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Schoenberg - Pelleas & Melisande / Wagner - Siegfried Idyll | Brilliant Classics 9102

Schoenberg - Pelleas & Melisande / Wagner - Siegfried Idyll

New Item

Label: Brilliant Classics

Cat No: 9102

Barcode: 5029365910224

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Orchestral

Release Date: 23rd November 2009

This product has now been deleted. Information is for reference only.

Contents

Artists

Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin

Conductor

Christian Thielemann

Works

Schoenberg, Arnold

Pelleas und Melisande, op.5

Wagner, Richard

Siegfried Idyll, WWV103

Artists

Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin

Conductor

Christian Thielemann

About

The catalyst for Schoenberg’s early symphonic poem based on Maurice Maeterlinck’s play ‘Pelleas et Melisande’ was provided by Richard Strauss. Strauss had provided encouragement and support for the young composer during his time in Berlin from 1901–3. Schoenberg was unaware that Debussy had recently completed his operatic masterpiece based on the same subject, and was certainly oblivious to the incidental music by Sibelius to the play written at the same time.

Indebted to Wagner and, indeed, Strauss, the composer commented ‘apart from a mere handful of omissions and minor changes to the order of the scenes, I attempted to reproduce every detail in music. The three main characters are reflected by three themes in the manner of Wagnerian leitmotifs’. Completed in 1903, ‘Pelleas und Melisande’ represents the crowning glory of Schoenberg’s early period, and a turning point in his creative life.

When I woke up I heard a sound, it grew louder, I could no longer imagine myself in a dream, music was sounding, and what music! After it died away, R came in with the five children and put in to my hands the score of his ‘Symphonic Birthday Greeting’ - Cosima Wagner writing in her diary on Christmas day 1870. Although
Siegfried Idyll’ is a wonderful small scale chamber work, based on themes from the opera Siegfried, it is also a very cleverly constructed piece, with effective motivic links which are developed, transformed and dissolved.

After he had completed Parsifal, Wagner intended to complete a series of one-movement symphonies (he started one of these in 1882) and it may be that the ‘Siegfried Idyll’ was a prototype for these projected works.

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