Siegfried idyll
The Siegfried Idyll (WWV 103) for chamber orchestra , in the original version “Tribschen Idyll with Fidi birdsong and orange sunrise, as a symphonic birthday greeting. His Cosima offered by your Richard. ” Is a symphonic poem by Richard Wagner . It is one of his most famous orchestral works.
history
Richard Wagner secretly composed the twenty-minute orchestral work in 1870. He wrote the work for his wife Cosima in memory of the birth of their first son Siegfried , also known as "Fidi". It was premiered in close family circles on Christmas Day 1870, which was also Cosima's 33rd birthday, by members of the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra . The first performance took place on a staircase in Wagner's Landhaus Tribschen near Lucerne , whereby the limited space made it necessary to cast a chamber. Since the composition was intended as a gift for Cosima, she long refused to publish the work.
music
The name of the symphonic poem is not only related to Wagner's son, but also to his musical drama Siegfried , which forms the third part of the Ring of the Nibelung . Wagner mainly used motifs from this musical drama. It is his only contribution to the genre of symphonic poetry , in which his most important fighter within the New German School and Cosima's father, Franz Liszt , stood out. Wagner described the composition as his only orchestral work for which he could present a complete program .
The Siegfried Idyll impresses with its idyllic, transfigured timbres. It is composed in E major and bears the catalog raisonné number WWV 103.
occupation
The original version provides for a chamber orchestra consisting of flute, oboe, 2 clarinets, bassoon, 2 horns, trumpet (only 13 bars) and string quintet. In the version published in 1878 and most frequently performed today, the strings have multiple ensembles.
Recordings and literature
- Richard Wagner: Symphony in C major, Siegfried Idyll (CD), edel records GmbH, Berlin 1999.
- Martin Geck: Richard Wagner , Rowohlt Verlag GmbH, Reinbek near Hamburg 2004.
- Ulrich Konrad : Summary of life and art. The Siegfried Idyll by Richard Wagner . Munich 2009 (= Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-historical class, meeting reports, year 2009, issue 1).
- Richard Wagner: Siegfried Idyll , Ernst Eulenburg & Co. GmbH, Mainz 2011.
Edits
- The Canadian pianist Glenn Gould wrote a piano transcription of the work, which he himself regularly performed and published on record.