DESCRIPTION:
Richard Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, Opera, WWV 90. This rare recording with Wagner conducting is the only recorded example of the composer interpreting one of his own works. Only one single recording has survived as a testimony of Wagner's art as a conductor:
00:00 Act II. Love Duet (fragments), original
04:05 Act II. Love Duet (fragments), restored (audio restauration using the cedar process)
Bayreuth Festival Orchestra conducted by Richard Wagner (1813-1883) with Amalie Materna, soprano, Albert Niemann, tenor, Marianne Brandt, mezzo-soprano.
Recording c. 1882 in the earlier cylinders, Bayreuth Festival. (Note: c. is the latin term "circa")
in Wagner conducts Wagner: Tristan Und Isolde/Das Rheingold/Die Walküre, Grammophono.

Part II Siegfried Wagner conducts Richard Wagner: https://youtu.be/jIyMBMTfyJg

The phonograph was invented by Thomas Edison on July 18, 1877. His first successful recording and reproduction of intelligible sounds, achieved early in the following December, used a thin sheet of tin foil wrapped around a hand-cranked grooved metal cylinder. Thomas Edison had developed his tin-foil phonograph in 1878, and it made its way to Europe in that year. Phonograph cylinders are the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound. These hollow cylindrical objects have an audio recording engraved on the outside surface, which can be reproduced when they are played on a mechanical cylinder phonograph.

Despite Wagner was ceptical about the sound machine, he was nevertheless not outside the thoughs of Thomas Edison. After he had been experimenting with his invention in 1878 by playing a recorded song backwards, he wrote: "the song is still melodious in many cases, and some of the strains are sweet and novel, but altoghether different from the song reproduced in the right way. Wagner wasn't the monopoly of the music of the future - I'm going into the machine composing business." Letter to Wiliam Preece, 19.II.1878. (The papers of Thomas A. Edison, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press).


Friedrich Nietzsche, who in his younger years was one of Wagner's staunchest allies, wrote that, for him, "Tristan and Isolde is the real opus metaphysicum of all art... insatiable and sweet craving for the secrets of night and death... it is overpowering in its simple grandeur". In a letter to his friend Erwin Rohde in October 1868, Nietzsche described his reaction to Tristan's Prelude: "I simply cannot bring myself to remain critically aloof from this music; every nerve in me is atwitch, and it has been a long time since I had such a lasting sense of ecstasy as with this overture". Even after his break with Wagner, Nietzsche continued to consider Tristan a masterpiece: "Even now I am still in search of a work which exercises such a dangerous fascination, such a spine-tingling and blissful infinity as Tristan - I have sought in vain, in every art."

Tristan und Isolde is an Opera in three acts to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. Wagner referred to the work not as an opera, but called it "eine Handlung" (literally a drama). Wagner's composition of Tristan und Isolde was inspired by his affair with Mathilde Wesendonck and the Philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. Widely acknowledged as one of the peaks of the operatic repertory, Tristan was notable for Wagner's advanced use of chromaticism, tonality, orchestral colour and harmonic suspension.


LIBRETTO

Liebesnacht von Tristan und Isolde, zweiter Aufzug, zweite szene | "Love-Night" from Act 2, Scene 2

TRISTAN
[…]
ohn' Erwachen,
ohn' Erbangen,
namenlos
in Lieb' umfangen,
ganz uns selbst gegeben,
der Liebe nur zu leben!

ISOLDE
(wie in sinnender Entrücktheit zu ihm aufblickend)
So stürben wir,
um ungetrennt, -

TRISTAN
ewig einig
ohne End', -

ISOLDE
ohn' Erwachen, -

TRISTAN
ohn' Erbangen, -

BEIDE
namenlos
in Lieb' umfangen,
ganz uns selbst gegeben,
der Liebe nur zu leben!
(Isolde neigt wie überwältigt das Haupt an seine Brust)

BRANGÄNES STIMME
(wie vorher)
Habet acht!
Habet acht!
Schon weicht dem Tag die Nacht.
[…]

BEIDE
[…]
Hehr erhabne
Liebesnacht!
Wen du umfangen,
wem du gelacht,
wie wär' ohne Bangen
aus dir er je erwacht?
Nun banne das Bangen,
holder Tod,
sehnend verlangter
Liebestod!
In deinen Armen,
dir geweiht,
urheilig Erwarmen,
von Erwachens Not befreit!
Wie sie fassen,
wie sie lassen,
diese Wonne,
Fern der Sonne,
fern der Tage
Trennungsklage!
Ohne Wähnen
sanftes Sehnen;
ohne Bangen
süss Verlangen;
ohne Wehen
hehr Vergehen;
ohne Schmachten
hold Umnachten;
ohne Meiden,
ohne Scheiden,
traut allein,
ewig heim,
in ungemessnen Räumen
übersel'ges Träumen.

TRISTAN
Tristan du,
ich Isolde,
nicht mehr Tristan!

ISOLDE
Du Isolde,
Tristan ich,
nicht mehr Isolde!

BEIDE
Ohne Nennen,
ohne Trennen,
neu Erkennen,
neu Entbrennen;
endlos ewig,
ein-bewusst:
heiss erglühter Brust
höchste Liebeslust!
(Sie bleiben in verzückter Stellung)
[...]