Painting Info - "Mountain Kingdom" by KarlSchulschenk on deviantart. I. Wandering in the High Mountains - 00:00 II. At the Inn - 18:42 III. On the lake - 29:41 IV. At the wrestling contest - Farewell - 40:47 Unlike Richard Strauss, the composer of another Alpine Symphony, in his own programme music Raff generally betrayed little that is clearly personal to him, born of his own feelings and experiences. His Op.201, the Symphony No.7 in B flat In den Alpen (In the Alps) is therefore unusual. He wrote it from the start as his musical homage to the country of his birth and childhood - Switzerland. Into it he poured his memories of the landscapes and people of his youth in Lachen, by the side of Lake Zürich. By the time he came to compose the work in the spring and summer of 1875, Raff had been hailed as the greatest symphonist of his age following the runaway successes of his Im Walde and Lenore symphonies. The 6th Symphony, composed two years earlier, had not met with much more than a successe d'estime, however, and this may have influenced Raff to return in his new work to the more overt pictorialism of his earlier triumphs. The public was still eager to hear each Raff novelty as soon as it was finished and so the premiere took place in Wiesbaden's Kurhaus concert hall on Thursday, 30 December 1875 under the baton of Raff's friend Louis Lüstner. It was repeated at the New Year's Day concert. Raff himself conducted the third performance, which took place in Stuttgart in October 1876, amidst much feting of this belatedly-recognised son of Württemberg. A few days later the wider musical establishment took up the work - it was the centrepiece of a Leipzig Gewandhaus concert conducted by the renowned composer and pedagogue Karl Reinecke. The symphony was published that same year by the Leipzig company of Seitz (later Ries & Erler) and, as was his custom, Raff himself prepared the piano four-hands adaptation. The public's response was disappointingly unenthusiastic. They wanted more wild hunts and ghoulish sensation and instead the maestro had produced a pastoral, almost bucolic, celebration. This reception, together with the indifference with which some of his other recent works had been received seems to have brought on in Raff an artistic crisis which lasted a couple of years and was only finally broken by his appointment to the directorship of the Frankfurt Conservatory. It is amongst the longest of Raff's symphonies and in the wrong hands it can seem a diffuse work. In contrast to his two earlier explicitly programmatic symphonies, the four movements here have short descriptive titles but no detailed programmes - as in his 6th. Symphony, Raff was relying upon the music to convey impressions and feelings to the listener. There is a wealth of incident contained within each movement but it is only hinted at by the constantly shifting textures and recurring thematic references. It is a deceptively subtle piece. The first movement Andante-Allegro "Wandering in the high mountains" has a grandiose opening depicting the Alpine massif, as a prelude to its general Alpine scene painting in which the characteristic sound of the alpenhorn is often heard. The following Andante quasi Allegro "In the Inn" is a gentler dance movement portraying a (rather restrained) evening of merry making, whilst the slow movement Larghetto "On the lake" is a tranquil piece, with just a hint of distant thunder. The Allegro finale "At the Schwingfest; Departure" portrays a Swiss wresting contest and concludes with a return to the opening material of the whole symphony. - Raff.org

• published: 19 Jun 2013
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