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Joachim Raff

Joachim Raff was born in Lachen, Switzerland on May 27, 1822. He was a very gifted pianist, organist and violinist. At the age of 12 Raff gave his first performance in public, when he was 18 he started to write music. Mendelssohn liked his work and recommended him to his publisher, Breitkopf & Härtel, who published several pieces by Raff. At the age of 22 Raff became a full-time composer.

Raff met Franz Liszt at a concert by Liszt in 1845. He wrote concert-arrangements for Liszt and he kept him company during the concert-tour. When Liszt's concert tour ended, he got Raff a job in Cologne selling pianos and music scores for Eck & Lefèbre. Raff took the job because he needed the money, but he didn't like his work and in 1847 he left Eck & Lefèbre to go to Vienna.

Classical Sheet Music found a publication by Eck & Lefèbre of one of Raff's arrangements. It's a paraphrase on Liszt's song "Du bist wie eine Blume", a song he wrote in ca. 1843. On the cover of this edition there’s a date, written in pencil, that says 1846. We think it’s one of the arrangements by Raff that was played by Liszt at his concert-tour in 1845. Download the PDF (4 pages) of this rare antique edition.

It seems that Eck & Lefèbre published at least one work by Raff. We guess he wasn't just selling sheet music and pianos at Eck's, but still, he wasn't happy with his job. In 1849 Raff became Liszt's copyist and secretary. He had to work hard for little money and maybe that's the reason why after Liszt's death Raff claimed to have written several parts of Liszt's pieces.

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