Raff Studies
Vol. 2: „Die Wagnerfrage“ – Joachim Raffs Auseinandersetzung mit Richard Wagner in Weimar (1850–1856)
Description
In the summer of 1855, the composer, music scholar and pedagogue Joachim Raff (1822–1882) announced in a letter to his fiancée Doris Genast that the “opposition” to Wagner was part of his “life's work”. With his controversially received essay Die Wagnerfrage [The Wagner Question], published the previous year, he had attempted to “separate the infinite in the phenomenon Wagner from the finite” and make it available to his contemporaries – first and foremost to himself – for appropriation. With his Samson, he intended to challenge Wagner in his very own field.
In this study, which was awarded the Marta Walter Prize of the Swiss Music Research Society in 2024, Severin Kolb describes how Raff's writing positions itself in the Wagner reception after 1848/49, on which aesthetic and historical-philosophical premises it is based and to what extent the “Wagner question” should rather be read as a “Raff question.” The first systematic analysis of various sources, including the extremely rich correspondence from Raff's Weimar years in the circle around Franz Liszt, allows an intimate look at the artistic questions of the time.
BV 492
EAN: 9783765104923
Description
In the summer of 1855, the composer, music scholar and pedagogue Joachim Raff (1822–1882) announced in a letter to his fiancée Doris Genast that the “opposition” to Wagner was part of his “life's work”. With his controversially received essay Die Wagnerfrage [The Wagner Question], published the previous year, he had attempted to “separate the infinite in the phenomenon Wagner from the finite” and make it available to his contemporaries – first and foremost to himself – for appropriation. With his Samson, he intended to challenge Wagner in his very own field.
In this study, which was awarded the Marta Walter Prize of the Swiss Music Research Society in 2024, Severin Kolb describes how Raff's writing positions itself in the Wagner reception after 1848/49, on which aesthetic and historical-philosophical premises it is based and to what extent the “Wagner question” should rather be read as a “Raff question.” The first systematic analysis of various sources, including the extremely rich correspondence from Raff's Weimar years in the circle around Franz Liszt, allows an intimate look at the artistic questions of the time.