Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde
Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
The Philharmonic last performed the Prelude and Liebestod on January 10, 2004 with Guest Conductor Alastair Willis conducting. This work is scored for piccolo, 3 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, harp and strings.
The eternal story of lovers who can never be united — except in death. That is the theme of the two greatest love tragedies of the Western World: Romeo and Juliet and Tristan and Isolde. Wagner conceived the idea of an operatic Tristan and Isolde in 1854 under the influence of readings from Schopenhauer and his own love for a woman, Mathilde Wesendonk. Wagner had completed Die Walküre for The Ring cycle in 1856, and by the end of that year he was working on the libretto to Tristan. The following August, the composer broke off work on The Ring entirely to devote himself to composing Tristan. Exactly three years later, work was completed on what may be the most consummate realization of Wagner’s ideal “music drama” and possibly the greatest of his operas.
The famous opening of the Prelude to Tristan and Isolde interlocks two of the opera’s most important melodies. This leads to a long build in the music that drives relentlessly to the Prelude’s sensuous climactic moment. In a program note written in 1860, Wagner writes of the
. . . longing, longing, insatiable longing, forever springing up anew, pining and thirsting. . . . In one extended succession of linked phrases . . . that insatiable longing swells from the first, timid avowal . . . through anxious sighs, hopes and fears, bliss and torment . . . into the seas of lovers’ endless delight. But in vain!
In the final scene of Tristan and Isolde, Tristan dies in Isolde’s arms. Now in a shocked trance, she sings her final soliloquy. Though filled with emotion, the orchestral music to this scene projects a strange, consoling sweetness rather than dark tragedy. At last, Isolde joins Tristan in the only way possible, as Wagner wrote:
Death, which means passing away, perishing, never awakening, their only deliverance. . . . Shall we call this realm Death? Or is it not rather the wonder- world of Night, from which, as legend tells, the ivy and the vine grew from the graves of Tristan and Isolde to entwine in inseparable embrace?
Songs of a Wayfarer
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
It was a 24-year-old Mahler who completed his first song cycle for voice and piano, based on his own poetry. Little known at the time as an opera conductor in Kassel, Germany, he was completely unknown as a fledgling composer. The unhappy end of a love affair with one of the sopranos at Kassel inspired him to write a series of six love poems from which he drew the four texts of his Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer) song cycle. Literally translated, Mahler’s title actually reads “Songs of a Wayfaring Journeyman” — which is he himself, of course, full of youthful passions. The poems were not entirely original. Since his childhood, he had been fascinated with a popular book of collected folk poetry, Armin and Brentano’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn (From the Youth’s Magic Horn). The first and third poems in Mahler’s song cycle borrow heavily and unabashedly from poems in that collection. Yet there is a freshness about Mahler’s work, which blends music and poetry into an inseparable unity. (The composer went on to compose a song cycle based strictly on the folk poetry of Des Knaben Wunderhorn.)
By 1896, Mahler’s reputation as a composer had grown, and in that year he had an opportunity to present an orchestral concert of his own music. For the occasion, he orchestrated the piano part of Songs of a Wayfarer, and premiered the set on the concert. In that form, we hear these bittersweet songs today.
I. “When My Sweetheart Has Her Wedding Day”: The poem examines the paradox between the bright joy of the wedding and the darkness of the poet’s despair at losing his beloved.
When my darling has her wedding day, her joyous wedding day, I will have my day of mourning! I will go to my little room, my dark little room, and weep, weep for my darling, for my dear darling! Blue flower! Do not wither! Sweet little bird you sing on the green heath! Alas, how can the world be so fair? Chirp! Chirp! Do not sing; do not bloom! Spring is over. All singing must now be done. At night when I go to sleep, I think of my sorrow, of my sorrow!
II. “I Walked across the Fields This Morning”: The poet becomes rhapsodic over the beauty of nature. However, he asks if he can ever again be happy, and the answer is no.
I walked across the fields this morning; dew still hung on every blade of grass.
The merry finch spoke to me: "Hey! Isn't it? Good morning! Isn't it? You! Isn't it becoming a fine world? Chirp! Chirp! Fair and sharp! How the world delights me!" Also, the bluebells in the field merrily with good spirits tolled out to me with bells(ding, ding) their morning greeting: "Isn't it becoming a fine world?
Ding, ding! Fair thing! How the world delights me!" And then, in the sunshine, the world suddenly began to glitter; everything gained sound and color in the sunshine! Flower and bird, great and small! "Good day, Is it not a fine world?
Hey, isn't it? A fair world?" Now will my happiness also begin? No, no — the happiness I mean can never bloom!
III. “I have a red-hot knife”: In this, the most intense episode in the entire work, the poet likens his sorrow to a burning knife piercing his heart. He obsesses so much over his lost love that he actually wishes he had the knife.
I have a red-hot knife, a knife in my breast. O woe! It cuts so deeply into every joy and delight. Alas, what an evil guest it is! Never does it rest, never does it relax, not by day, not by night, when I would sleep. O woe! When I gaze up into the sky, I see two blue eyes there. O woe! When I walk in the yellow field, I see from afar her blond hair waving in the wind. O woe! When I start from a dream and hear the tinkle of her silvery laugh, O woe! I wish I could lay down on my black bier — Would that my eyes never open again!
IV. “The Two Blue Eyes of My Beloved”: At the end of his travels, the young poet finally finds some rest under a linden tree. He is not healed, but he is resolved to go on. As a romantic culmination, he declares, “All! All, love and sorrow and world and dream!”
The two blue eyes of my beloved they sent me into the wide world. I had to take my leave of this most-beloved place! O blue eyes, why did you gaze on me? Now I have eternal sorrow and grief. I went out into the quiet night well across the dark heath. To me no one bade farewell. Farewell! My companions are love and sorrow! By the road stood a linden tree, Where, for the first time, I found rest in sleep! Under the linden tree that snowed its blossoms over me, I did not know how life went on, and all was well again! All! All, love and sorrow and world and dream!
Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56 (“Scottish”)
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
The Philharmonic has performed this symphony once before on October 24, 1964 with founding Music Director Francis Madeira on the podium. The symphony is scored for 2 each of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.
On July 30, 1829 Mendelssohn wrote to his parents from Edinburgh:
In the twilight today we went to the [Holyrood] Palace where Queen Mary [Stuart] lived and loved. There is a little room to be seen there with a spiral staircase at its door. . . . The chapel beside it has now lost its roof. It is overgrown with grass and ivy, and at the broken altar, Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland. Everything is ruined, decayed, and open to the sky. I believe I have found there the beginning of my Scottish Symphony.
True to his word, that day Mendelssohn wrote down the melody that begins the “Scottish” Symphony. During that summer holiday in Scotland, Mendelssohn also made many drawings, which, together with his mental images, would be an aid when he finally completed his symphony. The composer had intended to write it soon after leaving England, and he worked on it some during his Italian journey the following year. The beauty and gaiety of Italy, however, were far more conducive to writing an “Italian” Symphony, which is just what he did. The more somber “Scottish” had to wait until January 1842 for its completion. That year, Mendelssohn premiered the work in the Gewandhaus of Leipzig and then took it to London, where the performance aroused such enthusiasm that Queen Victoria permitted Mendelssohn to dedicate it to her personally.
Mendelssohn, the musical landscape artist, opens his “Scottish” Symphony with a vivid sketch of the misty moors: the Andante introduction. Here, he presents the melody that had originated in Scotland. This becomes the basis for most themes in the remainder of the symphony, and Mendelssohn emphasizes this unity by eliminating breaks between movements. The agitated main body of the first movement further depicts the atmosphere of Scotland with special emphasis on its stormy weather. The introductory material returns at the end to provide a contrasting transition to the next movement.
The second movement is probably the most Scottish-sounding part of the work. Its simple main theme is reminiscent of bagpipe tunes. Each phrase even ends in the characteristic short-long rhythm known as the “Scotch snap.”
The Adagio is built on two ideas: a broad, flowing melody heard at the beginning in the violins, and somber, ominous chords from the wind instruments. Mendelssohn may have been musically painting the Scottish landscape he had seen on his early journey, which he described as “stern and robust, half wrapped in haze or smoke or fog.”
Mendelssohn originally marked the finale Allegro guerriero (fast and warlike), suggesting that he had in mind a picture of Highland clans locked in battle. Again, the short-long rhythm predominates, but here it has a militant, stamping character — more dance or action than song. At the end comes a solemn, hymn-like passage, which Mendelssohn wanted to sound like “a male voice choir,” building to a triumphant apotheosis of the entire symphony.
