A Siegfried Idyl
In a letter dated June 25, 1870, Wagner wrote of his wife Cosima, “She has defied every disapprobation and taken upon herself every condemnation. She has borne to me a wonderfully beautiful boy, whom I call boldly Siegfried; he is now growing, together with my work [he was working then on the opera Siegfried; hence the name]; he gives me a new long life, which at last has attained a meaning. Thus we get along without the world, from which we have wholly withdrawn.”
The composer wrote the music of the Idyl—originally called the Triebschen Idyl—as a birthday gift for his wife. On Christmas morning, 1870, Wagner and a group of musicians assembled on the stairs of his home at Triebschen and performed the lovely music, which, cramped though the musicians were because of tight quarters, obtained a fine rendering, according to ear-witnesses.
When the Idyl was first played in Berlin, in 1878, a music critic gave it as gospel that the music was taken from the second act of the opera Siegfried. The truth of the matter is that the Idyl, while based on several themes from the opera besides that of a folk song, is a complete entity in itself, for the themes were developed in a manner entirely different from their treatment in the opera. In addition to which, it must be remembered that the folk song, Schlaf’, mein Kind, schlaf’ein, does not appear in the opera at all.
“Wagner and the Critics” is the title of this amusing contemporary caricature.