New Millennium Strings
Home | Concerts | Musicians | Rehearsals | Supporters | Board | Contact Us
Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Siegfried Idyll
Wagner was one of the most influential opera composers of the 19th century. As brilliant a musical genius as Wagner was, his character as a man was flawed. While his wife was ailing, Wagner began an affair with Cosima, wife of Hans von Bülow and daughter of Franz Liszt and Marie d'Agoult. Following the birth of Richard and Cosima's son Siegfried in 1869, Cosima divorced Hans von Bülow. After much public scandal, she and Wagner married in August of 1870.
Cosima was Wagner's guide, operatic sounding board, and she provided protection for his musical genius. Although he was a conflicted, egocentric narcissist, his collaborators overlooked his misguided and paranoic thinking in order to work with his musical genius.
In 1870 plans were drawn for the construction of a festival theater in Bayreuth. On Christmas Day, Cosima's birthday, Siegfried Idyll was first performed on the steps of the new theater at Triebschen. It is a work written for chamber orchestra that demonstrates great emotional depth and color. In this piece Wagner returns to a "diatonic, triadic, and clear harmonic palette."
-- program notes by Laurien Jones