, WWV 91, is the common name of a set of five songs for female voice and piano by

Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

, (''Five Poems for a Female Voice''). He set five poems by

Mathilde Wesendonck Agnes Mathilde Wesendonck (née Luckemeyer; 23 December 182831 August 1902) was a German poet and author. The words of five of her verses were the basis of Richard Wagner's '' Wesendonck Lieder''; the composer was infatuated with her, and his ...

while he was working on his opera ''

Tristan und Isolde ''Tristan und Isolde'' (''Tristan and Isolde''), WWV 90, is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the 12th-century romance Tristan and Iseult by Gottfried von Strassburg. It was comp ...

''. The songs, together with the ''

Siegfried Idyll The ', WWV 103, by Richard Wagner is a symphonic poem for chamber orchestra. Background 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 per ...

'', are the two non-operatic works by Wagner most regularly performed.

History

The songs are settings of poems by

, the wife of one of

's patrons. Wagner had become acquainted with Otto Wesendonck in

Zürich , neighboring_municipalities = Adliswil, Dübendorf, Fällanden, Kilchberg, Maur, Oberengstringen, Opfikon, Regensdorf, Rümlang, Schlieren, Stallikon, Uitikon, Urdorf, Wallisellen, Zollikon , twintowns = Kunming, San Francisco Z ...

, 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 (German for ''Asylum'' in the sense of "sanctuary"), 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 in the conception of ''

''. 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 Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-west, with Ma ...

, by the soprano Emilie Genast, accompanied by

Hans von Bülow Freiherr Hans Guido von Bülow (8 January 1830 – 12 February 1894) was a German conductor, virtuoso pianist, and composer of the Romantic era. As one of the most distinguished conductors of the 19th century, his activity was critical for es ...

. 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 A song cycle (german: Liederkreis or Liederzyklus) is a group, or cycle, of individually complete songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online'' The songs are either for solo voice or an ensemble, or rare ...

, or should be regarded simply as a collection of individual pieces.Vazsonyi (2013), p. 715.

The songs

# "" ("The Angel"), composed November 1857 # "" ("Be still!"), composed February 1858 # "" ("In the Greenhouse"), composed May 1858 # "" ("Sorrows"), composed December 1857 # "" ("Dreams"), composed December 1857 Wagner himself called two of the songs "studies" for ''Tristan und Isolde'', using for the first time certain musical ideas that are later developed in the opera. In "" can be heard the roots of the love duet in Act 2, while "" (the last of the five to be composed) uses music later developed extensively for the prelude to Act 3.

Versions

Wagner initially wrote the songs for female voice and piano alone, but produced an orchestrated version of "Träume", to be performed by

chamber orchestra Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numb ...

(with violin playing the voice part) beneath Mathilde's window on the occasion of her birthday, 23 December 1857. Some male singers have sung some of the songs:

Lauritz Melchior Lauritz Melchior (20 March 1890 – 18 March 1973) was a Danish-American opera singer. He was the preeminent Richard Wagner, Wagnerian tenor of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s and has come to be considered the quintessence of his voice type. Late i ...

recorded "" and "Träume" for HMV in 1923, "" has been recorded by tenors

Franco Corelli Franco Corelli (8 April 1921 – 29 October 2003) was an Italian tenor who had a major international opera career between 1951 and 1976. Associated in particular with the spinto and dramatic tenor roles of the Italian repertory, he was cel ...

(in French),

Plácido Domingo José Plácido Domingo Embil (born 21 January 1941) is a Spanish opera singer, conductor, and arts administrator. He has recorded over a hundred complete operas and is well known for his versatility, regularly performing in Italian, French ...

, Jonas Kaufmann,

Andrea Bocelli Andrea Bocelli (; born 22 September 1958) is an Italian tenor and multi-instrumentalist. He was born visually impaired, with congenital glaucoma, and at the age of 12, Bocelli became completely blind, following a brain hemorrhage resulting fro ...

, and the bass Paata Burchuladze. A few have attempted the whole cycle in performance, including René Kollo. Tenor Stuart Skelton recorded the entire cycle in 2018, as did

Christoph Prégardien Christoph Prégardien (born 18 January 1956) is a German lyric tenor whose career is closely associated with the roles in Mozart operas, as well as performances of Lieder, oratorio roles, and Baroque music. He is well known for his performances ...

in 2019. The orchestration of all five songs was completed for large orchestra by

Felix Mottl right Felix Josef von Mottl (between 29 July/29 August 1856 – 2 July 1911) 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'' (Weima ...

, 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 Hans Werner Henze (1 July 1926 – 27 October 2012) was a German composer. His large oeuvre of works is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as ...

produced a chamber version for the songs. Each of the players has a separate part, with some very unusual wind registration. French composer Christophe Looten wrote a transcription for voice and string quartet (

Théâtre des Champs-Élysées The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées () is an entertainment venue standing at 15 avenue Montaigne in Paris. It is situated near Avenue des Champs-Élysées, from which it takes its name. Its eponymous main hall may seat up to 1,905 people, while ...

, Paris, March 2015). 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 the same year, the Chinese-British composer Jeffrey Ching premiered his ''Wesendonck Sonata'', for voice, viola (or cello), and piano. Ching transposed Wagner's original songs so as to form a closed palindromic tonal sequence in the manner of a five-movement sonata, and also added an elaborate obbligato part for viola (or cello), which comments on the poems and adds harmonic and

contrapuntal In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradi ...

detail to Wagner's accompaniment. A version of 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. Clytus Gottwald arranged "Im Treibhaus" and "Träume" for 16-voice choir a cappella in 2004 as ''Zwei Studien zu "Tristan und Isolde"''.

References

Notes Sources * Millington, Barry (ed.) (2001). "The Wagner Compendium". London: Thames and Hudson. * Newman, Ernest (1976a). "The Life of Richard Wagner. Volume II: 1848–1860". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * Newman, Ernest (1976b). "The Life of Richard Wagner. Volume III: 1859–1866". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * Vazsonyi, Nicholas (ed.) (2013). ''The Cambridge Wagner Encyclopaedia''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

External links

*
Die Wesendonck-Lieder / Fünf Gedichte für Frauenstimme und Klavier / Komponist: Richard Wagner (WWV 91)
wesendonck.websiteportal.de
Audio
of Jeffrey Ching's ''Wesendonck Sonata'' on Ching's official YouTube channel {{Authority control Song cycles by Richard Wagner Lieder 1858 compositions Classical song cycles in German