3rd Symphony (Raff)
The 3rd Symphony in F major op. 153 , which is nicknamed "Im Walde", was designed by the composer Joachim Raff in Wiesbaden in 1869 , but was in Weimar in early 1870 and after the world premiere on Easter Sunday, April 17, 1870 still subject to multiple changes.
occupation
String orchestra , piccolo , two flutes , two oboes , two clarinets , two bassoons , four horns , two trumpets , three trombones , three timpani and a triangle.
structure
The symphony consists of four movements, which Raff has divided into three sections. The individual departments are provided with the following programmatic explanations.
- Department: Allegro - During the day. Impressions and sensations.
- Department: At dusk.
- Part A (2nd movement): Reverie, Largo
- Part B (3rd movement): Dance of the Dryads, Allegro assai.
- Department: Allegro - at night. Silent weaving of the night in the forest. Entry and exit of the wild hunt with Mrs. Holle and Wotan. Dawn of day.
Raff chose the key of F major for his Forest Symphony ; and the work is very close to the description “More expression than painting” of Beethoven's Pastorale . Raff had mainly learned instrumentation from Franz Liszt . The composer gives considerable evidence of this ability in his Third Symphony.
1 sentence
In its bright and cheerful atmosphere, the first movement corresponds completely to the associations that the listener has with the concept of the forest. Raff is still moving in the daylight forest, surrounded by the rustling of the leaves and the fluttering of the birds.
2nd movement
In the slow movement of the 3rd Symphony, which is in A flat major , a completely different mood is created right at the beginning, which describes, for example, the approaching twilight. The framing parts of the movement contain the tender moods of the strings, duets by clarinet and horn, or the flute's lovely playing around the main theme . The twilight scene (sudden key change to E major) in the middle of the movement is primarily represented by the shimmering strings in dialogue with the woodwinds. Silvery flute sounds lead over to the reprise section of the movement and continue to accompany the main theme, which now fervently resounds in the cellos. The sentence ends peacefully and dreamily.
3rd movement
The third movement in D minor corresponds entirely to the subject of a scherzo , even if the movement is not officially headed that way. The echoes of Mendelssohn's music can hardly be denied . The hustle and bustle of the goblins in the forest immediately turns into a small trio in A major - barely over, the D minor part is repeated, at the end changing into a beautiful D major melody, always accompanied by gently spotted flute chords .
4th movement
The goblins give way to the falling night (introduction); and a wild chase begins. Bright orchestral colors and completely new instrumentation effects give this movement its character, such as the shrill trills and screams of the woodwinds, grim trombone chords and pounding march rhythms. Towards the end of this longest movement, the light returns in a chorale-like coda. The forest is experiencing a new dawn. A stylistic similarity to the third movement from Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony 'Pathetique' , which in places shows almost identical, wind-like motifs in the strings and woodwinds and also thundering brass, is undeniable. It is obvious that Tchaikovsky knew this work and was inspired by it, since he had already used a melody by Raff in his 5th Symphony with its famous horn solo.
The composer's program
Raff has designed a complete program for this symphony, which is reproduced here:
1st department: During the day. Impressions and sensations
The hiker is drawn to the forest as if with distant, soft greetings, which he strides towards on the familiar path. Soon he steps into the emerald cathedral, which the towering treetops arch above him; he is seized by that faint shudder which one feels when entering our Gothic temples, whose bundles of pillars remind us of the groups of slender trunks under which we walk in the forest. There is a rustling in the arbor, it is the frightened game that thinks it hears the hunter's step. The wanderer walks on calmly and surrenders to his feelings; a simple manner appears on his lips, which is not without any trace of melancholy, which is based on the awareness of the rupture between humanity and nature. But isn't it as if the singing wanderer awakened the voices of the forest? Isn't it as if the tree-tops and the birds swaying in them joined in his song, yes, as if nature itself answered the singer with a back-song, which, falling silent, awakens a long echo that sounds like to those who walk along an obituary follows. We continue into the forest. There the squirrel climbs, there the woodpecker picks.
a) The path becomes more difficult, the forest thicker; now it goes upwards over a path that is made almost impassable by exposed tree roots; Now a stretch of work through the thicket, the hiker arrives at the top in a splendid line of tall, strong trunks. The chest expands again and the first happy moods return.
Or
b) Manifold sounds of the animal world living here strike the ear of the wanderer, who wanders through a densely overgrown area on difficult paths, until he finally reaches a light part of the forest, where the chest widens again and the previous moods return.
In the meantime the hiker comes to another part of the forest. There ... listen! That is fleeing game, that is truly the kick of the hunter. From there you can clearly see the escape of the chased animals ... now the shots rang out ... finally the bloodwork is done, the hunters rush over, you can hear their funny fanfares ... The wanderer turns away from this picture; His gaze falls on another side of the forest, whose high crowns look down peacefully on the goings-on of the people. Here the wanderer hears that antistrophe again with its long reverberation at the end of which the dissonance is drowned out in a mighty swelling chord.
2nd department: At dusk
a) reverie
The wanderer rests from his walk. In the mysterious silence that surrounds him, sweet memories approach him. He thinks he hears the voice of the beloved, and his heart answers that voice. But the sighs of his longing are answered sympathetically, soothingly by the voice of nature. The heart becomes calmer, slumber approaches the tired senses. The thoughts get lost imperceptibly: the dream begins. In this, however, the unleashed imagination reveals an uncanny, terrible object. The wanderer, tormented by fear, suddenly wakes up ... Fortunately, the dream has deceived him ... there is nothing near him that could worry him; only the soft whisper of the treetops, moved by the evening breath, can be heard. The wanderer breathes gently. The trepidation leaves the heart, whose voice can be heard again. It is now becoming quieter in nature, even the tree tops are silent. With his last thoughts on his distant beloved, a prayer for her on his lips, the wanderer falls asleep.
b) Dance of the dryads
In the twilight those delicate beings, with which the imagination populates the forest, scurry out and convince the sleeper. Now a single chorus floats around him, then several, then a whole choir. Now they sway themselves high in the treetops, from which their song descends, then they begin the dance again and tease the slumbering wanderer, whose secret they have overheard, whereupon they disappear.
3rd department: at night
If the sound poet still depicted the forest in relation to humans up to this point, he now makes it appear as something fundamentally independent and symbolizes it with a melody that we want to call "forest wise". - The silent weaving of the night in the forest begins, but it is soon interrupted by the warning horn calls of the faithful Eckart, who announces the approach of the wild hunt, which then soon makes its entrance. The pounding of horses, cracking of whips, barking of male dogs, wild singing, screams, curses, scornful laughter, booming signals denote the pursuit of the hunt. Frau Holle's escort appears amid the eerie sounds of a spectacle; then she herself approaches. Wailing, the unhappy blissful woman curses her lot, which condemns her to forever follow the nocturnal procession at Wotan's side. Wotan himself, the Ahasver of the forest, first joins these sounds, but then he rises grumbling and in gloomy majesty pulls up ahead of the retinue, which accompanies the fallen god with wild jubilation. So they move into the forest. The din gradually dies away. For a moment, nature seems to breathe a sigh of relief from the horrors that are spread around. But now you can hear the eerie goings-on from a distance for a long time. One already believes that she left the forest entirely when she returns, but in a rushed haste, as it were, spurred on by the horror of the young day to hurry. The ghost train has finally left the forest. Then the voice of calm nature rises, mild and warm, the forest way. The morning wind and the birds wake up and join in. Mightier, the sage rushes through the moving tops. The awakened hiker also raises his voice and joins the hymn of nature.
reception
The symphony was enthusiastically received by the audience at the time, quickly spread to England and America and was one of the most frequently performed orchestral pieces in the world at the end of the 19th century, which it owes primarily to its dramatic musical pictorialism . At the premiere on Easter Sunday, April 17, 1870 in Weimar, a "whirlwind of enthusiasm pulled through the house" and Raff was celebrated "with frenetic jubilation" by the audience. Hans von Bülow described the success of the 3rd symphony as “colossal” and an American music critic even described Im Walde as “the best symphony of modern times; one of the few who are worth going down to posterity accompanied by the works of Beethoven and Schumann ”.
It turned out differently and she and Raff fell into oblivion, but influenced many later composers in their descriptions of nature. In recent years the symphony has enjoyed some popularity again, as evidenced by the increasing sales figures and new recordings.
Individual evidence
- ↑ On the 3rd Symphony. (URL) Retrieved October 27, 2018 (English).