Wagner, Siegfried Idyll

If you wake up on Christmas morning in a Swiss villa with an orchestra at the foot of the staircase playing Siegfried Idyll, you’ll have something in common with Cosima Wagner. She had that experience in 1870. Richard composed the work as a little Christmas present and to commemorate the recent birth of their son. The soap-opera phase of Richard and Cosima (daughter of Franz Liszt) was over, and this marriage would last until Wagner’s death in 1883.

The villa known as Tribschen is now a Wagner museum. You can’t get the full effect from this photo looking at Mount Pilatus in the background because you miss the effect of seeing Lake Lucerne lapping at the grounds behind you. You could find worse places to live, and of course it helps to have King Ludwig II pay the bills. Wagner would move the next year to Bayreuth, the site of his new opera house. Lots of people have villas in Switzerland, but how many people have their own opera house?

Everything about Wagner happened on a grand scale, and Wagner’s music is no exception. Wagner controlled everything, writing his own libretti (almost unheard of), and having an opera house built to his specifications. His operas require large orchestras and large blocks of time. The themes are epic.

Siegfried Idyll is the exception. Wagner originally titled it Tribschen Idyll and scored it for just 13 instruments. He intended to keep it private but published it later in 1877 re-orchestrated for 35 instruments. It is now the only instrumental work of Wagner that is regularly performed. The video here goes back to the original version for 13 players.

The original video has been replaced with a different performance.