Siegfried Idyll

23 Season 2012-2013 Thursday, January 24, at 8:00 Friday, January 25, at 2:00 The Philadelphia Orchestra Yannick Nézet-Séguin Conductor Wagner Siegfried Idyll Intermission Bruckner Symphony No. 7 in E major I. Allegro moderato II. Adagio: Sehr feierlich und sehr langsam— Moderato—Tempo I—Moderato—Tempo I III. Scherzo: Sehr schnell—Trio: Etwas langsamer—Scherzo da capo IV. Finale: Bewegt, doch nicht schnell This program runs approximately 1 hour, 50 minutes. 3 Story Title 25 The Philadelphia Orchestra Jessica Griffin Renowned for its distinctive vivid world of opera and Orchestra boasts a new sound, beloved for its choral music. partnership with the keen ability to capture the National Centre for the Philadelphia is home and hearts and imaginations Performing Arts in Beijing. the Orchestra nurtures of audiences, and admired The Orchestra annually an important relationship for an unrivaled legacy of performs at Carnegie Hall not only with patrons who “firsts” in music-making, and the Kennedy Center support the main season The Philadelphia Orchestra while also enjoying a at the Kimmel Center for is one of the preeminent three-week residency in the Performing Arts but orchestras in the world. Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and also those who enjoy the a strong partnership with The Philadelphia Orchestra’s other area the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Orchestra has cultivated performances at the Mann Festival. an extraordinary history of Center, Penn’s Landing, artistic leaders in its 112 and other venues. The The ensemble maintains seasons, including music Philadelphia Orchestra an important Philadelphia directors Fritz Scheel, Carl Association also continues tradition of presenting Pohlig, Leopold Stokowski, to own the Academy of educational programs for Eugene Ormandy, Riccardo Music—a National Historic students of all ages. Today Muti, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Landmark—as it has since the Orchestra executes a and Christoph Eschenbach, 1957. myriad of education and and Charles Dutoit, who community partnership Through concerts, served as chief conductor programs serving nearly tours, residencies, from 2008 to 2012. With 50,000 annually, including presentations, and the 2012-13 season, its Neighborhood Concert recordings, the Orchestra Yannick Nézet-Séguin Series, Sound All Around is a global ambassador becomes the eighth music and Family Concerts, and for Philadelphia and for director of The Philadelphia eZseatU. the United States. Having Orchestra. Named music been the first American For more information on director designate in 2010, orchestra to perform in The Philadelphia Orchestra, Nézet-Séguin brings a China, in 1973 at the please visit www.philorch.org. vision that extends beyond request of President Nixon, symphonic music into the today The Philadelphia 27 Framing the Program Richard Wagner wrote the Siegfried Idyll as a birthday gift Parallel Events for his new wife, Cosima (who was Franz Liszt’s daughter), 1870 Music and on Christmas morning 1870 conducted a chamber Wagner Tchaikovsky ensemble version of the piece on the staircase of their Siegfried Idyll Romeo and house. “Suddenly I heard music, and what music!” Cosima Juliet noted in her diary. “When it had died away, Richard came Literature in with the five children and gave me the score of his Verne symphonic birthday composition.” Named for their first Twenty son, Siegfried, Wagner weaved into the work quotations Thousand Ring of the Nibelung, Leagues Under from his monumental which he was the Sea composing at the time. Art Anton Bruckner revered Wagner above all other Corot composers and was deeply influenced by his operas. La Perle Both the reverence and the influence are apparent in History his magnificent Seventh Symphony, which prominently First Vatican features four so-called Wagner tubas—a brass instrument Council that is a cross between a French horn and a tuba. Wagner 1882 Music died while the Symphony was being composed and Bruckner R. Strauss Bruckner added a lamenting chorale intoned by the brass Symphony Horn Concerto as a coda to the Adagio: “In memory of the immortal and No. 7 No. 1 dearly beloved Master who has departed this life.” Literature Stevenson Treasure Island Art Cézanne Self-Portrait History World Exhibition in Moscow 28 The Music Siegfried Idyll “Our first Christmas Eve,” wrote Cosima Wagner in her diary in 1870, “and I have given nothing to Richard and had nothing from him.” What Cosima hadn’t known was that for several weeks her husband worked in secret on a splendid new composition to “thank” his new wife for the birth of their first son, Siegfried. Wagner had rehearsed the piece with a little orchestra of 15 musicians in private, and on Christmas Day he placed them on the steps of their living room and played the “world premiere,” as it were, of the Siegfried Idyll. “Suddenly I heard music, and Richard Wagner what music!” Cosima wrote. “When it had died away, Born in Leipzig, May 22, Richard came in with the five children and gave me the 1813 score of his symphonic birthday composition.” Everyone Died in Venice, February 13, wept. After breakfast the chamber orchestra (which 1883 included the great conductor Hans Richter playing the trumpet) reassembled and played the piece a second time, then a third. A 19th-Century Soap Opera This emotional moment was a long time in coming. After years of somewhat undisciplined romantic philandering, Wagner had finally found the woman of his life’s dreams. Unfortunately, like Mathilde Wesendonk before her, Cosima von Bülow was the wife of another man—in this case of the prominent conductor Hans von Bülow, who among other things had led the premiere of Wagner’s opera Die Meistersinger in 1868. (She was also the daughter of one of Wagner’s closest friends, Franz Liszt.) Winning her hand was not simple—in fact it was downright messy. Cosima had already borne the composer two daughters, Isolde and Eva, and when she became pregnant with Siegfried she finally decided to leave Bülow. (Wagner’s first wife, Minna, died in Dresden in 1866.) Cosima moved into Tribschen, the composer’s lovely Swiss villa, in late 1868, and their son Siegfried was born in June 1869. On August 25, 1870, the couple married, and in November Wagner—in the midst of composing Götterdämmerung—wrote out the score to the Idyll in a swift, single gesture, completing it on December 4. “Tribschen Idyll with Fidi-Birdsong and Orange Sunrise,” he inscribed the score, “presented as a symphonic birthday greeting to his Cosima by her Richard, 1870.” 29 Wagner composed the Cosima’s birthday was December 24. “Fidi” was the Siegfried Idyll in 1870. couple’s nickname for little Siegfried, and his “birdsong” Fritz Scheel presented the is the trumpet-call heard toward the end of the piece, first Philadelphia Orchestra which Richter rendered with gusto. The “orange sunrise” performances of the piece, in is apparently an allusion to the curious play of light on November 1904. Most recently the wallpaper on the day Cosima gave birth to Siegfried, it was conducted by Wolfgang a memory of silent rapture (“the beautiful, fiery glow,” Sawallisch here, in February Cosima wrote) as the couple shared the bliss of love 1995. fulfilled. The scored calls for flute, oboe, Wagner said that he could have described every note of two clarinets, bassoon, two the Idyll programmatically. If there was indeed a “story” horns, trumpet, and strings. here, however, the composer never put it to paper—though Performance time is he did later inscribe the score with a flowery poem of his approximately 18 minutes. own authorship, a dedication to Cosima that was printed in the first edition: It was your will, noble and sacrificing, that found the proper meaning for my work, consecrated by you into an enraptured quietude, which grew and gave us strength; the world of heroes, was now magically turned to idyll, ancient scenes of a distant homeland— and there a joyous call broke out from my song: “A son is there!” he who must be called Siegfried. For him and you I now raise up this music in thanks. What nobler form could gratitude for love-deeds take? In our private chambers, we fostered it: this quiet joy that now takes the form of music. What proves true for us, this unwavering rapture, is also true for our son, noble Siegfried; with your grace, all these things are now fulfilled, as we silently enjoy this musical joy. A Closer Look Bits of motifs from the Ring of the Nibelung are woven seamlessly into the texture of the Idyll, as well as the melody of a cradle-song Wagner had composed on New Year’s Eve 1868, “Schlaf, Kindchen, schlafe.” The latter is heard prominently a few minutes into the piece, played by solo oboe. Wagner’s “chamber” performance of the Idyll had been dictated, quite simply, by the width of the staircase at Tribschen; in subsequent years the composer performed the work with full orchestra. Throughout his life it remained for him a favorite among his own works. —Paul J. Horsley 30 The Music Symphony No. 7 The celebrated violinist Fritz Kreisler, who at a young age briefly studied with Anton Bruckner in Vienna, remarked that he was a “combination of genius and simpleton. He had two coordinates—music and religion. Beyond that he knew almost nothing.” Such a familiar image of Bruckner has proved difficult to move beyond because this most unglamorous of Romantic composers did indeed lead an unassuming life devoted principally to God and music, passions that he combined in astounding ways in his towering Masses and magnificent symphonies. Anton Bruckner Born in Ansfelden, Austria, Posterity desires to know about the lives of great September 4, 1824 composers because of the fruits of their creativity, even if Died in Vienna, October 11, the creators themselves did not do much else of interest.

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