17-540: Wesendonck Lieder , WWV 91, is the common name of a set of five songs for female voice and piano by Richard Wagner , Fünf Gedichte für eine Frauenstimme ( Five Poems for a Female Voice ). He set five poems by Mathilde Wesendonck while he was working on his opera Tristan und Isolde . The songs, together with the Siegfried Idyll , are the two non-operatic works by Wagner most regularly performed. The songs are settings of poems by Mathilde Wesendonck ,
34-581: A 2024 filmed concert, Michael Spyres . Tenor Stuart Skelton recorded the cycle in 2018, as did Christoph Prégardien in 2019. The orchestration of all five songs was completed for large orchestra by Felix Mottl , the Wagner conductor, on 3 August 1893. In 1972 the Italian composer Vieri Tosatti entirely re-orchestrated the songs. In 1976 the German composer Hans Werner Henze produced a chamber version for
51-474: A love affair; in any case, the situation and mutual infatuation certainly contributed to the intensity in the conception of Tristan und Isolde . Wagner sold the settings to the publisher Schott in 1860 for 1000 francs. The first published version (1862) was titled Fünf Gedichte für eine Frauenstimme (Five poems for a female voice), and the first performance was given at the publisher's residence in Mainz , by
68-517: A small ensemble of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich on the stairs of their villa at Tribschen (today part of Lucerne ), Switzerland. Cosima awoke to its opening melody. Conductor Hans Richter learned the trumpet in order to play the brief trumpet part, which lasts only 13 measures , in that private performance, reportedly having sailed out to the centre of Lake Lucerne to practise, so as not to be heard. The original title
85-462: Is an index and musicological guide to the 113 musical compositions and works for the stage by Richard Wagner . It includes guidance on editions of the published works and explanations of historical performance practices. John Deathridge , Martin Geck , and Egon Voss compiled the catalogue. In compiling the catalogue, the authors studied Wagner's writings and examined drafts, sketches, and scores of
102-492: The compositions. For the full list, see List of compositions by Richard Wagner . Siegfried Idyll The Siegfried Idyll , WWV 103, by Richard Wagner is a symphonic poem for chamber orchestra . Wagner composed the Siegfried Idyll as a birthday present to his second wife, Cosima , after the birth of their son Siegfried in 1869. It was first performed on Christmas morning, 25 December 1870, by
119-555: The idyll's levels of personal significance for both Wagner and Cosima. Wagner originally intended the Siegfried Idyll to remain a private piece. However, due to financial pressures, he decided to sell the score to publisher B. Schott in 1878. In doing so, Wagner expanded the orchestration to 35 players to make the piece more marketable. The original piece is scored for a small chamber orchestra of 13 players: flute , oboe , two clarinets , bassoon , two horns , trumpet , two violins , viola , cello and double bass . The piece
136-578: The lieder with the original piano accompaniment arranged for string orchestra by David Angell was premiered by the Bourbaki Ensemble in Sydney, Australia, in January 2022. Composer Paolo Fradiani arranged a version for chamber ensemble of 11 players (2022). Notes Sources Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis The Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis ( Catalogue of Wagner's Works ), abbreviated WWV ,
153-537: The material from an unfinished chamber piece into the Idyll before giving the theme to Brünnhilde in the opera's final scene, the "Ewig war ich" love duet between Brünnhilde and Siegfried . This theme, Wagner claimed, came to him during the summer of 1864 at the Villa Pellet, overlooking Lake Starnberg , where he and Cosima consummated their union. He is contradicted, however, by his own obsessive record keeping:
170-545: The melody was composed that 14 November, when he was alone in Munich. The work also uses a theme based on the German lullaby , " Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf ", which was jotted down by Wagner on New Year's Eve 1868 and introduced by a solo oboe . Ernest Newman discovered it was linked to the Wagners' older daughter Eva . This and other musical references, whose meaning remained unknown to the outside world for many years, reveal
187-477: The same year, the Chinese-British composer Jeffrey Ching premiered his Wesendonck Sonata for voice, viola (or cello), and piano. In 2014 Aurélien Bello made an orchestration for chamber orchestra as used in the Siegfried Idyll (and a harp ad libitum). French composer Christophe Looten wrote a transcription for voice and string quartet ( Théâtre des Champs-Élysées , Paris, March 2015). A version of
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#1732772331355204-504: The songs "studies" for Tristan und Isolde , using for the first time certain 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. Wagner wrote the songs for female voice and piano alone but also orchestrated "Träume" for chamber forces , with violin taking
221-550: The songs; each of the players has a separate part, with some very unusual wind registration. Clytus Gottwald arranged "Im Treibhaus" and "Träume" for 16-voice choir a cappella in 2004 as Zwei Studien zu "Tristan und Isolde" . In 2013 (the bicentennial of Wagner's birth) the French composer Alain Bonardi released a new version for voice, piano, clarinet and cello, including instrumental interludes with oriental resonant percussions. In
238-460: The soprano Emilie Genast, accompanied by Hans von Bülow . No name was given for the author of the texts at the first publication; it was not publicly revealed until after Mathilde's death (1902). The present order of the songs appears for the first time in the published version, and this has raised doubts as to whether the sequence is a genuine song cycle , or should be regarded simply as a collection of individual pieces. Wagner himself called two of
255-490: The voice part, for a performance beneath Mathilde's window on her birthday, 23 December 1857. Men have also sung them. Lauritz Melchior recorded " Schmerzen " and "Träume" for HMV in 1923; " Der Engel " has been recorded by tenors Franco Corelli (in French), Plácido Domingo , Jonas Kaufmann and Andrea Bocelli , and by the bass Paata Burchuladze . A few men have performed the whole cycle, including René Kollo and, in
272-689: The wife of one of Richard Wagner 's patrons. Wagner had become acquainted with Otto Wesendonck in Zürich , where he had fled on his escape from Saxony after the May Uprising in Dresden in 1849. For a time Wagner and his wife Minna lived together in the Asyl (German for Asylum in the sense of "sanctuary"), a small cottage on the Wesendonck estate. It is sometimes claimed that Wagner and Mathilde had
289-417: Was Triebschen Idyll with Fidi's birdsong and the orange sunrise, as symphonic birthday greeting. Presented to his Cosima by her Richard . "Fidi" was the family's nickname for their son Siegfried. It is thought that the birdsong and the sunrise refer to incidents of personal significance to the couple. Wagner's opera Siegfried , which was premiered in 1876, incorporates music from the Idyll . Wagner adapted
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