Raff: String Quartets Nos. 6–8, Op. 192

Description

When his musical triad, Op. 192 was created in the winter of 1873/74, Raff was one of Germany's most successful composers and the central artistic authority in the Hessian spa, royal residence and imperial city of Wiesbaden. with, Op. 192, Raff cultivated his reputation as an erudite composer who was a master of contrapuntal forms. By the time the string quartets were composed, he had already established himself as one of the most prolific and versatile suite composers of the 19th century, as is evident here in the various suite conceptions:, Op. 192, No. 1 (in in C Minor), as S uite in the ancient style , has with Baroque labels stylized dance movements follow one another. Die schöne Müllerin [The Fair Maid of the Mill], Op. 192, No. 2 (in D Major), on the other hand, interprets the suite as a sequence of chapters in a musical narrative and thus becomes probably the first tone poem in string quartet scoring. in the third quartet (in C Major), of which "Raff the artist was proudest," other genre designations mix in among the dance movements, and with its free succession of different movement types, not usual for a sonata, it preserves structural openness.

In collaboration with the Joachim-Raff-Archiv Lachen (CH)