Joseph Joachim Raff

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Joseph Joachim Raff (May 27, 1822 - June 24 or June 25, 1882)was a composer, teacher and pianist. Raff was born in Lachen in Switzerland. He was largely self-taught in music, studying the subject while working as a schoolmaster. He sent some of his piano compositions to Felix Mendelssohn who recommended them to Breitkopf and Härtel for publication. They were published in 1844 and received a favourable review in Robert Schumann's journal, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, which prompted Raff to go to Zürich and take up composition full time. In 1845, Raff walked to Basel to hear Franz Liszt play the piano. After a period in Stuttgart where he became friends with the conductor Hans von Bülow, he worked as Liszt's assistant at Weimar from 1850 to 1853. During this time he helped the Hungarian in the orchestration of several of his works, claiming to have had a particularly big part in orchestrating the symphonic poem Tasso. In 1851, Raff's opera König Alfred was staged in Weimar, and five years later he moved to Wiesbaden where he largely devoted himself to composition. From 1877 he was the first Director of, and a teacher at, the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main. There he employed Clara Schumann and a number of other eminent musicians as teachers, and established a class specifically for female composers (this was at a time when women composers were not taken very seriously). His pupils there included Edward MacDowell and Alexander Ritter. He died in Frankfurt am Main. R

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