Richard Wagner

* Rienzi: Ouverture
* Das Liebesverbot: Ouverture
* Eine Faust-Ouvertuere
* Symphony in E-Major
* Wesendonck-Lieder^

Marjana Lipovsjek (Soprano)^
Philadelphia Orchestra/Wolfgang Sawallisch

EMI CDC 556165-2 [DDD]

Summary for the busy executive: None.  Those who want the greatest
love-story ever shall suffer it all.  Else, not at all.

In the whole music litterature, I think nothing puzzels me as much as the
total imbalance of Wagners person and artistery.  His art belongs to the
finest an artist ever produced, and he could write long proto-Freudian
analysises on his operatic characters, nothing with help him to get any
right side on his private life.  Roger Donington cathes this very well in
his book "Wagners Ring and its Symbols" (1963).  He writes:

   "Wagners artistic judgementwas as sure, as his personal judgement
   was erratic.  Such confusion between inner and outer reality occurs
   to all of us, but too much of leads to the borders of insanity or
   beyond.  Not that Wagner was insane; but there were times when could
   hardly have tried his contemporaries more as he had been.  His
   megalomania was a burden to them and still more to himself; but there
   can be very little doubt that we owe to it Wagners ability to carry
   through so prodigious a feat of concentrated [artistic] insight and
   creativeness".

And this circumstance is not very difficult to prove valid.  Wagners
biography shows that he quoted against himself unendlessly, and his work
speak for themselves; Minimal distance to himself as person, large distance
to himself as artist.  Rossini or Puccini, to take other composers as
example, had great distance to themselves as persons and their were both
very social persons, they wrote great music also, with the limitation that
Rossini had not distance to his own art enough to compose anything good
else then Opera Buffa, and Puccini for the same reason was completely
unable to come up with anything else then very serious opera.

Distance.  When I read that Janos Solyom in his analysises of Beethovens
technique admits that the common saying that Beethoven had humour is true
and he has proved it, with finding that the Trombones in bar 666 of the
"Schicksalsinfonie" play a Tritone (=3D"The Devils Interval"), thats a
telling example of lack of distance to art.  Wagner had another approach
to artworks, as he expresses it in his writings, and he was fascinated with
the very witty thing that "Ein musikalischer Spass" and the last missed
tones, which could to many make the work seem completely flawed, written
by a pucko.  He also loved the Turkish March in the "Alle Menschen werden
Brueder" in the 9th symphony.  As artist Wagner actually could be poking a
lot of fun.  Speaking of musical insults: the antagonist, Brahms, who by
the way probably had no distance neither to himself as person nor artist,
made fun about Wagner in his speeches, and he never tried composing opera
himself and said that compsing light music was "the duty of Rossini and the
Italian clowns".  Symphony on the other hand was the true German artform,
adn this was the highest serious issue.  Wagner wrote his operamusic, which
he considered be the serious music, but he also composed symphonies.  He
composed them in his youth, but at many occasions he planned to write more
of them.  Wagner however stated (may one suspect with address J.Brahms)
that he found joy in the classicist symphony (opera was a romantic issue)
was it in Rossinis style, then that was also good musicmaking.  And he
migth have meant it, as one of the last pieces he conducted was his youths
work, the C-Major symphony (in Venezia).  But OTOH, he also raged when a
great philosopher claimed he found Rossini better than his future-music.

Lack of Distance.  Lets now have some fun over examples of Wagners neutoric
behaviour.  First, he can be quoted against himself in eterities, all these
examples taken from a circumstance where he wrote much and intense on the
topic:

   "Shakespeare is the truest image of the world" (CWT I 849; 09.03.1874)
   "An ignorant brute such as Shakespeare" (CWT II 442; 13.11.1879)
   (Eva later changed the pattern of 'ignorant brute' to 'great poet' etc)

   "Such rare genius as Frederick the Great" (CWT I 347: 26.01.1871)
   "I really detest Frederich the Great" (CWT II 377: 06.07.1879)

   "Goethe showed his great genius in the way he observed life"
     (CWT I 246: 16.06.1870)
   "Goethe played about with his genius as a blockhead"
     (CWT II 362: 07.06.1879)

Should I make the list of examples complete, there is not archievespace
enough.

Wagner also seemed completely incapable of convincingly expressing anything
but aggressitivetly on other composers (except for some dead masters like
Beethoven, Bach and Haendel). Some examples:

   Cursing Brahms: "He makes me feel sick" (CWT II 303: 03.02.1879)
   Cursing Chopin: "I hate this kind of modern richly decorated music
     for the piano" (CWT I 864: 31.10.1874)
   Cursing Saint-Saens: "Such a wretched musician" (CWT II 955: 05.06.1882)
   Cursing Schumann: "The brooding fool horrifies me with his crude
     vulgarity" (CWT I 909: 10.04.1875 & CWT II 753: 27.06.1881)
   Cursing Schubert: "Third rate" (CWT I 286: 18.09.1870)
   Cursing all: "Faust, Le prophete, les Hugenots, Bellini, Donizetti,
     Rossini, Verdi, they all make me feel sick". (CWT I 356: 12.02.1871)

With regard to his fellow human beings in general, Wagner is also, on the
whole more contra then pro.  On a principle he is contra everybody who is
not unreservedly pro-Wagner.  He challenges whatever and whoever crosses
his path, and directly opens fire.  Here are, picked from various sources,
some eyewithnesses reports on reasons that made him, not just irritated,
but raging of anger:

* Finding, in the late summer, that the mountains in Abetone were green and
bare, instead of having snow on their tops.  (11.08.1880)

* A bug flies around him when he is eating lunch, arousing his anger, and
making him insult the other people at the table for the rest of the dinner
session.  (18.08.1880)

* Summer guests.  "They are so fat, morose and malicious.  The spartan
habit of killing off the superfluos was indeed a very good thing" (CWT
I 1054: 11.06.1877)

* The Austrian Emperors uniform has too short sleeves.  (15.11.1881)

* The weather.  (26.07.1881)

* Military music.  "And my son shall one day march to that??" (CWT II 693:
16.02.1881)

* A jew saying to Wagner that his dog Russ is a good one, and adding that
he knew Wagner once had two dogs named Fips and Peps.  Wagner: "The damned
jews can sniff out everything" (04.10.1874)

* The sight of a bat.  (08.09.1871).  And upon getting pain in his foot the
next day, anger again: "It must have been a jew's pet-bat".

Some of those reasons to anger, and perhaps most so the last remark, are so
incredible that they take ones breath away.  As are the foolowing reports
(not haveing anger included) in Cosimas diary:

   "Richard tells me of a dog that was sold to an English master.  In
   Dover, the dog escaped and swam and then trotted back to his first
   owner in Aschaffenburg." (CWT II 551: 23.06.1880)

The dog swam? Across the channel? And then trotted 550 miles to
Aschaffenurg? If Wagner could believe this, then he could belive anything.
His dauther Eva attempted to make these lines illegible with inking over
them, and also the following, also from Cosimas diary:

   "Richard notes that little Fidi frequently keeps his mouth open, so
   he says to him: "It is wisdom to be aware of that Beethoven had
   composed much more if he had kept his mouth closed"".  (CWT II 597:
   09.09.1880)

One might understand Eva, who had seen her father make a fool of himself
too many times, at least wanted to offer the 20th century a better wiew.
But when he after meeting with Meyerbeer and Mendelsohn, could run around
screaming that "These stupid family makes everything to destroy and
sabotauge whatever I what to accomplish [...] May all jews burn to a
performance of 'Nathan der Weise'", of course the papers soon snapped
it up and found his personal background to being so obsessed with jewry.
There are a lot of charicatures of Wagner where he is illustrated with
the schablon looking of a jew.  He was teased for antijewry, looking,
megalomania, paranoia and homosexuality.  The latter is never completely
proven (as being a fact of actual sexual act), but Wagners conteporaries
percieved him as an active homosexual, even before the Ludwig II-period.
One thing showing that is that the papers even at a few occasions wrote
that straight (and then it must have been a very commom understanding),
like upon Wagners first arrival to Munich after Ludwigs invitation:
"Lolette has arrived!".  The background was that Ludwig I had had a
scandalous loveaffair with a dancer Lola Montez, and this likeness haunted
Wagner as long as Ludwig II lived.  As late as 1886, the papers were still
obsessed with it.  Here is the papers summary (1886):

  "The repetetive History of the Bavarian Kings"

   Part I. King Ludwig I (1786-1868)

   1. After a series of financial disasters, Lola Montez, the Irish dancer,
     arrives destitute in Bavaria.
   2. The King recieves Lola Montez in his Munich residence.
   3. She becomes the Kings favourite and showered with valuable presents.
   4. The King puts an imposing Munich house at her disposal.
   5. Lola Montez provokes the resentment of the cabinet, the press and the
     population.
   6. The King refuses to give her up.
   7. Ministers advocating the dancers banishment are dismissed.
   8. The King sends her passionate poems.
   9. The press satirizes their relationship.
   10. The King bestows a title on her; "Countess von Landsfeld".
   11. The people are so incensed at Lola Montez' priviligied position that
     the King fears an insurrection. She has to leave.
   12. Lola settles in Switzerland.
   13. The King consoles himself by building magnificent castles.
   14. 1848: The King abdicates.

    Part II. King Ludwig II (1845-1886)

   1. After a series of financial disasters, Richard Wagner, Saxon composer,
     arrives destitute in Bavaria.
   2. The King recieves Richard Wagner in his Munich residence.
   3. He becomes the Kings favourite and showered with valuable presents.
   4. The King puts an imposing Munich house at his disposal.
   5. Richard Wagner provokes the resentment of the cabinet, the press and the
     population.
   6. The King refuses to give him up.
   7. Ministers advocating the dancers banishment are dismissed.
   8. The King sends him passionate poems.
   9. The press satirizes their relationship.
   10. The King bestows a title on him; "The Maximilian Order for Arts and
     Sciences".
   11. The people are so incensed at Richard Wagners priviligied position that
   the King fears an insurrection. He has to leave.
   12. Wagner settles in Switzerland.
   13. The King consoles himself by building magnificent castles.
   14. 1886: The King abdicates.

But a person saying things like Wagner could do, and thereto in the very
physical appearence itself being hard to stand.  Mostly he talked, and
endlessly, and if he not got total attention, he could open his mouth and
just scream loud so all shocked turned the attention to him again, and he
talked again, all the time gesticulating frenetically.  If it hadn't been
for him being an outstanding artist, he could hardly had had anything to
await from anyone then just ridicule.  And Wagner knew it very well.  In
1878 he wrote: "I'm a sad mixture of Hamlet and Don Quixote".

- - - - -

Now lets make a jump to the music on this recording and the perforamnce,
and first the timeline circumstances of its becoming.

After having detested the capitalist society on a Bakhunian manner and
taken part of the revolt in Dresden, Wagner was banned from Germany.  He
escaped to Switzerland, marking his first Switzerland period, which should
last in about 12 years.  In Zuerich he soon was appointed conductor of the
local orchestra, which he started using his constructive energy to improve,
programming as well Beethoven as Romantic works he liked.  These days the
rich merchant Otto Wesendonck returned from America to his homeland with
his wife, Mathilde.  They lived in Hotel Baur du Lac util finding a house
for themselves.  They liked music (And Otto was, although not a practicing
musician, very musically talented), and often went to concerts.  At such an
occasion they and Wagner met.  Wagner liked the kind, wellsuited gentleman,
and his wife with the Romantically beautiful looking, too.  As Wagner still
liked to teach, and Mathilde wanted to learn, he gave her lessons in
harmony and counterpoint.  Her husband also had to take some songlessons.
Herr Wagner needed movement and company in his life, and his often unwaited
visits in the large empty hotel, brought him colour to his grey days.  He
read his "Drei Operndichtungen" for her, then the political writings, his
latest essays, played Beethoven sonatas and fragements of the works he
repeated with the Musikgesellschafts orchestra, and he gave her one of the
30 printed copies of the text to Niebelungen.  They discussed music, and
philosophy.

Otto Wesendonck had much work as representant for the great New York firm,
and was often traveling, and he thought that if Mathilde liked Wagners
company so much, he was noble and unselfish loving enough to just want her
happiness, and when he bought a house, he looked for that the family Wagner
was inquartered on his land in a neighbouring house, and four unhappy
people now lived on "The hill of Happiness".  But luck should be found,
then the Wesendoncks were understanding people, was looked for that no
shadow should worry Wagner, whose whole life had been one long suffering
(although the suffering might just too often have fallen back on them).
Then there was no cowardy in the truthloving, honest, loving Mathilde.
She was instead horribly honest and never let the compassion allow
compromises, and much lesser weak then Richard.  Her female instinct had
a stength, which was not yet fully realized.  He had in 20 years done
nothing but calling death, but she sought for that this unhappy man found
his peace.  Wagner, who for long couldn't find any musical inspiration for
his great Niebelung work, put it on ice, and sat in his composing hut (The
Treibhaus), and started making sketches to his version of the Medieval
Lovetale "Tristan and Isolde".  He showed Mathilde his drafts, and they
read them together.  And Mathilde wrote five poems, which he immideately
set music to.  They didn't care about such shadows on the lifes canvas as
visits, socializing, friends.  Nothing could disturb their passionate
discussions.  "A Solemn Silence" imbedded the summer of 1857, during which
Wagner wrote his "Tristan"-libretto.

The poems of the "Wesendonck-Lieder" represent the lyrical thoughts,
expressed with plenaty of lively temperament of a poetess well versed in
Wagnerian vocabulary and prone to bouts of sentimantality.  Creating this
work was an eye-opener for Wagner, which he executed in full in the opera
"Tristan und Isolde" (which Ludwig II (though he had private reasons) has
hardly been alone in thinking it was Wagenrs masterwork above all), and
what made him find new ways of expression, without which his later works
hadn't been possible.  The connection with the opera is clear in the music
and the text as well.  Song Nr.3 "Im Treibhaus", a melancholy genre-picture
has much material of notes which Wagner quotes almost note-for-note in the
perlude to Act III, and "Taeume", Nr.5, is a preparatory study for the love
duet in act II.  The music is constructed rather freely, much more so then
his earlier songs.  Romantic song traditions are replaced with forms
designed wholly as veichles of expression.  This quality raises them high
above being studies.  "Der Engel" in G-Major, 4/4, con molto tranquillio,
evokes once more the essence of the mood of "Lohengrin", with its floating
harmonies and vibrated colour of sound.  "Stehe still!" in G-Minor, 6/8,
con moto, the restlessness music surfaces when agitated semiquavers runs
indicate the "humming, whirring wheels of time".  The influence of
Schopenhauer can be felt in the way activity is contrasted with stillness,
desire with desirelessness.  After a middle section, the music fades and
unfolds in a C-major which is slow and gradually increasing in impetus at
"Erkennt der Mensch des Ew'gen Spur/ Und loest dein Raetsel, heil'ge
Natur!".  "Im Treibhaus" in D-Minor, 6/8, slow and heavy, anticipates the
Prelude to act III of "Tristan und Isolde".  "Weit in sehnendem Verlangen/
Breitet ihr die Arme aus/ Und umschlinget wahnbefangen/ Oeder Leere
nicht'gen Graus".  In the opera the parallell minor mood refers to the sea
that separates the two lovers, here it lies like an oppressive load on an
otherwise simple and sentimantal picture of the tropical plants bein locked
up in a greenhouse.=

The fourth song "Schmerzen" also owes much to the essence of the concept
of the opera as image, with the same painful mood created by the piercing
dissonance of the major seventh interval.  At the end, it changes from
C-Minor to C-Major, which is the neutral key that in "Sehe still"
represented the state of non-activity.  "Traeume" in Ab-Major, 3/4,
moderately but not dragging, we not find only melodic elements and textual
liknesses from the lovescene in act II, but also the throbbing repeated
quaver chords, the harmonic changes and the pianissimo calm.  It is
actually as much Tristan-Music as "Tristan und Isolde" is itself.  At
"Sanft an deiner Brust vergluhen/ Und dann sinken in die Gruft", we have
the utter expression of the Romantic trinity of love, night and death.

 [For reference to the Wesendonck texts including with English translation,
see: http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/merge.cgi?287]

I bought this disc as I many times prefer the Wesendoncklieder to "Tristan
und Isolde" in the way that having experienced how emotionally stong this
opera actually can be, in old recordings like those perfect ones with Max
Lorenz as outstanding Tristan, carrying that fine true Tristan-tradition
of Ludwig Schorr von Carolsfeld of Wagners lifetime to its highest peak
of performance, before perforance practice went too modern for my taste.
Now should I listen too often to such music, I guess I would eventually
actually go mad, but the Wesendoncklieder allows me to listen every day
with greatest joy, staying on the Earth.  The work the Wesendoncklieder,
also is interesting as they are unique in the way that they are the only
example (except one youth-work) of Wagner setting music to texts he had not
written himself, and also in music that was of so great importance to him,
and then also building parts of his "Tristan und Isolde" upon it.  That is
for me the evidence of the great harmony and understanding that must have
existed between Wagner and Mathilde Wesendonck, and that he loved her as
much as he was capable of loving another human being.  That should also
explain why he moved away to Venezia (note the act a rarely good insight
by Wagner), when he should compose the music to the opera....

The perfomances on this disc are very beutiful.  The early orchestral
ouvertures comes out with flash, with marked dotted rythm and fresh
in spirit.  The contrasting Faust-Ouvertuere given perhaps too little
attention to the resting-points.  In the Symphony in E the hopes and
longings of a young artist can be clearly senced, as the playing is
vivid and energic, yet with sensualism in the melodies more then
distinctive markings, and most curiously a treatment of short notes
which has something of HIP over it.  Marjana Lipovsjek sings the Lieder
passionate and romantic, with a warm timbre, and catches well the different
moods which turn in the caleidoscope, doing perhaps absolutely best in the
last song.  The Philadelphia Orchestra is in good form, play securely and
allow all aspects of the music come out.  Their strings sound warm and
thick, and their brass is heavy, what is always good for Wagner.  Wolfgang
Sawallisch has a firm grip on the scores, and makes with the music
seemingly exactly what he wants it to.  I guess some might feel inclined to
comment on his choices of outer tempi, but his inner tempi are relatively
flexible, making it sound Wagnerian enough for me to be very satisfied
actually.

- - - - -

My very long introduction to this review, I now want to tie back to and
justify, after we have "listened" to the recording, as it is an attempt
to come to understand Wagner better.  It seems to me that Wagners music
is so emotionally strong and direct, as was his way of being himself
expressed so frank and extremely audacity, the qualities and defects
exhibithed without concealment, acted upon few people like a great charm,
but many were very repelled by it.  It seems to me that those who found
his music too strong found expression for their dislike with denouncing
his flawed charater in moral terms with words like "disguisting", "vulgar",
"excessive", "self-indulgent" and "sick" - and those who couldn't accept
him as person denounced his music with the same vocabulry, both actually
telling Wagner both about a great obsession with his artistery as
phenomeon, and that he had no love for his person to find.  Living in 19th
century, before the time of the recording medium, many people had heard
about him and his idiosyncracies, thereby having differnet bias about him,
but when they came to the concert hall, Wagner was an artist gigantic
enough to entspellen his sympathants, melt the most, and even imaginarily
"buy" his most ardent haters to admit their adoration for his magically
powerful music.  But all the time he sought to be loved for the clown that
was inside the clothes of the divine artist, and seemingly only once he
found it.  Not in Minna who showed her disappontment every second day with
him not using his great artistic talent to achieve a high position in the
society for them.  Not in Cosima who in blindness for his artistic
supremancy hailed his shortcomings (just read her diary!) as being part of
just that.  Not in Judith Gautier who, when she abandoned her family and
went to Bayreuth, claimed openly she did it only to be mentioned in Wagners
biography.  In noone.  But Mathilde Wesendonck.

The time of his friendship with Mathilde, also reveals she locked out the
kind heart Wagner actually had, not just infor her, but also showing other
people a kindness which could as in the following example be so cute so one
simply must capitulate infor it.  Here is a part of a letter Wagner wrote
a child from this period (dated 1859):

   "My dear little Myrrha. You have sent me a truly wonderful letter.
   I wish I could write so beautifully, but I fear I am too old for
   that. Yes, I too wept with you your dear little brother Guido who
   died last year. When you visit him and give him flowers, give him my
   love. I am very pleased that your youngest brother Karl is growing
   so well. Don't worry if he doesn't have Guidos face. Just take him
   for Guido all the same. You see, when it comes to really important
   things like laughing or crying, one face is as good as another...".

If you don't want to judge Wagner from a thing like this, which is one of
many in his biography, you have a lot of other judgements to confess to.
Some examples again of Wagner being inresisting driving people mad:

  "He [Wagner] is the greatest artist of all times" - Richard Strauss

  "Is Wagner human at all? Is he not rather a disease? Whatever he
  touches, he infects".  - Friederich Nietzsche, 1888

  "Wagner awakens the swine rather the angel. It is the music of a
  demented eunuch". - "Le Figaro", 1876

  "After hearing 'Lohengrin', I had a splitting headache and dreamt all
  NIght about a stupid ...goose!" - Mili Balakriev, 1868

  "I'm a sad mixture of Hamlet and Don Quixote". - Richard Wagner, 1878

You pick.  But when reading about Wagners last years in Venezia, and
when he seemed to be more irritative and mad then he ever was, rousing
to anger and opening fire for anything, it is very hard to believe this
stemmed from a feeling of not having accomplished as much as any artist
could most happily accomplish.  The Ring is certainly one of the greatest
artworks of all time, and most his other works belonging to the top of what
Western music can show, and accoplishing the Bayreuth miracle, hailed as
the greatest musiscian by most, he had actually won all battles and in has
lifetime had been showed more signs of admiration then most of artist.
He was actually "Richard der Einzige".  Wasn't then all this unhappiness
stemming from the fact that he so seldom was loved for the one he actually
was, and so seldom had a chance to give someone of all his love, the only
who could come in question those loved him for what was actually himself.
And not even not being loved, is so hard to stand as not love others.  Hinc
illae lacrimae.

Then I pick from this event:

   "When "Tristan und Isolde" was played as general repetition in Bayreuth
   1882, Wagner sat on a chair beside the stage (he was no longer regulary
   conducting due to heart problems), with his closed seemingly enjoying
   it immensely.  The rehersal went on unabrupted, until the soprano
   who sang Isolde sung right the passage whichs text was his version
   of Mathildes poem.  Then Wagner, interrupted it, with his eyes brimming
   of tears under great alarm rousing onto the stage and gave the soprano
   a big embrace, saying it was just absolutely wonderful".

 "So stuerben wir,
  um ungetrennt,
  ewig einig,
  ohne End',
  ohn Erwachen,
  ohn Erbangen,
  namenlos
  in Lieb umfangen,
  ganz und selbst gegeben,
  die Liebe nur zu sehen!"

 "I die for you
  and you for me,
  deathless to
  Infinity,
  without waking,
  without sighing,
  wondrously
  in Love undying,
  one on one depending
  our Love shall be Unending!"

  ("Tristan und Isolde": Akt II, Scen II)

Upon "absolutely wonderful" I actually don't think Wagner meant the
performance per se, not his own music either, but it was absolutely
wonderful for him to so beautifully remember upon the time in his life
which inheld the event of the friendship with his "magic muse" Mathilde
Wesendonck.  An event in which also the greatest artist ever, once got
one the chance to experience True Love.

Mats Norrman
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