Composers › Bruno Walter › Programme note
3 Lieder from Op.12 (c 1900)
Gerald Larner wrote 2 versions of differing length — choose one below.
Tragödie I
Tragödie II
Tragödie III
2 Lieder from Op.11 (c.1900)
Waltrauts Lied I
Waltrauts Lied II
Walter dedicated to his soprano wife Elsa
Heine (mid-20s) from Op.12, Julius Wolff from Op.11 (1834-1910)
From Gerald Larner’s files: “Waltrauts Lieder 1,2.rtf”
Tragödie I
Tragödie II
Tragödie III
2 Lieder from Op.11 (c.1900)
Waltrauts Lied I
Waltrauts Lied II
Bruno Walter was not a composer. He knew that: as he said towards the end of a wonderful career as a conductor, “I have made only the music of others sound forth; I have been but a re-creator.” Although he was able for a while to combine composing with performing – he conducted a successful first performance of his First Symphony in Vienna in 1909 – he gave up writing music in his mid-thirtes, feeling no doubt that he was nowhere near equipped to emulate his great mentor Gustav Mahler.
Walter was musician enough, however, to make the most of whatever creative talent he had. His setting of the first of Heine’s three Tragödie poems compensates for its conventional treatment of its two stanzas by the passion unexpectedly invested in a renewed approach to the first. While Tragödie II owes more than a little to Mahler, the harmonies at the end of the second stanza and throughout the third are both original and well chosen. The bird song heard high in the right hand at the beginning of Tragödie III makes a poignant return before the lingering, harmonically questioning ending. Furnished with a picturesque piano part worthy of Strauss, the first of Waltrauts Lieder lacks nothing in charm, while the second is a masterly example of emotion gradually released to culminate in the ecstatic affirmation at the end.
From Gerald Larner’s files: “Tragödie I-III.rtf”