Richard Wagner: Song Cycle Wesendonck Lieder
During his years of exile in Zurich, Wagner – having abandoned his work on ‘Siegfried’ – wrote five songs with piano accompaniment to poems by Mathilde Wesendonck (1857-1858). The writing of these five songs happened at the same time as the composition of the opera ‘Tristan and Isolde’ took place, and the song cycle can be regarded as a preliminary study for the opera. As Hungarian music historian Antal Molnár put it, these songs “are as similar to the musical drama as a sketch is to a colourful fresco painting.” Wagner saw not only an intelligent and talented woman in his generous patron Otto Wesendonck’s wife but also a flesh-and-blood and sensual woman, whom he called his “first and last love” and “the crown of his life”. In his passionate letters about his feelings, he referred to her as “the soul of my soul”, “the guardian angel of my peace” and “my heaven, my Saviour”. Wagner wrote to Mathilde Wesendonck about the song ‘Schmerzen’ as follows: “It is more beautiful than anything I have ever composed. I tremble with thrill when I listen to it.”
Franz Liszt: Faust Symphony
I. Faust
II. Gretchen
III. Mephistopheles
“It is dangerous for me to deal with anything related to Goethe,” Franz Liszt wrote to Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein. Behind this often-quoted sentence by Franz Liszt lies an apology in connection with works inspired by Goethe from Schubert’s to Berlioz’s compositions. And, of course, in the background one may also find Weimar of the 1850s: Goethe’s home, the ‘German Athens.’ Liszt is expected – explicitly or implicitly – to make this town the centre of the German spirit once again. To fulfil this crushing burden, and precisely with Faust – well, that certainly constitutes a truly tempting fate. When Liszt finally made a decision, he completed the score of the piece at an unusual speed. It is clear that he realized a bold concept that had been maturing in him for many years. In fact, he did not attempt to depict Goethe’s drama, and there are no direct references in the musical piece to the plot. Liszt constructed the musical work around three character sketches, i.e. three musical portraits, and thereby created a kind of triptych with mirror images in the composition’s two ‘side wings.’
Many consider Liszt’s two epoch-making masterpieces ‘Sonata in B Minor’ (1853) and ‘Faust Symphony’ (1854) to be twin compositions: the reasons for this may partly be the sonata’s presumed Faustian theme and partly the incredibly concentrated structure of the two monumental pieces. Some interpreted the sonata as a self-portrait and attributed the extreme contrasts in the work to Liszt’s inner conflicts. And what else could this radically original interpretation of Goethe’s work entitled ‘Faust Symphony’ be if not a musical drama of the individual’s struggle with himself, in which Mephistopheles is no other than a distorted caricature of Faust?
Wagner and Liszt
NOV 25., 19:30
Müpa
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