Classical Music | Soprano

Recorded on 08/11/2011, uploaded on 09/26/2011

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

With the help of Giacomo Meyerbeer, Rienzi was staged in Dresden in 1842 and Richard Wagner made a triumphal return to his German fatherland. In the succeeding years, two more operas were staged: Der fliegende Holländer and Tannhäuser. However, Wagner’s associations with radical socialists in Dresden eventually caused him to have to abandon the city. In the aftermath of the failed May Uprising, arrest warrants were issued for the rebels. Though Wagner had only played a minor role, he was forced to flee the city or be arrested. He traveled first to Paris, but ultimately made his way to Zurich. Eventually, he and his wife took up residence in a small cottage on the estate of Otto and Mathilde Wesendonck in 1857.

Safely away from those who would throw him in jail, and furthermore, his creditors, Wagner’s time with the Wesendonck’s became a critically important period for the composer. Mathilde was a poet and her poetry, if not her very self, became a source of inspiration for the composer. The extent of his friendship with Mathilde may never be known, and it is not impossible that the two may have carried on an affair, but either way her poetry served, in part, as a crucial element in the development of Wagner’s most revolutionary opera. From 1857 until 1860, Wagner worked intensely on Tristan und Isolde. During this time, he also set five of Mathilde’s poems to music, two of which he specifically designated as “studies” for the opera.

Second of the five songs, “Stehe still!” (“Be still!”), is a musing on the endless and unstoppable march of time. The poet cries out against its ceaseless progression and the never-ending toils it encompasses but finds solace from and understanding of it all in the union of two kindred hearts. Wagner’s setting, beginning in the key of C minor, adopts a repetitive accompaniment, reminiscent of Franz Schubert’s Gretchen am Spinnrade, to depict the labors and passage of time. However, as the song unfolds, the listener witnesses the meeting and union of two hearts as the piano accompaniment progresses from its initial agitated state to sustained, resonate chords. Likewise, the key progresses from C minor into an ethereal C major as the hearts unite in eternity. Even the vocal melody abandons its frantic intonations for a serene declamation during the final stanza.        Joseph DuBose

The Steans Music Institute is the Ravinia Festival's professional studies program for young musicians.