Wesendonck-Lieder

The Wesendonck Lieder are a cycle of songs composed by Richard Wagner at the time when it composed the Valkyrie , in 1857-1858. This work, as well as the Idylle de Siegfried , are its two nonlyric compositions still regularly played.

History

The cycle is composed on poems of Mathilde von Wesendonck (born Agnes Mathilda Luckemeyer, 1828 - 1902), the woman of one of the owners of Wagner. Wagner had made knowledge with Otto von Wesendonck with Zurich, where it was flees of Saxony after the Insurrection from May to Dresden in 1849. For some time, Wagner and its Minna wife lived together in the Asyl (German, " Asylum"), a small residence on the property of Wesendonck.

It is sometimes alleged that Wagner and Mathilde had an love affair; it does not matter, the situation and the mutual passion contributed certainly to the intensity of the first act of the Valkyrie - that Wagner worked at the time - and design of a work inspired of the legends of Tristan and Iseut; there is certainly also had the influence of the poems of Mathilde.

The poems are of a pensive writing, influenced by Wilhelm Müller, the author of poems used by Schubert earlier in the century. On the other hand, the language is refined more and intense since the romantic style developed much.

Wagner itself named two of the songs of the cycle studies for Tristan and Isolde , using for the first time of the musical ideas developed thereafter in the opera. In Träume , one can hear the melodies of the duet of love of the second act, whereas in Im Treibhaus (the last of the five songs to have been made up), Wagner uses airs later largely developed in the Prelude to the third act. The chromatic harmonic style of Tristan is felt in all the songs and links them to form the cycle.

Wagner wrote in an original manner the songs for voice of woman and piano alone, but produced thereafter an orchestral version of Träume , which was to be played by a chamber orchestra under the window of Mathilde at the time of its birthday, the December 23rd 1857. The whole cycle was played for the first time in front of public the July 30th 1862 under the title Five songs for voice of woman .

The orchestration of the complete cycle was made by Felix Mottl, the leader of Wagner. In 1976, the German type-setter Hans Werner Henze produced a version of room of the cycle.

Songs

  1. Der Engel (the Angel), made up in November 1857
  2. Stehe still! (Stand still!), made up in February 1858
  3. Im Treibhaus - Studie zu Tristan und Isolde (In the greenhouse), made up in May 1858
  4. Schmerzen (Sorrows), made up in December 1857
  5. Träume - Studie zu Tristan und Isolde (Dreams), made up in December 1857

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