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Home , Mathilde Wesendonck, Parsifal discography, Siegfried (opera)

2 CD WAGNER WITHOUT WORDS CD2 1 Liebestod Richard Wagner/Franz Liszt [7.51] from Tristan and Isolde

Scenes from Parsifal Richard Wagner/Llŷr Williams CD1 2 Transformation Music [8.35] 3 Parsifal and the Flower Maidens [6.22] 1 Entry of the Guests Richard Wagner/Franz Liszt [10.39] 4 Good Friday Music [6.25] from Tannhäuser 5 In das Album der Fürstin M. Richard Wagner [2.55] 2 Fantasy Richard Wagner [26.01] 6 Santo spirito cavaliere Richard Wagner/Franz Liszt [9.35] 3 Spinning Chorus Richard Wagner/Franz Liszt [6.30] from Rienzi from The Flying Dutchman 7 4 Sonata for the Book of Mrs. M. W. Richard Wagner [12.47] “Song without Words” Richard Wagner [1.50] from Albumblatt für Ernst Benedikt Kietz 8 Walhall Richard Wagner/Franz Liszt [5.47] from the Ring of the Nibelungen (Das Rheingold) 5 Elsa’s Bridal Procession Richard Wagner/Franz Liszt [9.07] from Lohengrin 9 Albumblatt for Mrs. Betty Schott Richard Wagner [4.29] 6 Zürich Waltzes Richard Wagner [1.09] 0 Prelude to The Meistersinger from Nürnberg Richard Wagner/Glenn Gould/Llŷr Williams [9.14] 7 Siegfried’s Rhine-Journey Richard Wagner/Glenn Gould/Llŷr Williams [13.22] CD 2 Total timings: [74.01] from Götterdämmerung

CD 1 Total timings: [68.38] PIANO

www.signumrecords.com ARTIST’S NOTE of the voice and the orchestra. One can hear It was my excellent producer, Judy Sherman, echoes of certain phrases from the operas in who ﬁnally persuaded me to transcribe My love affair with the music of Wagner began the Sonate für Mathilde Wesendonck. Although something from Parsifal, as this was the when at age 10 I was given the Solti recording the Fantasy in F# minor is a bit long-winded obvious missing link on the CD. Trying to of the Ring Cycle as a Christmas present. Shortly in places, the cyclical return of the sombre reduce Parsifal to twenty minutes seems a afterwards I was bashing through the major opening following the intervening movements daunting enough task, but a good way in music dramas at the piano, using vocal scores makes for a remarkably moving, pessimistic seemed to be the Act I “Transformation Music” acquired from our local library. conclusion. This is especially remarkable with its bells, as there is a whole history when one considers that it was written at of the piano being made to emulate bell By far the most frequently-played bit of Wagner the tender age of 19 and that Wagner is not sounds. Part of the “Flower Maidens” scene in piano recitals is Liszt’s transcription usually thought of as an early starter. from Act II and the “Good Friday Music” from of “Isolde’s Liebestod” from Tristan, a Act III are then included before the bells near-miraculous conjuring up of Wagner’s The later music dramas are not well-represented return at the end, reminding us that much of glowing orchestration with just ten ﬁngers. in Liszt’s transcriptions with their increasing Wagner’s music is cyclical. The popularity of this piece, however, should density of orchestral polyphony evidently not blind us to the quality of some of his puzzling for him. Glenn Gould’s solution in © 2014, Llŷr Williams other realisations such as “Entry of the 1973 was to record the Meistersinger Prelude Guests” from Tannhäuser where Liszt gets to and “Siegfried’s Rhine Journey” from the heart of this particular operatic scene. Götterdämmerung with an overdubbed second piano part, thus giving an almost complete It was for a recital at London’s Kings Place realisation of all the orchestral voices on the to celebrate the bicentenary in 2013 that keyboard. In the Götterdämmerung, I have the Wagner scholar Barry Millington suggested taken the liberty of re- allocating some of that I should combine the Liszt transcriptions the material between the two pianos in with some original piano music by Wagner. I order to give an even more faithful account of have to confess that my initial reaction was what is going on, as well as interpolating a (as it is with many musicians) “Did he write section from the mountain-top duet. piano music?” However there is more than two hours’ worth of music, much of it suggestive © Benjamin Ealovega

- 4 - - 5 - WAGNER WITHOUT WORDS Wagner’s earliest musical training was in fact The Fantasy approximately outlines a three- Wesendonk famously inspired Wagner to Richard Wagner (1813-1883) as a pianist. While a schoolboy at Pastor movement sonata work, each movement preceded break off his work on the epic Ring cycle to Wetzel’s school at Possendorf, near Dresden, he and linked by dramatic recitative passages. create his opera Tristan und Isolde. Before Widely associated as Richard Wagner is with received piano lessons from his Latin master, It opens with such a brooding, recitative-like composing that seminal masterpiece, Wagner the grandiose and richly-textured orchestrations Humann. Wagner was impatient with the set section, which leads into an episode marked wrote several song settings of Wesendonk’s of his music dramas (one can hardly listen five-finger exercises, preferring to spend time Un poco lento. More dramatic recitative poetry, two of which he explicitly identified as to the radio or watch television without playing the overture to Weber’s Freischütz and introduces a bridge passage, with a passing “studies” for Tristan. A year after they first being assailed at some point by “Ride of the other such works by ear. In his late teens, he resemblance to the famous Toccata attributed met in 1852, Wagner composed a one-movement Valkyries”!), it is not often recalled that he studied composition with Christian Theodor to Bach, which leads to an impetuous Sonata in her honour; this was his first also wrote a number of substantial works Weinlig, the conductor of the Thomanerchor Allegro agitato. Another episode of recitative completed work since composing Lohengrin for the piano. Indeed, so little-known are in Leipzig. Weinlig made the young Wagner introduces a broad Adagio molto e cantabile, some six years earlier, and was written some these today that one might be forgiven for study counterpoint, and almost certainly sonata Beethoven-like in its noble melodiousness, months before he embarked on the first opera of assuming that the piano was not his natural form as Wagner dedicated his first opus, a with a hint of the Tempest Sonata in some the Ring cycle, Das Rheingold. In the manuscript medium. However, when the French Symbolist four-movement Piano Sonata, to his teacher. threatening rumbles in the bass. After some copy of the Sonata he gave Mathilde, he poet, Auguste Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, visited This was published in 1831, in the same year dramatic recollections of earlier sections of wrote the words “Wisst ihr wie das wird?” Wagner and his wife Cosima at Triebschen, when Wagner composed the Fantasy in F sharp the Fantasy, a recapitulation of the opening (“Do you know what will become of this?”), the Switzerland where they were then living, the minor recorded here. Un poco lento returns the work to the question posed by the Norns in the Ring impression he carried away was quite different. lugubrious gloom from which it started. cycle’s final opera, Götterdämmerung. According to Villiers, Wagner while seated at The original piano works the piano became “superhuman”, and as the The next original piano work represented The remaining three original Wagner pieces composer played and sang, the piano gained In Wagner’s Fantasy one can hear the influence on this album is an attractive “Song without on this album are effectively little gifts a soul of its own and Wagner’s performance of Beethoven, in particular the brooding style Words”, dated 1840. This short album leaf, he composed in a spirit similar to that would become so overpowering that his of such works as the Pathétique and other dedicated to the painter and portraitist Ernst represented by the “Lied ohne Worte” he listeners had to beg him to stop: “at the end of piano sonatas from the great composer’s Benedikt Kietz, was Wagner’s last piano gave to Kietz in 1840. One such gift was for two hours we are really ill. It’s no longer a piano, “middle period”. Wagner had a life-long work until 1853, the year he composed Eine Mathilde’s sister, Marie Luckenmeyer, who or a voice, but a vision…” admiration of Beethoven, and became Sonate für das Album von Frau M.W. – that frequently visited Wagner in Zürich where particularly noted for his interpretations as a is, for his muse Mathilde Wesendonk. he was living in exile during the 1850s to conductor of Beethoven’s symphonies, most avoid imprisonment for his revolutionary particularly the Fifth. activities. Wagner’s inscription on Züricher

- 6 - - 7 - Vielliebchen-Walzer reads: “Dedicated to of which pride of place goes to those Liszt had a particularly close association with using some recording studio trickery – or, Marie of Dusseldorf by the best dancer in by Wagner’s staunch champion, the virtuoso Wagner’s opera Lohengrin, conducting its very as he called it, “constructive cheating” – to Saxony, called Richard the Waltzmaker.” pianist-composer Franz Liszt. Llŷr Williams successful first production in Weimar in 1850 enable him to encompass some of the rich has programmed several of the most while Wagner was in exile in Switzerland. Liszt textures beyond the reach of a mere two hands A little less frivolous is In das Album der attractive of these, which will be described subsequently made his own piano arrangement at the keyboard, over-dubbing himself to Fürstin Metternich, written in 1861 for the here in order of their appearance. of “Elsa’s Bridal Procession”, which was create in effect a four-hand transcription. (Llŷr wife of the Austrian ambassador in Paris as a originally published as a companion to “Entry of Williams, as he explains in the introduction thank you for her intervention that allowed the “Entry of the Guests” (Einzug der Gäste auf the Guests” from Tannhäuser (featured earlier to this booklet, has reassigned some of performance of Tannhäuser at the Opéra to go der Wartburg) was originally the opening piece in Llŷr Williams’s programme). Here, though, the material between the two pianos ahead on 13 March of that year. of Liszt’s Zwei Stücke aus ‘Tannhäuser’ und is a very different procession: instead of “in order to give an even more faithful ‘Lohengrin’, first published in 1853. To make fanfares, the simplest chords set the scene account of what is going on”.) The baleful Wagner’s last piano work, Albumblatt für this piece an effective concert work, Liszt for a sweet, virginal theme (whose debt to opening expresses the evil properties of the Frau Betty Schott dated 1875, was written for converted Wagner’s original music from Mendelssohn’s Nocturne from A Midsummer cursed ring; then, as dawn rises, we hear the widow of the publisher Franz Schott. One Act II scene 4 of Tannhäuser into a ternary Night’s Dream is more evident in the piano some of Wagner’s most ecstatic music to be may hear several echoes in this of Die structure, opening with fanfares and the arrangement than in Wagner’s original found outside Tristan, expressing the love Meistersinger, and in the present recital by noble march theme to which the guests windband-style scoring). In the original opera, between Siegfried and Brünnhilde at the Llŷr Williams it makes an effective appetiser enter; the subsequent entry of the minstrels the procession, before it can reach its full opera’s start (Williams here includes part for the Prelude to Die Meistersinger. becomes a trio section, Liszt then concluding climax, is interrupted by the intervention of of their love duet omitted by Gould in his the work with a reprise of the march to which Elsa’s would-be nemesis, Ortrud; Liszt, transcription), made all the more poignant by The Transcriptions the guests had entered. however, rounds it off with a decrescendo and Siegfried’s disastrous and unwitting betrayal a lingering coda. of Brünnhilde before the opera’s end. The During much of the nineteenth century, it was One of the most charming of Liszt’s piece ends with the triumphant sound of a special event to hear substantial orchestral transcriptions and elaborations on Wagner’s With Siegfried’s Rhine Journey from Siegfried’s horn call as he rides off to the Rhine excerpts from Wagner’s works, let alone to music is the “Spinning Chorus” (Spinnerlied ) Götterdämmerung, we reach the first of accompanied by some joyous musical hear any one of his operas entire. In the years from The Flying Dutchman, first published in two transcriptions based on those originally gamboling, with just a hint of sombre before commercial recordings became widely 1862. Its particularly lovely ending is entirely made by the great Canadian pianist, Glenn apprehension before the excerpt’s triumphal available, let alone begin to do justice to of Liszt’s invention. Gould. A great admirer of Wagner, Gould final cadence. Wagner’s colourful scores, much of his music could not resist transcribing some of the was propagated through piano transcriptions, German master’s grandest episodes to piano,

- 8 - - 9 - It was Liszt who first coined the term “Liebestod” of Act III, we hear the emotional anguish Finally, rounding off Llŷr Williams’s recital, by which Isolde’s final aria in Tristan und of Kundry, the cursed woman, transformed is another Glenn Gould transcription, this Isolde is now widely known. Wagner himself and exalted by this holy day, the music time of Wagner’s contrapuntal tour de wrote a piano version of the ending of the finally fading out to the tolling of the bass force>, the Prelude to Die Meistersinger von opera’s prelude, a relatively restrained (one bells first heard in the “Transformation Music”. Nürnberg. Wagner himself presented this may say “private) version which he sent Prelude as a self-standing work some six to Mathilde Wesendonck with a letter in 1859. Liszt’s Santo spirit cavaliere from Rienzi is one years before the first production of the Here, though, is Liszt’s unrestrained and of his most free treatments of Wagner, possibly complete opera, and it has been a popular justly celebrated version. presenting a musical portrait of the opera’s part of the orchestral repertory ever since: but hero. Its title is after the theme heard in the such is the richness of its contrapuntal Llŷr Williams has made his own transcription finale of Act III, followed by the theme from the detail – as lightly carried as is the of various scenes from Wagner’s last opera, opera’s best known aria, Rienzi’s Prayer from contrapuntal feat of the finale of Mozart’s Parsifal. In the opening “Transformation Act V (a theme which also features in the Jupiter Symphony – that it is an understandably music”, transcribing music which covers the opera’s overture). Dramatic contrast is then rare treat to hear it performed as here in a scene change in Act I of the opera, its bell- offered by the “call to arms” theme taken from piano arrangement, with a little help from like effects are particularly well suited to the the opening of Act I. what Gould calls “constructive cheating”! piano’s sonorities; the more agonized and richly harmonized music heard at the heart When it came to Wagner’s Ring cycle, Liszt © 2014, Daniel Jaffé of this section represents the agonies of the was rather more restrained, possibly because wounded knight, Amfortas. The movement ends so much of the opera was effectively with a passacaglia-like procession based on transcribed for piano by his student, the the tolling of bass bells. The heroic fanfares Polish virtuoso Carl Tausig. Liszt’s sole with which the following section starts contribution to the repertoire of piano works represent our title hero; the Flower Maidens, based on the Ring tetralogy is his portrait sent to tempt him, are closely related to of the castle of the gods, Valhalla, based the oriental seductresses painted by such primarily on the transition between the first members of Russia’s Mighty Five as Balakirev two scenes of Rheingold and Wotan’s hymn to and Rimsky-Korsakov. In the Good Friday their newly built abode. Music, originally heard in the opening scene

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Welsh pianist, Llŷr Williams, is widely admired Autumn 2014 onwards, Williams will be 2010 saw the release of a solo CD featuring Born in 1976 in Pentrebychan, North Wales, for his profound musical intelligence, and performing further complete Beethoven Piano music by Mussorgsky, Debussy and Liszt, on Llŷr Williams read music at The Queen’s for the expressive and communicative nature Sonata cycles, at London’s Wigmore Hall the Signum Label. In 2012, a second disc College, Oxford and went on to take up a of his interpretations. He has worked with and in Royal Welsh College of Music & was released by Signum, featuring works by postgraduate scholarship at the Royal Academy orchestras around the world, including the Drama in Cardiff. Liszt. Both discs were met with critical of Music where he won every available prize BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Scottish acclaim. Also recently released is a live CD and award. He is also an Honorary Fellow Chamber Orchestra, London Philharmonic Llŷr Williams is a regular performer at the from the 2012 East Neuk Festival, containing of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, BBC East Neuk Festival in Scotland, Handelsbeurs Beethoven’s Op.109 and Op.110 sonatas. Drama. He was an active member of the Live Philharmonic Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, Concertzaal Gent, and in the Piano aux Jacobins Llŷr Williams is the subject of two films Music Now! scheme for several years, was London Mozart Players, Sinfonia Cymru, I series in Toulouse. He is also currently artist produced for S4C: the first of which won a selected for the Young Concert Artists in Pomeriggi Musicali, Meininger Hofkapelle, in residence at Galeri Caernarfon in Wales. Welsh BAFTA for Best Music Programme, 2002. From 2003-2005 he was a BBC Berner Kammerorchester, Limburgs Symphony Highlights this season include recitals and the second featured his debut at New Generation Artist and in 2004 received and the Mozarteum Orchestra in Salzburg. at the Piano aux Jacobins in Toulouse, St Carnegie Hall. a Borletti-Buitoni Trust award. He also appears at the BBC Proms in London George’s Hall in Liverpool and three solo and has given many remarkable performances Beethoven programmes at the Gilmore A regular collaborator with violinist Alexander at the Edinburgh International Festival, International Keyboard Festival in the USA. Janiczek, they have performed at the Wigmore including an astonishing performance of He will also work with the Scottish Chamber Hall together, and given a full Beethoven Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata in 2010. He Orchestra and Meininger Hofkapelle. Beginning series in Perth. Future plans together include is a regular performer in the Wigmore Hall’s in September 2013, Williams collaborated concerts at the Wigmore Hall and in main piano series. with the Elias Quartet in a residency at Glasgow Austria, and with the Scottish Chamber Royal Concert Halls. Over the next three Orchestra. Llŷr Williams also has a great Throughout 2010 and 2011 Llŷr Williams seasons they will be exploring Beethoven’s love of lieder and he is one of the performed a Beethoven sonata cycle around piano sonatas and string quartets, in a series official accompanists at the BBC Cardiff the UK, including an epic two-week period in of concerts and talks. Singer of the World Competition August 2011 at Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh during the Festival, for which he received a prestigious South Bank Show award. From

- 12 - - 13 - Recorded in the Britten Studio, Snape Maltings, Suffolk, UK from 4-6 February 2014 and in Wyastone Recording Studio, Wyastone Leys, Monmouth from 15-16 March 2014. Produced by Judith Sherman Engineered by Andrew Mellor (Snape Maltings) and Mike Hatch (Wyastone Leys) Editing assistant - Jeanne Velonis

Piano technicians: Graham Cooke (Snape) and Phil Kennedy (Wyastone)

Cover Image – © Benjamin Ealovega Design and Artwork - Woven Design www.wovendesign.co.uk

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- 14 - - 15 - ALSO AVAILABLE on signumclassics

Pictures at an Exhibition Liszt: Excerpts from Annees de pelerinage, Llŷr Williams deuxieme annee: Italie S161 SIGCD226 Llŷr Williams SIGCD290

“… Williams comes into his own in the delicious pentatones of “Williams’s expansiveness with the great Benediction de Dieu Debussy’s Estampes, followed by two Liszt travelogues and a dans la Solitude is balanced by the effortless manner in which Bach transcription, where he has much to say.” he keeps it on the move. A superior album which is highly Norman Lebrecht recommended.” The Scotsman

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- 20 - CTP Template: CD_INL1 COLOURS Compact Disc Back Inlay CYAN MAGENTA Customer SignumClassics YELLOW Catalogue No.SIGCD388 BLACK Job Title: Wagner Without Words

SIGNUM CLASSICS

SIGCD388 WAGNER WITHOUT WORDS

CD1 1 Entry of the Guests from Tannhäuser Wagner–Liszt [10.39] 2 Fantasy Richard Wagner [26.01]

3 Spinning Chorus from The Flying Dutchman Wagner–Liszt [6.30] 4 “Song without Words” Richard Wagner [1.50] 5 Elsa’s Bridal Procession from Lohengrin Wagner–Liszt [9.07] 6 Zürich Waltzes Richard Wagner [1.09] 7 Siegfried’s Rhine-Journey from Götterdämmerung Wagner–Gould–Williams [13.22] CD 1 Total timings: [68.38]

CD2 1 Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde Wagner–Liszt [7.51] 2 - 4 Scenes from Parsifal Wagner–Williams [21.22] Transformation Music – Parsifal and the Flower Maidens – Good Friday Music 5 In das Album der Fürstin M. Richard Wagner [2.55] 6 Santo spirito cavaliere from Rienzi Wagner–Liszt [9.35] 7 Sonata for the Book of Mrs. M. W. Richard Wagner [12.47] 8 Walhall from the Ring of the Nibelungen Wagner–Liszt [5.47] 9 Albumblatt for Mrs. Betty Schott Richard Wagner [4.29] 0 Prelude to The Meistersinger from Nürnberg Wagner–Gould–Williams [9.14]

CD 2 Total timings: [74.01]

PIANO LC15723

Signum Records Ltd, Suite 14, 21 Wadsworth Road, SIGCD388