This week's selection for The Gaggle Music Club is Richard Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder, WWV 91--song cycle consisting of five songs for voice and piano (later orchestrated by others, including Wagner himself, for two of the songs).

Composed in 1857-1858, the song cycle is based on poetry by Mathilde Wesendonck, a woman with whom Wagner had a close personal and emotional connection, and whose relationship with him significantly influenced his artistic output during this period.

Mathilde Wesendonck was the wife of Otto Wesendonck, a wealthy silk merchant who became a patron of Wagner's during his exile in Switzerland. The Wesendoncks provided Wagner with financial and emotional support.
Wagner and Mathilde developed an intense relationship—believed to be platonic but certainly deeply romantic. This relationship inspired the creation of the Wesendonck Lieder and parts of Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde.

Mathilde's poems reflect themes of love, longing and transcendence, issues that of course preoccupied Wagner throughout his life, and inspired much of his creative musical output.

Wagner wrote these songs while working on Tristan und Isolde. The harmonic language and emotional intensity of the Wesendonck Lieder reflect Wagner’s experiments with the chromaticism and leitmotifs that he later employed in the opera. Wagner explicitly referred to the third and fifth songs (“Im Treibhaus” and “Träume”) as "studies" for Tristan.

Although initially composed for piano and voice, the cycle has been orchestrated by several composers, including Felix Mottl and Hans Werner Henze. Wagner himself orchestrated “Träume” for a chamber ensemble to celebrate Mathilde's birthday.

The first song, "Der Engel" (The Angel), describes the solace and salvation offered by an angel, symbolizing spiritual purity and transcendence. The second song, "Stehe still!" (Stand Still!), contemplates the idea of stopping time and space to grasp the infinite moment and the deeper truths of existence.

The third song, "Im Treibhaus" (In the Greenhouse), evokes the imagery of a greenhouse’s artificial, stifling atmosphere to explore feelings of isolation, longing and existential despair. The fourth song, "Schmerzen" (Sorrows), reflects on the interplay between suffering and renewal, using the natural cycle of the sun setting and rising as a metaphor for human resilience and transformation. The fifth song, "Träume" (Dreams), captures the ephemeral beauty of love and the transcendence of human desire, framing dreams as a doorway to the eternal.

The Wesendonck Lieder constitute Wagner’s most personal vocal music, providing insight into his emotional world during his relationship with Mathilde. They serve as a bridge between Wagner’s earlier Romantic operas and his later revolutionary music dramas.

While initially overshadowed by Wagner’s magisterial operatic works, the Wesendonck Lieder have become a staple of the art song repertoire, frequently performed in both its original and orchestrated forms.

Anne Sofie von Otter, mezzo-soprano, performs, and Marc Minkowski conducts the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse.