Cosima Liszt, daughter of Franz Liszt and the Countess d’Agoult, was
born at Bellagio, Italy, on Christmas Day, 1837. She was married to Hans
von Bülow at Berlin, August 18, 1857. They were divorced in the fall of
1869.
Richard Wagner married Minna Planer on November 24, 1836, at Königsberg.
They separated in August, 1861. She died at Dresden, January 25, 1866.
Wagner and Cosima were married at Lucerne, August 25, 1870. Their son,
Siegfried Wagner, was born at Triebschen, near Lucerne, on June 6, 1869.
In a letter to Frau Wille, June 25, 1870, Wagner wrote of Cosima: “She
has defied every disapprobation and taken upon herself every
condemnation. She has borne to me a wonderfully beautiful boy, whom I
can boldly call ‘Siegfried’; he is now growing, together with my work;
he gives me a new long life, which at last has attained a meaning. Thus
we get along without the world, from which we have wholly withdrawn.”
The _Siegfried Idyl_ was a birthday gift to Cosima. It was composed in
November, 1870, at Triebschen. Hans Richter received the manuscript
score on December 4, 1870. Wagner gave a fine copy of it to Cosima.
Musicians of Zürich were engaged for the performance. The first
rehearsal was on December 21, 1870, in the foyer of Zürich’s old
theater. The Wesendocks were present. Wagner conducted a rehearsal at
the Hôtel du Lac, Lucerne, on December 24. Christmas fell on a Sunday.
Early in the morning the musicians assembled at Wagner’s villa in
Triebschen. In order to surprise Cosima, the desks were put on the
stairs and the tuning was in the kitchen. The orchestra took its place
on the stairs, Wagner, who conducted, at the top; then the violins,
violas, wood-wind instruments, horns, and at the bottom the violoncello
and the double bass. Wagner could not see the violoncello and the double
bass; but the performance, according to Richter, was faultless. The
orchestra was thus composed: two first violins, two second violins, two
violas (one played by Richter, who also played the few measures for a
trumpet), one violoncello, one double bass, one flute, one oboe, two
clarinets, one bassoon, two horns. Richter, in order not to excite
Cosima’s suspicions, practised for some days the trumpet part in the
empty barracks. “These daily excursions and several trips to Zürich
awakened the attention of Mme Wagner, who thought I was not so
industrious as formerly.” The performance began at 7.30 A. M. The _Idyl_
was repeated several times in the course of the day, and in the
afternoon Beethoven’s Sextet was performed without the variations.
The _Idyl_ was performed at Mannheim on December 20, 1871, in private
and under Wagner’s direction. There was a performance on March 10, 1877,
in the Ducal Palace at Meiningen. Wagner conducted. The score and parts
were published in February, 1878. The first performance after
publication was at a Bilse concert in Berlin toward the end of February,
1878. The music drama _Siegfried_ was then so little known that a Berlin
critic said the _Idyl_ was taken from the second act. And Mr. Henry
Knight, a passionate Wagnerite, wrote verses in 1889 in which he showed
a similar confusion in mental operation.
This composition first bore the title _Triebschener Idyll_. The score
calls for flute, oboe, two clarinets, bassoon, trumpet, two horns, and
strings.
Siegfried was born while Wagner was at work on his music drama
_Siegfried_. The themes in the _Idyl_ were taken from this music drama,
all save one: a folk-song, “Schlaf’, mein Kind, schlaf’ein”; but the
development of the themes was new.
“THE RIDE OF THE VALKYRIES,” FROM “DIE WALKÜRE”
After an instrumental introduction to Act III of _The Valkyrie_, the
curtain rises.
“On the summit of a rocky mountain. On the right a pine wood encloses
the stage. On the left is the entrance to a cave; above this the rock
rises to its highest point. At the back the view is entirely open; rocks
of various heights form a parapet to the precipice. Occasionally clouds
fly past the mountain peak as if driven by storm. Gerhilde, Ortlinde,
Waltraute, and Schwertleite have ensconced themselves on the rocky peak
above the cave; they are in full armor.
“Flashes of lightning break through the clouds, and from time to time a
Valkyrie is seen on horseback with a slain warrior hanging from the
saddle. We quote John F. Runciman’s description of the Valkyries’
Ride:[51]
“The drama here is of the most poignant kind; the scenic surroundings
are of the sort Wagner so greatly loved—tempest amidst black pine woods
with wild, flying clouds, the dying down of the storm, the saffron
evening light melting into shadowy night, the calm, deep blue sky with
the stars peeping out, then the bright flames shooting up; and the two
elements, the dramatic and the pictorial, drew out of him some pages as
splendid as any even he ever wrote. The opening, ‘The Ride of the
Valkyries,’ is a piece of storm music without a parallel. There is no
need here for Donner with his hammer; the All-Father himself is abroad
in wrath and majesty, and his daughters laugh and rejoice in the riot.
There is nothing uncanny in the music: we have that delight in the sheer
force of the elements which we inherit from our earliest ancestors: the
joy of nature fiercely at work which is echoed in our hearts from time
immemorial. The shrilling of the wind, the hubbub, the calls of the
Valkyries to one another, the galloping of the horses, form a picture
which for splendor, wild energy, and wilder beauty can never be matched.
“Technically, this Ride is a miracle built up of conventional
figurations of the older music. There is the continuous shake, handed on
from instrument to instrument, the slashing figure of the upper strings,
the kind of _basso ostinato_, conventionally indicating the galloping of
horses, and the chief melody, a mere bugle call, altered by a change of
rhythm into a thing of superb strength. The only part of the music that
ever so remotely suggests extravagance is the Valkyries’ call; and it,
after all, is only a jodel put to sublime uses. Out of these commonplace
elements, elements that one might almost call prosaic, Wagner wrought
his picture of storm, with its terror, power, joyous laughter of the
storm’s daughters—storm as it must have seemed to the first poets of our
race....
“It is worth looking at the plan of this Ride—which is, be it
remembered, only the prelude to the gigantic drama which is to follow.
After the _ritornello_ the main theme is announced, with a long break
between the first and second strains; and again a break before it is
continued. Then it sounds out all its glory, terse, closely gripped
section to section, until the Valkyries’ call is heard; purely pictorial
passages follow; the theme is played with, even as Mozart and Beethoven
played with their themes, and at the last the whole force of the
orchestra is employed, and Wagner’s object is attained—he has given us a
picture of storm such as was never done before, and he has done what was
necessary for the subsequent drama—made us feel the tremendous might of
the god of storms.”
The arrangement for concert use calls for these instruments: two
piccolos, two flutes, three oboes, English horn, three clarinets, bass
clarinet, three bassoons, eight horns, three trumpets, four trombones,
bass tuba, kettledrums, side drum, cymbals, triangle, and the usual
strings.