Intimations of Heroism in a Pastoral Milieu: On the Opening Section of the Siegfried Idyll

Wagner’s Siegfried idyll is a hybrid work that uniquely combines symphonic and chamber styles, ternary and sonata forms, and pastoral and heroic themes (or topics). Conceived as a birthday gift for his wife Cosima, this symphonic fantasy contains both quiet, pastoral passages and exuberant episodes from the life of the hero, Siegfried. It also celebrates the domestic bliss that Richard and Cosima shared at Tribschen during the composition of act 3 of Siegfried, from which most of the themes in the Siegfried Idyll are drawn. Wagner hints at its ambiguous nature not only in the title, which links a hero’s name with a pastoral genre, but also in the dedicatory poem prefaced to the score, where he writes of “the hero’s world [that] magically [became] an idyll for us” (“die Heldenwelt uns zaubernd zum Idylle”).1 As this line suggests, Wagner aimed in this piece to reconcile the heroic and pastoral worlds. The dramatic motivation for that reconciliation, as I shall argue, arises in the opening section, where intimations of Siegfried’s heroic destiny threaten to destroy the quiet pastoral mood. Before going into analytical detail, I shall briefly sketch the historical context for this unique work, which Wagner composed in late 1870. Its composition closely followed several landmark events in Wagner’s artistic and personal life. Having composed the Ring up to the end of