Schöne Müllerin Quartet has a number of peculiarities worth noting. First, it belongs to a set of three quartets bearing a single opus number, Op. 192: it was the first time in his catalog that Raff did this with large-scale works. Second, all three quartets have movements more than the standard four, a concept that makes understandable the titles of the quartets flanking Die schöne Müllerin: String Quartet No. 6, "Suite in Older Form" featuring movements with Baroque association (and as such, an early example of neo-classicism) and String Quartet No. 8, "Suite in Canon Form." Although not expressly designated as such, Die schöne Müllerin also fits the category of "suite" but it also has an additional title: Cycklische Tondichtung or, "cyclical tone poem." That makes Raff's Schöne Müllerin Quartet historically the first tone poem in the realm of chamber music, preceding by a good quarter of a century the more frequently cited "first tone poem in chamber music," Arnold Schönberg's string sextet Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night). Admittedly, Raff does not provide any more of a program than suggestive titles for movements while Schönberg cites a lengthy poem by Georg Dehmel as the inspiration for his musical portrait. Raff's program is implicit, not explicit, but it doesn't take much associative imagination to follow the story line through the movements: (1) The Youth comes across (2) The Mill, encounters (3) The Miller Maiden, is (4) Disquieted by love's emotions, (5) Declares his love and, (6) in the end, The Wedding Will Follow--very naïve, very simple, very chaste, and very appealing. A further reason for considering the Schöne Müllerin Quartet as a suite like its companions of Opus 192 comes with the understanding that, with the term cyclical, Raff is not indicating any formal maneuvers in the piece. Ordinarily the term "cyclical" indicates some attempt at unity-in-diversity within the overall structure of a composition, a melody or motif which recurs among the movements or thematic material developed throughout a work, even as simple a link as a characteristic interval for the leading themes of all the movements. But that is not the case, with the Schöne Müllerin, for throughout, Raff holds to the classical concept of movements in contrast, with no attempts at linking the sections thematically. As such, "cyclical" in Raff's designation may logically be regarded as synonymous with "suite."

Raff	Schubert
1. Der Jüngling	1. Das Wandern
2. Die Mühle	3. Halt!
3. Die Müllerin	4. Danksagung an den Bach
4. Unruhe	7. Ungeduld
5. Erklärung	8. Morgengruß

A final question concerning Raff's title, Die schöne Müllerin, is inevitable. Is Raff's string quartet in any way related to Schubert's famous song-cycle on texts of Wilhelm Müller bearing the same title? There is nothing among Raff's known writings that suggests intentional parallels and there is certainly no quoting of Schubert melodies by Raff. One might indulge oneself and seek textual parallels in the song-cycle that fit with the movemental titles in the string quartet, and find a certain extent of matching (Inset at right). Where Raff's characters are destined for union, Schubert's are destined to part. There is nothing in Müller's poems that even suggests a Polterabend, or night's romp, before the wedding day.