The Siegfried Idyll by Richard Wagner is a symphonic poem for chamber orchestra, lasting approximately twenty minutes.
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Wagner composed the Siegfried Idyll as a birthday present to his second wife, Cosima, after the birth of their son Siegfried in 1869. It was first performed on Christmas morning, 25 December 1870, by a small ensemble on the stairs of their villa at Tribschen (today part of Lucerne) in the Canton of Lucerne, Switzerland. Cosima awoke to its opening melody. Conductor Hans Richter played the brief trumpet part in that private performance.
The original title was Triebschen Idyll with Fidi's birdsong and the orange sunrise. "Fidi" was the pet version of the name Siegfried. It is thought that the birdsong and the sunrise refer to incidents of personal significance to the couple.
Wagner's opera Siegfried, which was premiered in 1876, incorporates music from the Idyll. It was once thought that the Idyll borrowed musical ideas intended for the opera, but it is now known that the opposite is the case: Wagner adapted melodic material from an unfinished chamber piece in the Idyll and later incorporated it into the love scene between Siegfried and Brunhilde in the opera.[1] The work also uses a German lullaby, whose title can be translated "Sleep, Baby, Sleep." Wagner published a detailed program for the work which describes his mother singing the boy asleep with a lullaby and then contemplating what he will be like as a young man.
Wagner originally intended the Siegfried Idyll to remain a private piece. However, he was forced to sell the score to a publisher in 1878. In doing so, Wagner expanded the orchestration to make the piece more marketable. This orchestral version is often performed today.
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