Lost History – the romantic premiere of Wagner’s first love song

In Zurich, on 23 December 1857, a young woman lay fast asleep in an enormous bed on the top floor of a lavish villa. It was her 29th birthday. Several storeys below, a quiet commotion was ensuing. At the base of the staircase that spiralled up to her chamber, the German composer, Richard Wagner, was conducting a small orchestra in the villa’s spacious hall.

A melodic sound started to rise up the staircase, filling the empty rooms with one of the tenderest songs ever written. At first, we might assume the woman believed she was dreaming. Her dazed mind could have ascribed the wondrous music to an idyllic imagining.

Gradually, she grasped that the noise was not dreamt. She leapt from her bed, threw the tall double-doors to her room open and leaning over the opulent bannisters, looked down onto the incredible spectacle.

It was a birthday present unlike any she had previously received, and her eager applause pleased the infatuated composer greatly. The woman was called Mathilde Wesendonck, and the music she was hearing had been inspired by a poem she had furtively shown the man conducting the ensemble.

In 1849, a young Richard Wagner dissented and joined the May Uprising in Dresden. It was the last dramatic episode in a revolutionary saga that had started over a year before. Revolts and demonstrations had erupted across Europe, consuming governments and toppling heads of state.

Reprisals for abetting this political upheaval were harsh, and to avoid imprisonment, the composer was forced to flee local authorities. Accompanied by his devoted wife, Minna, Wagner travelled to Zurich seeking sanctuary. He found work conducting in local concert halls and was soon introduced to other republican-minded intellectuals and artists.

While staying at the Hotel Baur au Lac, the Wagners encountered a similarly inclined married couple. The meeting was to change the history of music, as well as all of their lives, dramatically. Otto was a rich silk merchant who spent much of his time overseeing his investments in America. He was already a zealous fan of Wagner’s early operas and was keen to patronise the drifting genius. Mathilde was an enchanting beauty and aspiring poet who took a particular shine to the intensely passionate composer.

The wealthy Wesendoncks were staying at the Zurich hotel while their new villa was being built. The idea dawned on Otto to commission the construction of a comfortable cottage on the villa’s grounds to house the itinerant artist and his wife.

The Wagners accepted Otto’s generous offer and promptly moved in. Otto’s interests across the Atlantic meant he was often away for months at a time, leaving his lonely wife to brood romantically in the company of the spirited revolutionary.

Their initial dynamic of patroness and composer ostensibly evolved into an intense romance, a romance tempered by a mutual love of the arts and a sincere appreciation for nature. Besotted by Mathilde’s evident charm and elegant demeanour, Wagner sought to celebrate his exalted feelings for his new friend’s wife.

Hitherto he had suffered a protracted bout of artistic inactivity but inspired by his enchanting hostess, Wagner recommenced the laborious chore of completing his incomparably ambitious Ring Cycle. If this was the sole effect Mathilde had on Wagner, it would be enough to owe her thanks, but her energising influence on him did not end there.

Though no proof of a sexual liaison between the two has ever been established, we know that the beguiled Mathilde began to share her poetic efforts with Wagner. It gave Wagner the idea of interpolating her poetry into music.

In all, he translated five of her verses into lieder. The song she heard from her bed on that misty hibernal morning, was entitled “Träume” (dreams)” and was based on one of those poems.

Wagner thought of the song as a study towards a monumental new work that would express his innermost turmoil and joy. Struck by an assortment of ineffable feelings for Mathilde, he paused his work on the Ring and began the task of writing Tristan Und Isolde, perhaps the most seminal work of any medium that century.

In the following months, Minna’s suspicions of Wagner’s growing affection for Mathilde were confirmed when she accidentally intercepted a letter from her husband to his muse.

She immediately ended their twenty-two marriage, leaving the increasingly popular Wagner to pursue other romantic interests. Mathilde certainly left a uniquely deep impression on him and inspired some of his most beloved works, but they were never to realise the promise of their fondness for one another. He instead married the former wife of the conductor, Hans Von Bulow, Cosima, with whom he had two children.

As with Mathilde, Wagner premiered another piece by sneaking an ensemble into a house and waking his paramour on her birthday with the sweet sound of the music she inspired. The seductive ploy must have worked so well the first time that he felt his second wife deserved similar treatment.