Wesendonck Lieder
Encyclopedia
Song cycle
A song cycle is a group of songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a single entity. As a rule, all of the songs are by the same composer and often use words from the same poet or lyricist. Unification can be achieved by a narrative or a persona common to the songs, or even, as in Schumann's...
composed by Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
while he was working on Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
. This, and the Siegfried Idyll
Siegfried Idyll
The Siegfried Idyll by Richard Wagner is a symphonic poem for chamber orchestra, lasting approximately twenty minutes.-Background:Wagner composed the Siegfried Idyll as a birthday present to his second wife, Cosima, after the birth of their son Siegfried in 1869...
, are his only two non-operatic works that are still regularly performed.
The cycle is a setting of poems by Mathilde Wesendonck
Mathilde Wesendonck
Mathilde Wesendonck was a German poet and author. She is best known as the friend and possibly mistress of Richard Wagner, who set five songs to her words, called the Wesendonck Lieder.-Biography:...
, the wife of one of Wagner's patrons. Wagner had become acquainted with Otto Wesendonck in Zurich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
, where he had fled on his escape from Saxony after the May Uprising in Dresden
May Uprising in Dresden
The May Uprising took place in Dresden, Germany in 1849; it was one of the last of the series of events known as the Revolutions of 1848.-Events leading to the May Uprising:...
in 1849. For a time Wagner and his wife Minna lived together in the Asyl (German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
for Asylum), a small cottage on the Wesendonck estate.
It is sometimes claimed that Wagner and Mathilde had a love affair; in any case, the situation and mutual infatuation certainly contributed to the intensity of the first act of Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
which Wagner was working on at the time, and the conceiving of Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...
; there is certainly an influence on Mathilde's poems as well.
The poems themselves are in a wistful, pathos-laden style influenced by Wilhelm Müller
Wilhelm Müller
Wilhelm Müller was a German lyric poet.-Life:Wilhelm Müller was born at Dessau, the son of a tailor. He was educated at the gymnasium of his native town and at the university of Berlin, where he devoted himself to philological and historical studies...
, the author of the poems used by Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
earlier in the century. But the language is more rarefied and intense as the Romantic style had developed.
Wagner himself called two of the songs in the cycle "studies" for Tristan und Isolde, using for the first-time musical ideas that are later developed in the opera. In Träume can be heard the roots of the love duet in Act 2, while Im Treibhaus (the last of the five to be composed) uses music later developed extensively for the Prelude to Act 3. The chromatic-harmonic style of Tristan pervades all five songs and pulls the cycle together.
Wagner initially wrote the songs for female voice and piano alone, but produced a fully orchestrated version of Träume, to be performed by chamber orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
under Mathilde's window on the occasion of her birthday, 23 December 1857. The cycle as a whole was first performed in public near Mainz
Mainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
on 30 July 1862 under the title Five Songs for a Female Voice. Träume is sometimes sung by a male voice, as for instance in a pre-War HMV
HMV Group
HMV is a British global entertainment retail chain and is the largest of its kind in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The company also operates in Hong Kong and Singapore. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE Fledgling Index...
recording by Lauritz Melchior
Lauritz Melchior
Lauritz Melchior was a Danish and later American opera singer. He was the pre-eminent Wagnerian tenor of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, and has since come to be considered the quintessence of his voice type.-Biography:...
.
The orchestration of the whole cycle was completed for large orchestra by Felix Mottl
Felix Mottl
Felix Josef von Mottl was an Austrian conductor and composer. He was regarded as one of the most brilliant conductors of his day. He composed three operas, of which Agnes Bernauer was the most successful, as well as a string quartet and numerous songs and other music...
, the Wagner conductor. In 1976, the German composer Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
produced a chamber version for the whole cycle. Each of the players has a separate part, with some very striking wind registration.
The songs
Der Engel (The Angel), composed November 1857Stehe still! (Stand still!), composed February 1858
Im Treibhaus - Studie zu Tristan und Isolde (In the Greenhouse), composed May 1858
Schmerzen (Sorrows), composed December 1857
Träume - Studie zu Tristan und Isolde (Dreams), composed December 1857