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wagner's forbears and heirs: a liederabend

Villa Wahnfried was Richard Wagner’s personal residence in Bayreuth, which houses a small library/hall in which Wagner held small concerts and rehearsals. Today, Wahnfried is a museum dedicated to Wagner’s life and, as in Wagner’s life, hosts a concert series that is produced by the city during Bayreuth Festival season. Wahnfried’s grounds also serve as Wagner’s final resting place. I was approached in August of 2022 about giving a recital at Villa Wahnfried in August of 2023, the program of which was to highlight the compositional advancements made by Wagner and directly influencing Wagner without specifically performing any music of Richard Wagner himself.

 

This is an intriguing (but not at all difficult to follow) brief; after all, Wagner’s music bore profound influence on all European composers who followed him, directly or not. I wished, therefore, to cast most specific focus on the composer who had the most import in Wagner’s life in both artistic and personal spheres: Franz Liszt. It was of additional interest to me, of course, that recitals hosted by Villa Wahnfried are performed upon Wagner’s own Steinway which was a gift from Liszt during the sixth year of Wagner’s marriage to Liszt’s daughter Cosima (1876, which saw Bayreuth’s inaugural festival season during which Wagner’s freshly-completed Ring Cycle was premiered).

 

Wagner was, before all things, a proponent of the Gesamtkunstwerk; of opera as the highest collaborative art form. It therefore followed that Liszt’s most operatic song cycle, the Tre Sonetti del Petrarca, should form the cornerstone of this program. (It is interesting, though not particularly relevant, to note that Liszt had a well-publicised affair with the courtesan Marie Duplessis, about whom Alexandre Dumas– another lover of Duplessis– wrote the novel La Dame aux Camelias, from which the libretto of Verdi’s Traviata was taken. Verdi, again in an interesting but irrelevant coincidence, shared a birth year with Wagner.)

 

Liszt’s Petrarca are taken from Francesco Petrarca’s famous Canzoniere (Rerum vulgarium fragmenta) which date from the 1330’s until Petrarca’s death in 1374. Their overarching focus is Petrarca’s love for an unattainable Laura that scholars believe to be the married noblewoman Laura de Noves. According to Petrarca, he encountered Laura on the 6th of April, 1327. Petrarca was, at the time, twenty-two years of age; he proposed marriage to Laura and was rebuffed due to her existing marriage to Hugues de Sade. Petrarca pined obsessively for Laura, blessing, venerating, and cursing her in turn through his passionate body of poetic work, though he met her only a few additional times before her death in 1348, after which point the timbre of his writing shifts from one of desperation mixed with reverence to one of religious deification.

 

Though Liszt chose to order his cycle (1) pace non trovo, (2) benedetto sia, and (3) i’ vidi in terra, Petrarca’s chronology of composition is that benedetto sia preceded pace non trovo by as much as fifteen years. I’ vidi in terra is, in any case, the last of these three poems, and was written following Laura’s untimely death at the age of 38.

 

Though impossible to substantiate, my conjecture is that Liszt’s deep admiration for the Italian Renaissance period may have led him to order the poetry as he chose as a nod to the magnum opus of the singular giant of Italian Renaissance literature, Dante Alighieri. Mirroring Petrarca’s singular meeting and subsequent lifelong love of Laura, Dante met his lifelong muse Beatrice only once (at the age of nine) before consecrating his life’s work to her. (Liszt’s well-established love for Dante’s Divine Comedy is further explored through his Dante Symphony and Dante Sonata.) Pace non trovo may be interpreted as Petrarca’s own inferno, of his eternal tortures of unrequited love; benedetto sia can be viewed as depicting his rise to purgatorio, and i’ vidi in terra deals with Petrarca’s idealisation of the newly-departed and thus angelic Laura, much as Dante meets Beatrice in paradisio

 

Liszt devoted a good amount of his prolific vocal writing to settings of the work of the father of Romantic German literature, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. As in the case of Liszt, it would be nigh on irresponsible to address the works surrounding Wagner without addressing the work of Hugo Wolf, who, like Liszt, delighted in setting Goethe’s writing to song and who, like Wagner, employed leitmotiv-like techniques in his extremely orchestral writing for piano accompaniment. Wolf was, in fact, deeply influenced by many of Wagner’s compositional innovations– especially by his use of chromatic harmony and by his ability to extend tonal boundaries. This is particularly evident in Wolf’s Mignon Lieder, taken from his fifty-one (!) Goethe Lieder which were composed between 1888 and 1889. Wolf demonstrates unusual emotional perspicacity in his songs of this era, revealing psychological state by the slow unravelling of established Leitmotive– a psychological device used to great effect by Wagner (observe, for example, the treatment of the Gutrune Leitmotiv in the beginning of Götterdämmerung’s act 3, scene 3 as Gutrune awaits the return of the deceased Siegfried in growing awareness of Siegfried’s previous relationship with Brünnhilde. The musical fragmentation of Gutrune’s psyche bears remarkable resemblance to Wolf’s treatment of Mignon).

 

Mignon is a character from Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre: a young person whose gender is left ambiguous by the narrator– born of incest in Italy and subsequently kidnapped and taken to Germany. Mignon loves Wilhelm in turns as both a protective father figure and as a potential romantic partner, and ultimately dies of a heart attack as a teenager following intense emotional shock. Though Mignon is never a perspective character in Goethe’s writing, Wolf’s settings of Mignon’s text cast light on their mental state in a way that is utterly unique to the other myriad settings of other composers– there is a turmoil and anguish in Wolf’s settings that highlight Mignon’s suffering with no hint of glamour, beauty or grace, but are instead replete with the constant oppression of grief and longing.

 

One particular Goethe setting of Franz Schubert, however, is relevant as foreshadowing Wagner’s development of the dramatic accompaniment of vocal music– and, indeed relevant to all 19th Century vocal music, as Schubert chose to illustrate the scene depicted in accompaniment as deftly as one might with brush and paints. Erlkönig is Schubert’s 1821 setting of Goethe’s 1782 poem which, in a detached and almost emotionless voice, tells the horrifying story of a child on horseback in the arms of his father. The child is captured and taken to death by a fairy king who observes the duo in the forest. While the singer bears the burden of reading out all of the text for three individual characters and a narrator, the bulk of the dramatic heavy lifting is carried by the piano, which in turn depicts the racing hooves of the father’s horse, the entrancement and eventual panic of the child, the disbelief and growing fear of the father, and– above all– the fantastic allure of the fairy king.

 

Goethe was sadly no stranger to the sobering realities of 18th Century child mortality. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born in 1749, the eldest of seven siblings, of whom five died before reaching the age of seven. Johann Wolfgang and his younger sister Cornelia both reached a quarter century of age, but Cornelia was killed by an illness at the age of twenty-six, leaving Johann Wolfgang the only surviving child of his family. In a hideous twist of irony, Johann Wolfgang went on to have five of his own children, of whom only his eldest (a son named August, born in 1789) survived beyond two weeks of age (conjecture blames rhesus disease for these losses). Though Erlkönig preceded the heart wrenching death of Goethe’s own children, having lost his siblings at a young age would have informed his composition of Erlkönig, which was a romanticised elaboration of the Danish ballad Elveskud in which a young man named Olaf encounters a fairy or elf in the forest on the eve of his wedding; he refuses her and she curses him with a fatal illness. (A number of Goethe’s writings are similarly autobiographical– Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774), for instance, utilises Goethe’s own love for the nonfictional Charlotte “Lotte” Buff as a central plot point.)

 

Erlkönig was not a part of my original program at Villa Wahnfried. In its place stood a set of three Humperdinck Lieder which listeners told me (prior to the recital) that they were most intensely eager to hear. Humperdinck’s two standard-repertoire operas have rightful recognition in the operatic canon as operas of intense emotional beauty– operas that are almost painful to hear. I, like every musician who breathes, have a special soft spot for the orchestral writing between acts 2 and 3 of Hänsel und Gretel, and the Gebet of the Gänsemagd at the end of the first act of Königskinder is largely recognised as ninety of the most sublime seconds written in any opera. Humperdinck was a master orchestrator, and in fact assisted Wagner in orchestrating sections of Parsifal; Humperdinck had further connection to the Wagner family in that he was largely responsible for the musical education of Wagner’s son, Siegfried. Humperdinck’s Lieder, however, were (as I was told after the recital) “insipid” and “boring.” Though I am now and ever a great lover of Humperdinck’s creative output, I must confess to finding his song-writing to be at least prosaic, not wishing to use the words “insipid” or “boring” myself. I therefore found Erlkönig to be, while perhaps a less historically relevant offering to this program, more appropriate to inclusion for this evening.

 

Schönberg and Richard Strauss are nearly impossible to discuss entirely separately. Strauss was a great champion of Schönberg’s works before Strauss’ own stylistic reformation of 1909 following Elektra (after which Strauss, turning toward more conservative compositional techniques more representative of his own purely Romantic work of the 1880s, became contemptuous of Schönberg’s work). Strauss’ compositional style seen in Salome (1905) and further developed in Elektra is electrifyingly atonal and cacophonous, speaking of the deep psychological abyss consuming and motivating both title characters. This style is the ultimate twisted development of Wagner’s compositional innovations: in both operas, the title characters have their own atonal Leitmotiv brought to fruition through the triumph of each character’s insanity– Salome’s Leitmotiv is toyed with in wisps and fragments for the first ninety minutes of her opera before being revealed fully in heartstopping force during Salome’s extended Schlussgesang– at the very moment that she is gifted the head of John the Baptist which she has spent a half hour demanding, that she may finally kiss its mouth. Elektra’s Leitmotiv is likewise realised in full power when she is finally able to dance on the grave of her murderous mother and her mother’s lover, having finally seen her father’s death avenged. Both women die at the end of their respective operas– Salome is crushed beneath the shields of Herod’s soldiers and Elektra’s dance leads to her collapse and death– but both women die victorious.

 

It’s difficult to believe that this is the early operatic output of the same composer who wrote Der Rosenkavalier’s elegant, poignant trio in 1910, and who closed out his life with the painfully wistful sentimentality of Vier letzte Lieder in 1948. And yet, one cannot fully say that Strauss did not return to the tonal world of Salome and Elektra because much of the language utilised in these two operas is present in his 1918 Drei Ophelia-Lieder. Ophelia’s wandering rumenations are depicted by an omnipresent and entirely atonal Wahnsinns-Leitmotiv in her first Lied, which is replaced by a frantic and percussive piano ostinato in her second Lied, which circles around the key of e minor without fully settling, and is replaced in her third Lied by a jagged, meandering Leitmotiv which evokes her first Lied but features two moments of psychotic directional shift, which are as disconcerting as the feeling of stumbling from an unseen step.

 

A brilliant Operndirektorin well-versed in all areas of vocal musical history asked me via Instagram: “don’t you think that Wagner would have hated the Ophelia-Lieder of Strauss?” My answer is a resounding yes. I have, however, chosen to include them due precisely to the impossibility of Strauss’ explorations of aberrant psychology without Wagner’s compositional tools.

 

Schönberg, however, followed an opposite path to that of Strauss: Schönberg’s writing began rooted in lush Romanticism with use of a remarkably Wagnerian tonal language but began to depart from tonality by 1908 (the year in which his wife, Mathilde, left him temporarily for another man, the young painter Richard Gerstl; it has been posited that the shift in Schönberg’s compositional style was direct consequence of his feelings toward the absence of his spouse– his seminal second string quartet which debuted to disastrous reception in this year certainly draws on the emotional turmoil that Schönberg was experiencing. Mathilde returned to Schönberg following an absence of several months; Gerstl, abandoned and despondent, committed suicide). Though Schönberg would make occasional returns to the world of tonality, his development of dodecaphony may have been his most significant contribution to the development of music of the 20th Century. Schönberg’s op. 2 Vier Lieder of 1900 are, however, still direct ancestral heritage of Wagner– this is especially audible in the romantic passion of Jesus bettelt and in the ecstasy of Erhebung.

 

Erich Korngold, unlike Schönberg, had no compunction regarding continuing to dwell in the height of Romanticism. Erich’s father, Julius, a Viennese music critic, recognised young Erich’s abilities early and ensured that his talents were developed as a child under the tutelage of Alexander Zemlinsky (whose sister was incidentally Mathilde, the aforementioned wife of Schönberg). It is primarily due to the rise of the Nazi party (and very partially due to the backfiring of outrageous attempts by Julius to champion Erich’s work by galvanising the Nazi party to lampoon the work of “Jewish composer” Ernst Krenek who, by the by, was not Jewish) that Erich, who was indeed of Jewish heritage, was forced to leave Europe for the United States in 1933. Korngold’s rich romantic tonal language, already well-developed through five operas, was put to use in Hollywood. The art of modern film scoring owes much to Korngold and, in a circuitous manner, to Wagner– imagine, for a moment, the scene in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings– The Return of the King wherein Gondor’s beacon of Amon Din lights, triggering the lighting of all seven of Gondor’s beacons in a plea for aid. Whether by intention or not, Howard Shore created for this scene a piece of music that owes much to Lohengrin’s third act Morgenröte– and Wagner’s Morgenröte would certainly not seem out of place against Shore’s scoring. 


Korngold’s songs are largely pure decadence, and his op. 22 Drei Lieder (1930) are no exception. Short as they are in duration, one hears ample examples of the vocal writing so effectively utilised for the role of Marietta in Die tode Stadt– languid, luxurious, passionate lines; and dynamic control necessary at both extremities of vocal range.  (I must confess that singing these three songs after Petrarca is exceedingly difficult, and my organisation of the program thus demonstrated logic but a lack of intelligence.) These three stunning love songs bear Korngold’s inscription “dedicated to my mother,” which is utterly unsurprising due to the antics of Erich’s father, to whom I expect Erich dedicated many a hefty therapy bill.

© 2013 by Heather Engebretson. All rights reserved.

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