Sunday Classics: Continuing our look at "Tannhäuser" from the vantage point of Wolfram von Eschenbach

The real-life Wolfram von Eschenbach -- yes, there was a real-life Wolfram von Eschenbach, pictured here in the Codex Manesse -- would play an even larger role in Wagner's life, as author of an epic Parzival. Walther von Stolzing, the young hero of another of Wagner's later operas, Die Meistersinger, could tell us that there was also a real-life Walther von der Vogelweide, the young knight's professed musical teacher.

by Ken

In the first part of this series of (eventually) three devoted to the second of Wagner's ten mature operas, Tannhäuser, I set about looking at it from the vantage point of the hero's best friend, Wolfram von Eschenbach (the baritone). As I promised in Friday night's preview of this second part, we're moving backward from Act II to Act I.

I like to think that with the little bit of poking around we've already done so far, it's already been possible to get a feeling for the strength of the bond of friendship between the two leading Singers in Landgraf Hermann's Thuringian Minnesinger stable, Heinrich Tannhäuser and Wolfram von Eschenbach, despite the considerable differences in their personalities and outlooks.

WHILE WOLFRAM UPHOLDS CONVENTIONAL VALUES,
TANNHÄUSER IS THE OUTSIDER, THE REBEL TRUTH-SEEKER

In the conventional formulation, Tannhäuser is the man who accepts no received wisdom, who rejects taboos and insists instead in experiencing the forbidden experiences for himself -- to the point of abandoning his community for the seductive lures of residence in the Venusberg with the goddess of love herself. And, again in the conventional formulation, Wolfram is the conventional-minded goody two-shoes, a man who deservedly stands in the shadow of his bolder, more creative, utterly uncompromising friend. Is it any wonder that the lovely young Elisabeth, the fairest maid in all Thuringia, unhesitatingly gives her heart to Tannhäuser rather than Wolfram?

I don't doubt that this is where Wagner's sympathies lay, that he created Tannhäuser as a repository for and expression of what he regarded as his own damn-the-consequences commitment to (his idea of) wisdom and truth. The only thing is, if you pay any attention to the opera, to the text and especially the music, that isn't the story it's telling, and I believe it's because of what is for me Wagner's most important quality as an artist after his musical genius and literary-dramatic talent: his largely uncompromising sense of artistic truth. In the Song Contest, Tannhäuser sneers at Wolfram's contest song, his explanation of the essence of love, which Tannhäuser considers hopelessly intellectual and theoretical. But what we see in the story is almost the opposite: Tannhäuser in thrall to theoretical ideas, while Wolfram is the one who deals with reality, who's always there for the people who matter to him, who's left to pick up the pieces whenever Tannhäuser betrays the woman they both love, and who in the end is always there for Tannhäuser himself.

Last week we heard the beginning of the Act II scene between Tannhäuser and Elisabeth following his return from the long absence that to all his friends remains unexplained, and heard that it's Wolfram who promotes the reunion between his friend and the woman they both love, even knowing that it spells an end to his romantic hopes. In Friday night's preview, backing up to Act I, we heard the music with which Tannhäuser is returned from the Venusberg to his old stomping ground in Thuringia and by chance immediately meets up with his erstwhile comrades. We got only as far as hearing that among those comrades the one who recognizes the initially unidentified stranger is Wolfram, and in this scene it's Wolfram who at every step pleads his friend's case, and finally overcomes his seemingly immovable resolve not to remain.

At the center is a "set piece" that like nearly all of Wolfram's music is of simply extraordinary beauty. As we'll hear in the click-through, Wolfram has to ask the Landgraf's permission to share this information with Tannhäuser. We're going to hear a bunch of Wolframs deliver it, in fuller versions of the scene, but this time I thought we'd jump to our champion Wolfram, the great Wagnerian "heroic baritone" Friedrich Schorr -- and also hear the 1936 companion recording to the 1935 "Blick' ich umher" we heard Friday night from the great baritone Heinrich Schlusnus.

WAGNER: Tannhäuser: Act I, Wolfram, "Als du in kühnem Sange"

WOLFRAM: When you strove with us in blithe song,
sometimes victorious against our lays,
anon defeated through our art,
one prze there was that you alone succeeded in winning.
Was it by magic or by pure might
that you achieved the miracle
or captivating the most virtuous of maids
by your singing filled with joy and sorrow?
For, when, in haughtiness, you left us,
her heart closed to our song;
we saw her cheeks grow pale,
she ever shunned our circle.
Oh, return, you valiant Singer,
let not your song be far from ours.
Let her no longer be absent from our festivals,
let her star shine on us once more!

Friedrich Schorr (b), Wolfram von Eschenbach; orchestra. HMV, recorded in London, 1930 [audio link]

Heinrich Schlusnus (b), Wolfram von Eschenbach; Berlin State Opera Orchestra, Clemens Krauss, cond. EMI, recorded 1936 [audio link]


TO CONTINUE WITH THIS WEEK'S LOOK
AT TANNHÄUSER, CLICK HERE

THE TANNHÄUSER SERIES

Part 1: What if Wagner had called it Wolfram von Eschenbach and the Song Contest at the Wartburg?
Act II and the Song Contest
"Sneak" preview and main post

Part 2: Continuing our look at Tannhäuser from the vantage point of Wolfram von Eschenbach --
Circling back to Act I
Preview and main post

Part 3: Finally we reach Act III --
Wolfram's vigil over Elisabeth
Preview and main post

#