Der Engel

From Wagner’s song cycle, Wesendonck Lieder. Pianist: Jean Keltie, sound recorder: Jack Davis.

The Wesendonck Lieder (1857-8) are settings of 5 poems written to Wagner by an infatuated admirer – Mathilde Wesendonck, coincidentally the wife of one of the composer’s friends. Wagner used at least two of them to develop themes that reoccur in the opera he was working on at the time – Tristan and Isolde.

Mathilde was in her late 20s when she met the 45 year old Wagner – I think it’s fair to say her poems reveal a certain rather unhealthy obsession. Wagner’s wife intercepted one of his adoring letters to Mathilde – and this broke up their marriage. It’s unlikely that the relationship was ever consummated – I think the sultry hothouse intensity of the teenage angst in the poems rather confirms this.

In Der Engel (the angel), the poet writes about angels who prefer earth to heaven and in so doing hear the prayer for deliverance of a yearning and bleeding human heart. Such an angel visits the poet and leads her spirit, free from pain, to heaven.

We recorded this cycle in Edinburgh after performing it in Devon as part of the Chagford Summer Music Festival in 2023.