Wagner's Elegy to the Future

Whether you adore his work or despise it, whether you hold his antisemitism against him or choose to ignore it, you can't deny that Richard Wagner was one of music's great geniuses; his "music of the future" was far ahead of his time and enormously influential to late-19th century composers.  That being said, it's entirely understandable why some modern listeners may be put off by his work, as the majority of his output was comprised of obnoxiously long operas.  Wagner was a megalomaniac to end all megalomaniacs, including commissioning instruments to be built for his as-of-then unperformed works and building a radical new theater for his own 15-20 hour Ring cycle.  That isn't to say that all his work is intolerably huge, as is proved by this sliver of a piece:

Though it bears a dedication of December 26, 1881 (very near the end of Wagner's life), the Elegie's harmonic language bears some resemblance to that of the ever-taught Tristan und Isolde, written in the late 1850's, and some references state that it was written in 1858.  Either way, it remains some of the most sensitive music Wagner ever wrote (and is as close as I'm able to highlight fellow musical futurist Liszt's En rêve in this blog).  Man, those opening chords - he digs into them so hard, only to recede into unpredictable harmonic movement.  Measures 5 & 6 feel very much like the undulations in the slow movement of Schubert's Piano Sonata in B-flat Major, and that was pretty much as beautiful as Schubert ever got, so kudos.  The hairpin dynamics compliment romantic pianism very well, requiring both incredible sensitivity and a willingness to throw your whole weight into the keys.  The piece has probably been eluding capture for a while thanks to poor publication, but earlier this year one Francisco Javier Hernando Rodríguez was kind enough to make a very readable engraved version in honor of Wagner's bicentennial.  As you can see at the top, the Elegie began its life as a two-line scrabble, and you can see the original up close as well as the typeset version and a subpar published version here.  Perhaps it would have been more resonant to publish this article the day after Christmas like the dedication, but I think publishing it ahead of its time is more in the spirit of the "music of the future".  Whichever way you look at it, the Elegie is an apt representation of the darkest month of the year, and his bicentennial is slipping away faster each day - and this performance is just as fine a memorial as anything.

~PNK