Delphi Masterworks of Richard Wagner (Illustrated)

Richard Wagner

(1813-1883)

Contents

The Masterworks

Symphony in C Major

Das Liebesverbot

Faust Overture

Rienzi

Der fliegende Holländer

Tannhäuser

Lohengrin

Das Rhinegold

Die Walküre

Tristan und Isolde

Wesendonck Lieder

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Siegfried

Siegfried Idyll

Götterdämmerung

Parsifal

Complete Compositions

Index of Wagner’s Compositions

Selected Librettos

Der fliegende Holländer

Lohengrin

Das Rhinegold

Die Walküre

Tristan und Isolde

Siegfried

Götterdämmerung

Parsifal

Selected Prose

Autobiographic Sketch

On German Opera

Art and Revolution

The Art-Work of the Future

Judaism in Music

A Communication to My Friends

Opera and Drama

Beethoven

What is German?

An End in Paris

On Conducting

Religion and Art

The Letters

Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt

The Autobiography

My Life

The Biographies

Richard Wagner: His Life and His Dramas by W. J. Henderson

Life of Wagner by Ludwig Nohl

Richard Wagner, Composer of Operas by John F. Runciman

Wagner by Paul Rosenfeld

Wagner as I Knew Him by Ferdinand Praeger

Richard Wagner by Rupert Hughes

The Delphi Classics Catalogue

© Delphi Classics 2018

Version 1

Delphi Great Composers

Richard Wagner

By Delphi Classics, 2018

COPYRIGHT

Delphi Great Composers - Richard Wagner

First published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2018.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 78656 402 3

Delphi Classics

is an imprint of

Delphi Publishing Ltd

Hastings, East Sussex

United Kingdom

Contact: sales@delphiclassics.com

www.delphiclassics.com

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The Masterworks

Leipzig, Saxony, Germany — Wagner’s birthplace

Wagner’s birth house in Leipzig

Leipzig, c. 1900

The Masterworks: A Short Guide

In this section of the eBook there are concise introductions for Richard Wagner’s most celebrated works. Interactive links to popular streaming services are provided at the beginning and end of each introduction, allowing you to listen to the music you are reading about. The text is also accompanied with contextual images to supplement your reading and listening.

There are various options for streaming music, with most paid services charged competitively at the same rate and usually offering a similar range of albums. Various streaming services offer a free trial (Google Play Music, Amazon Music Unlimited and Apple Music) and Spotify offers a free service after you watch a short advertisement. Amazon Prime members can also enjoy a wide range of free content from Amazon Prime Music. If you do not wish to subscribe to a streaming service, we have included YouTube links for free videos of the classical pieces. Another free option is MUSOPEN, a non-profit organisation that provides recordings, sheet music and textbooks to the public for free, without copyright restrictions.

Please note: different eReading devices serve hyperlinks in different ways, which means we cannot always link you directly to your chosen service. However, the links are intended to take you to the best option available for the piece of music you are reading about.

High-resolution scores for the music would be too large in size to include in an eBook; however, we have provided links to free scores available at IMSLP, the International Music Score Library Project, which can be accessed from the SCORES links in each chapter.

Now, settle back and relax as you immerse yourself in the music and life of Wagner...

Symphony in C Major

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Richard Wagner was the ninth child of Carl Friedrich Wagner, a clerk in the Leipzig police service, and his wife, Johanna Rosine (née Paetz), the daughter of a baker. Wagner’s father died of typhus six months following his birth and his mother then lived with Carl’s friend, the actor and playwright Ludwig Geyer, whom she likely married, though no documentation survives. The Wagner family moved to Geyer’s residence in Dresden and up to the age of fourteen, Wagner was actually known as Wilhelm Richard Geyer. He almost certainly grew up believing that Geyer was his biological father.

Geyer inspired in his stepson a love of the theatre and the child participated in many of his plays. By 1820 Wagner had enrolled at Pastor Wetzel’s school at Possendorf, near Dresden, where he received piano instruction from his Latin teacher. He is reported to have struggled to play a proper scale at the keyboard and preferred performing theatre overtures by ear. Following Geyer’s death in 1821, Richard was sent to a boarding school Dresdner Kreuzchor, at the expense of Geyer’s brother. When nine years old he attended a performance of Carl Maria von Weber’s opera Der Freischütz, which he saw Weber conduct and it would leave a lasting impression on the child. He was greatly impressed by the Gothic elements of the opera, which caught his fervid imagination, at a time when he entertained ambitions as a playwright. His first creative effort, listed in the Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis (the standard listing of Wagner’s works) as WWV1, was a tragedy titled Leubald. Written when he was in school, the play was largely influenced by the works of Shakespeare and Goethe. The young Wagner was determined to set the play to music, persuading his family to allow him music lessons.

In 1827 the family returned to Leipzig and Wagner’s first lessons in harmony were taken with Christian Gottlieb Müller (1800-1863), a German violinist, composer, and later Music Director-City of Altenburg. Shortly after, Wagner heard for the first time Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Gewandhaus — the great composer would become a major source of inspiration to Wagner, who went on to write a piano transcription of the groundbreaking symphony, as well as completing several overtures in his style.

In 1831 Wagner enrolled at the Leipzig University, where he became a member of the Saxon student fraternity. He took composition lessons with the celebrated Thomaskantor Theodor Weinlig, who was so impressed with his student’s musical abilities that he refused any payment for the lessons. He arranged for his pupil’s Piano Sonata in B-flat major, which was dedicated to him, to be published as Wagner’s Op.1. A year later, Wagner composed his Symphony in C major, WWV29 — the only completed symphony by the composer — which owes a large debt to the symphonies of Beethoven; it was performed in Prague in 1832 and at the Leipzig Gewandhaus in 1833.

Composed between April and June 1832, as Wagner was concluding his studies with Weinlig, the symphony is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets in C, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns in C, two trumpets in C, three trombones, timpani and strings. Arranged in four movements, a performance of the piece lasts for approximately 35 minutes:

Sostenuto e maestoso - Allegro con brio

Andante ma non troppo, un poco maestoso

Allegro assai

Allegro molto e vivace

The symphony is in sonata form — a musical structure consisting of three main sections (exposition, development and recapitulation) — and the first movement is prefaced by a slow introduction. Wagner later freely admitted that the piece was heavily modelled on Beethoven’s Seventh and Eighth Symphonies and the opening movement bears a striking resemblance to the former in the development of its slow introduction and the bursting energy of the Allegro. This movement is notable for its strong sense of rhythmic drive and dynamism, employing off-beat syncopations in the double basses and an innovative inclination to raise the semitones of musical ideas to increase harmonic tension. The second movement is inspired by the Allegretto of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, borrowing the melody of funereal harmonies and emulating the joyful scherzo in which strings and wind instruments alternate with vivacity. The finale once again borrows from Beethoven, as the rondo theme exudes energy, revealing the composer’s first attempts at contrapuntal writing.

Wagner took great pride in this early work, no doubt due to his young age of nineteen. It was received warmly and a contemporary report tells us that the first, third and final movements ‘were greeted with loud applause by the considerable audience’. Four years later, Wagner sent the score to Felix Mendelssohn, who had recently taken up the Gewandhaus directorship, but Mendelssohn apparently deemed it unsuitable for his concert series and never programmed it. This would sow the early seeds of conflict between the two future great composers.

Wagner never published the piece and it almost became lost, when in 1876 he commissioned a search for the manuscript. Several instrument parts were finally discovered in a trunk in Dresden and using these, the score was reconstructed in 1878, with several minor changes and cuts. A final performance was given on Christmas Eve 1882 at the Teatro La Fenice, Venice, as a birthday present for Cosima, her birthday being on Christmas Day. The performance was a private one, conducted by the composer himself. After this, Wagner evidently saw no further value in the work, which was neither performed again nor published until after his death.

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Johanna Rosine Wagner, Richard Wagner’s mother

Wagner as a young man

Christian Theodor Weinlig (1780-1842) was a German music teacher, composer and choir conductor in Dresden and Leipzig.

Carl Maria von Weber by Caroline Bardua, 1821. Weber was an important early inspiration for Wagner, capturing his imagination as a youth.

The first page of the score

Portrait of Mendelssohn by the English miniaturist James Warren Childe, 1839

The first page of the score of Beethoven’s ‘Seventh Symphony’

Beethoven by Louis-René Létronne, 1814

Das Liebesverbot

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In 1833 Wagner’s brother Albert managed to obtain for him the position of choir master at the theatre in Würzburg, northern Bavaria. In the same year, at the age of twenty, Wagner composed his first complete opera, Die Feen (The Fairies), imitating the style of Weber; it remained unproduced until half a century later, when it was premiered in Munich shortly after the composer’s death in 1883. However, he was not to be thwarted in his ambition to become a successful writer of operas, though this was not be attained easily…

Having returned to Leipzig in 1834, he held a brief appointment as musical director at the opera house in Magdeburg, during which he wrote Das Liebesverbot (The Ban on Love), this time using Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure as its source material. The opera was staged at Magdeburg in 1836 and Wagner entertained great hopes his ambition would be achieved at last. Sadly, that was not to be. Poorly attended and featuring a lead singer that frequently forgot the words, Das Liebesverbot was a resounding flop and its second performance had to be cancelled after a fist-fight between the prima donna’s husband and the lead tenor broke out backstage, before the curtain had even risen. Reportedly, only three people were in the audience. It was never performed again in Wagner’s lifetime. Due to this critical failure and the financial collapse of the theatre company employing Wagner, the composer was left bankrupt.

The libretto was written by the composer himself and is set against the backdrop of sixteenth century Palermo.  The Regent Friedrich bans love and the young nobleman Claudio is found guilty of breaking the law. His sister Isabella, a novice, is persuaded to appeal for mercy and Friedrich hypocritically demands her sexual favours. She finds it possible, however, to send in her place the previously discarded wife of Friedrich, Mariana. His treachery is revealed and a measure of free love is restored when the king returns.

Wagner’s second opera reveals many signs of an early work: the style is modelled closely on contemporary French and Italian comic opera. Restrained sexuality versus eroticism plays an important role in the opera — themes that would recur throughout much of his career, most notably in Tannhäuser, Die Walküre and Tristan und Isolde. All of these operas chart how the abandonment to love brings lovers into mortal combat with the surrounding social order. In Das Liebesverbot, as it is a comedy, the outcome is a happy one: unrestrained sexuality wins, as demonstrated by the orgiastic carnival at the curtain-fall. The overture is occasionally heard in the concert hall, revealing early signs of the grand idiom that would dominate Wagner’s future work, though the rest of the opera is seldom performed today, except as a curiosity.

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The opening of the opera’s overture in the original score

Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, situated on the Elbe River — Wagner’s second completed opera was first performed here.

The interior of Stadttheater, Magdeburg, where the opera premiered in 1836. The theatre was destroyed by Allied bombing in 1945.

Wagner in 1840

The first page of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, printed in the First Folio of 1623

Faust Overture

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Wagner had fallen for one of the leading ladies at Magdeburg, the actress Christine Wilhelmine Minna Planer, and following the disaster of Das Liebesverbot, he followed her to Königsberg, where she helped him win an engagement at the theatre. From an early age, she had had an illegitimate daughter with a Royal Saxon Army officer, whom she raised as her own sister. After a stormy courtship, which involved infidelities on both sides, Wagner and Minna were married in Tragheim Church on 24 November 1836. But by May 1837, Minna left Wagner for another man — this would be the first of many such incidents in their tempestuous marriage. A month later, Wagner moved to Riga, then part of the Russian Empire, where he became music director of the local opera; he presently resumed relations with Minna in 1838.

By 1839 the couple had amassed such large debts that they had to flee Riga and the clutches of their angered creditors. Always eager to spend money before he had actually earned it, debts would haunt Wagner for much of his life. The couple settled in Paris in September 1839 and remained there until 1842, at last providing much needed stability. Wagner made a meagre living by writing articles and short novelettes for Parisian periodicals, while sketching out his idea for a growing concept of music drama. In the short story An End in Paris he vividly represented his own miseries as a German musician in the French metropolis. He also provided arrangements of operas by other composers, for the most part on behalf of the Schlesinger publishing house.

The Faust Overture, WWV 59 was completed during Wagner’s first months in Paris. Inspired by the works of the Romantic author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and the French composer Hector Berlioz, Wagner later wrote in his biography Mein Leben that the work was originally intended to be the first movement of a Faust symphony. The tragic play Faust is considered by many to be Goethe’s magnum opus and the greatest work of German literature. The closet drama complicates the simple Christian moral of the original legend. A hybrid between a drama and an extended poem, the two-part play is epic in scope, employing references from Christian, medieval, Roman, Eastern and Hellenic poetry, philosophy and world literature. The composition and refinement of Goethe’s own version of the legend occupied him for over sixty years. The story concerns the fate of the scholar Faust in his quest for the true essence of life. Frustrated with learning and the limits of his knowledge, he attracts the attention of the Devil (represented by Mephistopheles), who makes a wager with him that he can satisfy his lust for knowledge, which Faust doubts, as he believes this happy zenith is unattainable. Mephistopheles leads Faust through experiences that culminate in a lustful relationship with Gretchen, an innocent young woman. Gretchen and her family are destroyed by Mephistopheles’ deceptions and Faust’s desires.

The sonata form structure of Wagner’s Faust Overture hints at its genesis as the first movement of a symphony. It opens with a slow introduction, presenting all of the overture’s principal motives, some of which are later reprised as major symphonic themes in the faster development section. The initial musical idea, revealed in unity with the tuba and double basses, foreshadows the contour of the first theme, stated by the violins. The contrasting second theme shifts to F major, offering a rising diatonic melody. The development section shifts to the key of D minor, assuming a fanfare-like motive, originally appearing in the key of D major in the introduction. Next, the first theme undergoes development, accompanied by two prominent motivic sections from the introduction, before the recapitulation in fortissimo. Finally, the second theme appears in D major, the key of the parallel major, and the overture concludes after a brief coda.

Years later in 1855, Wagner returned to the work, revising it to add a greater sense of drama and narrative conviction. The piece is notable for being one of the few Wagner compositions intended for the concert hall, rather than the theatre, and continues to be popular to this day.

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The first page of the score

Christine Wilhelmine Minna Planer (1809-1866) was a German actress and the first wife of Wagner, to whom she was married for 30 years, although for the last 10 years they often lived apart.

Tragheim Church. Following the heavy Allied bombing of the church in World War II, its remnants were demolished by the Soviet administration in Kaliningrad, Russia during the 1950’s.

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions ‘Symphonie fantastique’, ‘Harold en Italie’ and ‘Roméo et Juliette’. Berlioz’ work would have a lasting influence of Wagner’s compositions.

The 1808 first edition of Goethe’s ‘Faust’

Rienzi

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THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES

Wagner’s next opera, Rienzi, der letzte der Tribunen (Rienzi, the Last of the Tribunes), featured a libretto written by the composer, based on English writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s 1835 novel of the same name. Written between July 1838 and November 1840, it was first performed at the Königliches Hoftheater, Dresden, on 20 October 1842 and has the distinction of being the composer’s first success. The opera is set in Rome and concerns the life of Cola di Rienzi (1313–1354), a late medieval Italian populist figure, who succeeds in outwitting and then defeating the nobles and their followers and in raising the power of the people. Magnanimous at first, he is forced by events to crush the nobles’ rebellion against the people’s power, but popular opinion changes and even the Church, which had urged him to assert himself, turns against him. In the end the populace burns the Capitol, in which Rienzi and a few adherents make a final stand.

Rienzi is mostly written in a grand opera style, as each act ends with an extended finale ensemble and is replete with solos, duets, trios and crowd scenes. There is also an extended ballet in the second Act, according to the established Grand Opera format. Hans von Bülow, the renowned German conductor, virtuoso pianist and composer of the Romantic era, humorously commented that Rienzi is Meyerbeer’s best opera.

Wagner had in fact begun work on the opera in Riga in 1837, after reading Lytton’s novel. In 1839, meeting Meyerbeer by chance in Boulogne, he was able to read to him the first three acts of the libretto, gaining his fellow composer’s interest. Meyerbeer also introduced Wagner to Ignaz Moscheles, who was also staying at Boulogne — this was to mark Wagner’s first meeting with real international musical celebrities. When Wagner had finished writing the opera in 1840, he had hoped for it to be premiered at the Paris Opéra, but alas his lack of influence at the time prevented this from taking place. Partly, no doubt, to the fact that Wagner had just been committed to a debtors’ prison…

In 1841 Wagner moved to Meudon, just outside of Paris, where the debt laws could be more easily evaded, whilst awaiting developments for Rienzi, having already written to King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony, requesting him to commission a production. A staging of Rienzi was subsequently arranged in Dresden and Meyerbeer wrote to the Director of the Opera in Dresden, Baron von Lüttichau, that he found the opera rich in fantasy and of great dramatic effect. Following these promising remarks, Wagner decided to finally return to Germany in April 1842. During rehearsals the performers were highly enthusiastic and the premiere took place on 20 October 1842 in the new Dresden Opera House, built the previous year by the architect Gottfried Semper. It was well received in Dresden, in spire of the performance time running over six hours (including intermissions). A famous legend tells that, fearful of the audience departing, Wagner stopped the clock above the stage. Afterwards, Wagner experimented with giving the opera over two evenings and making cuts to allow for a more reasonable performance in a single evening.

Despite Wagner’s later reservations, Rienzi remained one of his most successful operas until the early twentieth century. In Dresden alone, it reached its 100th performance in 1873 and 200th in 1908 and it was regularly performed throughout the nineteenth century in major opera houses throughout Europe and beyond, including in Britain and America. The Paris premiere of Rienzi finally took place on 6 April 1869 at the Théâtre Lyrique, under the baton of Jules Pasdeloup.

Rienzi was Wagner's first significant success, though today it receives much less attention than his later masterpieces. Nevertheless, the overture remains particularly well known, while vocal excerpts appear from time to time in the concert hall, including Rienzi's declaration to the people of Rome Erstehe, hohe Roma, neu! (Arise, great Rome, anew!), Adriano's divided loyalties in Gerechter Gott! (God of justice!) and, most famous of all, Rienzi's prayer Allmächt'ger Vater! (Almighty Father!), the theme of which also appears in the overture.

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The first page of the Overture

Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) was an English novelist, poet, playwright and politician. His 1835 novel ‘Rienzi, The Last of the Roman Tribunes’ inspired Wagner’s opera.

Carl Reissiger, conductor of the first performance of the opera

Baron von Lüttichau (1786–1863), General Director of the Dresden Opera House from 1824

Interior of the first Dresden Opera House, where ‘Rienzi’ was premiered in 1842

Last scene of Act III of ‘Rienzi’ at the Théâtre Lyrique, 1869

Act IV, last scene, in the Dresden Opera House, 1842

Der fliegende Holländer

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Whilst still finishing Rienzi, Wagner hatched a plan to flee his creditors in Riga, by escaping to Paris via London. However, this plan turned to disaster, as his passport was seized by the authorities on behalf of his creditors. He and his wife had to make a dangerous and illegal crossing over the Prussian border, during which Minna suffered a miscarriage. Boarding the ship Thetis, whose captain had agreed to take them without passports, their voyage was hindered by storms and high seas. At one point, the ship took refuge in the Norwegian fjords at Tvedestrand and a trip that was supposed to take eight days, finally delivered the composer to London three weeks later. However, the catastrophic experience would go on to influence one of Wagner’s most celebrated operas.

On their arrival at Pairs, the Wagners were reduced to poverty, relying on handouts from friends and from the little income he could make writing articles on music and copying scores. It was then that Wagner hit upon the idea of a one-act opera on the theme of the Flying Dutchman, which he hoped might be performed before a ballet at the Opéra. He later explained in his biography, The voyage through the Norwegian reefs made a wonderful impression on my imagination; the legend of the Flying Dutchman, which the sailors verified, took on a distinctive, strange colouring that only my sea adventures could have given it.

Wagner wrote the first prose draft of the story in Paris early in May 1840, basing the story on Heinrich Heine’s satire The Memoirs of Mister von Schnabelewopski, published in 1834. Wagner’s opera tells the story of the fabled mariner, who every seven years is condemned to roam the sea for having defied God. Only the love of a faithful woman, willing to sacrifice her life for him, can lift the curse. Tempted by the cursed man’s wealth and unaware of his destiny, a Norwegian sailor named Darland agrees to give the Dutchman his daughter Senta’s hand in marriage. Though betrothed to Erik, Senta nevertheless remains fascinated by the legend of the Flying Dutchman. When her father introduces the stranger to her, she immediately promises to be faithful forever. However, Erik’s bitter argument with Senta causes this new relationship to unravel. Convinced he has been betrayed, the Dutchman reveals his curse before setting sail on his ghostly ship in his eternal quest for redemption. Desperately in love, Senta throws herself into the sea, saving the Dutchman’s soul.

Wagner composed the rest of the opera during the summer of 1841, with the overture being left to last, and by November 1841 the orchestration of the score was complete. Wagner had already sold a sketch of the work to the Director of the Opéra, Léon Pillet, for 500 francs, but he was unable to convince him that the music was worth anything. Although the score was designed to be played continuously as a single act, Wagner later divided the piece into a three act work. In doing so, however, he did not alter the music significantly, but merely interrupted transitions that had originally been crafted to flow seamlessly. In his original draft Wagner set the action in Scotland, but he changed the location to Norway shortly before the first production, which was staged in Dresden and conducted by the composer himself in January 1843.

Composed in the Italian style of Verdi and Puccini, Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman) is Wagner’s first masterpiece. The haunting music is rocked by the sound of waves as soon as the curtain is raised; this sound grows irresistibly, penetrating the listener’s mind. The opera features the use of several leading motifs, which Wagner would put to much greater use in his later operas. The overture is in many ways a summary of the plot and is widely regarded as an impressive concert piece. The Dutchman himself is represented by the striking horn call heard first, while the wild strings conjure the setting of a stormy crossing. As the overture progresses, the opera’s various episodes are summarised in the typical grand opera format, presenting the opera in miniature.

Notable vocal excerpts from the opera include the Dutchman's Die Frist ist um (The time is here) and the Steersman’s song Mit Gewitter und Sturm aus fernem Meer (In thunder and storm from the far sea). Act II opens with a famous scene, as the women spinning in Daland's house sing their spinning-song Summ und Brumm (Hum and sing), while the music magically echoes the sound of their work.

Shortly before the premiere of the opera, Wagner had just returned from a extremely unsuccessful two-year stint in Paris. Though he had gone there to make his fortune, he had found his way barred by a strict class-based system. One of the bitterest blows came when Léon Pillet, director of the Paris Opéra, accepted his libretto for The Flying Dutchman, but then commissioned a score not from Wagner but from French composer Pierre-Louis Dietsch. However, the subsequent Dresden premieres of first Rienzi in October 1842 and The Flying Dutchman in January 1843 were immense successes, marking the beginning of Wagner’s career as one of the greatest operatic composers. In later years, Wagner was always fond of The Flying Dutchman and in his essay A Communication to My Friends in 1851, he claimed that the opera represented a new departure for him: From here begins my career as poet, and my farewell to the mere concoctor of opera-texts. Indeed, to this day the opera is the earliest of Wagner’s works to be performed at the Bayreuth Festival and for many it marks the start of the mature Wagner canon.

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First page of the autograph of the overture

Autograph score of Act I

The first page of the score, detailing the Overture’s opening

Königliches Hoftheater, where the premiere of ‘Der fliegende Holländer’ took place

‘The Flying Dutchman’ by Albert Pinkham Ryder, Smithsonian American Art Museum, c. 1887

Tannhäuser

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Wagner’s relief at returning to Germany in 1840 was evocatively recorded in his autobiography: For the first time I saw the Rhine — with hot tears in my eyes, I, poor artist, swore eternal fidelity to my German fatherland. The composer lived in Dresden for the next six years, eventually winning the position of the Royal Saxon Court Conductor, a post that he held until 1849, giving much needed stability. During this period, he staged Der fliegende Holländer (2 January 1843) and Tannhäuser (19 October 1845), now categorised as middle-period operas. Wagner thrived in Dresden, mixing with artistic circles, where he met the composer Ferdinand Hiller and the architect Gottfried Semper. Amongst this rich intellectual atmosphere, his composing was enabled to develop and flourish.

A staple of the opera house repertoire in modern day, Tannhäuser is based on two German legends. This first is of Tannhäuser, the legendary medieval German Minnesänger (Minnesang was a tradition of lyric and song writing that flourished in the Middle High German period) and poet; the second deals with the tale of the Wartburg Song Contest. The opera’s plot details the struggle between sacred and profane love, and redemption through love, a theme that dominates much of Wagner’s mature work.  The libretto combines mythological elements characteristic of German Romantic opera and the medieval setting typical of many French Grand Operas. Wagner fuses the two together by constructing a plot that involves the fourteenth century Minnesingers and the myth of Venus and her subterranean realm of Venusberg. Both the historical and the mythological are united in Tannhäuser’s personality. Although he is a historical poet composer, little is known about him other than the myths that surround him, allowing Wagner to weave a variety of sources into the opera narrative.

The legend of Tannhäuser, the amorous Franconian knight, and that of the song contest on the Wartburg came from entirely separate traditions. Ludwig Bechstein wove together the two legends in the first volume of his collection of Thuringian legends, Der Sagenschatz und die Sagenkreise des Thüringerlandes (1835). The sources used by Wagner therefore reflected a nineteenth century romantic view of the medieval period, revealing concerns about artistic freedom and the constraints of organised religion typical of the period of Romanticism.

Wagner began composing the music during a vacation in Teplitz in the summer of 1843 and completed the full score in April 1845.  The famous overture, often played separately as a concert piece, was actually composed last. While writing the music for the Venusberg grotto, Wagner grew so impassioned that he made himself ill. In his autobiography, he explains, With much pain and toil I sketched the first outlines of my music for the Venusberg.... Meanwhile I was very much troubled by excitability and rushes of blood to the brain. I imagined I was ill and lay for whole days in bed....  Wagner finished the score while on a long holiday to the spa city of Marienbad, which he spent with his wife, his dog and, amusingly, his parrot.

The Overture is without doubt the most famous section of Tannhäuser.  As the shimmering, dramatic chords give way to a series of mesmerising and expansive themes, the piece dramatically sets the scene for the action that follows. The woodwind instruments convey chanting pilgrims, represented by the solemn sound of the clarinets and bassoons, while the arching patterns of the strings represent the theme of sexual temptation and lust.

The first performance was given in the Royal Theatre in Dresden on 19 October 1845. Wagner’s friend, the composer Ferdinand Hiller, assisted in the musical preparations for the production. The part of Elizabeth was sung by Wagner’s niece Johanna Wagner, while the title role was taken by Josef Tichatschek. Once again, the performance was conducted by the composer himself. In spite of the opera’s immense popularity today, Tannhäuser was not the success that Rienzi had been and Wagner almost immediately set to modifying the ending and adjusting the score. He would continue to make a number of revisions of the opera throughout his life and was still unsatisfied with its format when he died. The most significant revision was made for the opera’s Paris premiere in 1861, though for political reasons this performance was a disaster.

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The first page of the score

Libretto, Dresden 1845

Interior of the Royal Theatre in 1841, where ‘Tannhäuser’ received its premiere

The legendary Tannhäuser was a Minnesänger, drawn here by Walther von der Vogelweide, c. 1300

A stalwart friend of Wagner over the years, Ferdinand von Hiller (1811-1885) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, writer and music director.

The Wartburg in Eisenach, a main setting of the opera

Final scene, Bayreuth Festival, 1930

Lohengrin

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Wagner’s next opera was to cause a storm of controversy, in part leading to his exile from Germany.  The court opera authorities of Dresden refused to stage Lohengrin, citing Wagner’s projected administrative and artistic reforms as the bone of contention. His new proposals sought to take control of the opera away from the court, aspiring for a national theatre that would feature productions designed by a union of dramatists and composers. Enchanted with ideas of social regeneration, Wagner became embroiled in the German revolution of 1848–49. These were a series of loosely coordinated protests and rebellions in the states of the German Confederation, which stressed pan-Germanism and demonstrated popular discontent with the traditional and autocratic political structure of the German territory. Wagner wrote a number of articles advocating revolution, going so far as to take an active part in the Dresden uprising of 1849. Following its failure, a warrant was issued for the composer’s arrest and he fled from Germany, unable to attend the first performance of Lohengrin at Weimar, which was given by his friend Franz Liszt on 28 August 1850.

The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, forming part of the Knight of the Swan tradition. A Romantic opera in three acts, Lohengrin has gone on to inspire many other works of art. King Ludwig II of Bavaria named his fairy-tale castle New Swan Castle (Neuschwanstein), after the Swan Knight. It would be King Ludwig’s patronage that later provide Wagner the means and opportunity to compose freely, build a unique theatre and stage his epic cycle The Ring of the Nibelung.

In composing Lohengrin Wagner created a new form of opera known as a through-composed music drama. Unlike in previous operas, the composition is not divided into individual numbers, but is played continuously from act to act without any interruption, as opposed to a conventional number opera that is divided into arias, recitatives and choral sections. Lohengrin makes extensive use of leitmotivs, for example, the Grail motif first revealed in the prelude, and the question motif first sung by Lohengrin to Elsa. A leitmotif is a short, recurring musical phrase associated with a particular character, place or idea. Although usually a short melody, leitmotifs can also be a chord progression or even a simple rhythm. One of Wagner’s lasting contributions to classical music was his development and use of the leitmotif, for which his later operas have become specially associated. They allowed Wagner to precisely narrate the inner thoughts of the characters on stage, without the need of redundant speech.

Set in tenth century Antwerp, Lohengrin is set against the turbulent backdrop of the quarrels and political infighting of the divided people of the Duchy of Brabant.  A devious hostile power left over from the region’s pagan past seeks to subvert the prevailing monotheistic government and to return the Duchy to pagan rule. A mysterious knight, possessing superhuman charisma and fighting ability, is sent by God to unite and strengthen the people, defending the innocent noble woman Elsa from the false accusation of murdering her brother, the child-Duke Gottfried of Brabant. However, the knight imposes a condition: the people must follow him without knowing his identity. Elsa in particular must never ask his name, or his heritage, or his origin. The conspirators attempt to undermine her faith in her rescuer, creating doubt amongst the people and forcing the stranger to leave.

The most famous section of the opera is undoubtedly the Bridal Chorus — a march that is played for the bride’s entrance at countless formal weddings throughout the Western world. In English-speaking countries it is generally known as Here Comes the Bride or The Wedding March, made popular when it was used as the processional at the wedding of Victoria the Princess Royal to Prince Frederick William of Prussia in 1858. The chorus is sung in Act III, Scene I by the women of the wedding party after the ceremony, as they accompany the heroine Elsa to her bridal chamber.

The majestic and sublime orchestral prelude to Act I is often heard in concert halls across the world. A vivid display of shimmering violins, it offers a classic example of Wagner’s ability to stir and inspire great emotion with the masterful inclusion of every individual part of the orchestra. The prelude is a musical depiction of the Holy Grail as it descends to the Earth in the care of an Angelic host. It builds a masterfully extended orchestral crescendo to a brilliant climax, before settling back into its original ethereal murmur.

During Wagner’s lifetime, Lohengrin was the most frequently performed of all his operas and by the late nineteenth century, it had attained an almost cult status among the musical elite. In 1893 the prominent New York music critic Henry T. Finck described the opera as the most popular work in the world’s operatic repertory. Nevertheless, its popularity was not particularly embraced by the composer, who vented his frustration the year after its premiere, writing, "If I could have everything my way, Lohengrin would be long forgotten in favour of new works that prove, even to me, that I have made progress".

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The first page of the score

Wagner’s niece, Johanna Jachmann-Wagner, as Ortrud in ‘Lohengrin’, c. 1860

Joseph O’Mara in the title role, 1894

Illustration from the London première

Origin of the Flag of Germany: Cheering revolutionaries in Berlin, on March 19, 1848

Neuschwanstein Castle, southwest Bavaria

Earliest known photograph of Franz Liszt, 1843

Das Rhinegold

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Exiled from Germany following his political actions, Wagner would not present a new musical work to the public for the next fifteen years. For eight of these years he lived in Zürich, composing, writing treatises and conducting, as well as directing the London Philharmonic concerts in 1855. During this time he became fascinated with the Siegfried legend and Norse myths, which he felt would provide rich material for a new form of opera. He wrote an operatic poem, Siegfried’s Death, which presented Siegfried as the new type of man, emerging victorious after a successful revolution. Wagner continued to write a number of prose volumes on revolution, both social and artistic. His essay Opera and Drama proposed a new and revolutionary type of musical stage work — a vast project that he had already undertaken to produce. By 1852 he had added three more poems to precede Siegfried’s Death, collected together under the title Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). Now widely regarded as the pinnacle achievement of Wagner’s work, the outlines for these operas would form the basis for a tetralogy of musical dramas: Das Rheingold (The Rhine Gold); Die Walküre (The Valkyrie); Siegfried; and Götterdämmerung (The Twilight of the Gods).

The Ring cycle reveals the composer’s mature style and working method. Expecting the imminent founding of a socialist state, he prophesied the disappearance of opera as artificial entertainment belonging to the elite, heralding instead a new kind of musical stage work for the people, expressing the self-realisation of free humanity. This new work was later to be called music drama, though Wagner preferred using the simple term drama. The new art form of poetic drama, forged as a continuous vocal-symphonic texture woven from basic thematic ideas, known as leitmotifs (leading motives). These musical figures arise naturally from expressive vocal phrases sung by characters and would be developed by the orchestra as reminiscences to express the dramatic and psychological development.

It was not until 1 November 1853, at his home in Zürich, that Wagner finally sat down and began the first continuous musical draft of the tetralogy. Five and a half years had passed since he had completed work on his last opera, Lohengrin. The composition of the tetralogy would occupy Wagner for more than a quarter of a century. Conceived around 1848, the work was not finished until 1874, less than two years before the entire cycle was given its premiere at Bayreuth. Most of this time was devoted to the composition of the music, the text having been largely completed in approximately four years. Wagner’s operatic scores generally passed through a series of distinct stages from sketch to fair copy. Yet, as he altered his method of musical composition several times during the writing of The Ring, there is not the same uniformity in the music’s evolution compared to the librettos. It was often Wagner’s practice to work on two or more drafts of a work at the same time, switching back and forth as the fancy took him. Accordingly, it is difficult to make definitive statements about the exact order in which the various themes, leitmotifs and instrumentations were devised.

Das Rheingold was composed between November 1853 and September 1854. Wagner sent the final copy to the Dresden copyist Friedrich Wölfel, who completed a beautiful ink copy on 11 November 1855. Wöfel’s copy was used as the source text for the first public printing of the complete opera in 1873. Wagner gave his own fair copy to his patron Ludwig II of Bavaria as a birthday gift on 25 August 1865 and it eventually found its way into the king’s family archives. More than half a century later it was purchased by the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce and presented to Adolf Hitler on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday. During the latter stages of the war, Hitler kept the copy with him in his bunker at Berlin and it was destroyed shortly before the fall of Berlin in May 1945.

The premiere of Das Rheingold was held at the National Theatre Munich on 22 September 1869, with August Kindermann in the role of Wotan, Heinrich Vogl as Loge, and Karl Fischer as Alberich. Wagner wanted the opera to premiere as part of the entire cycle, but was forced to allow the performance at the insistence of his patron Ludwig. The work was first performed as part of the complete cycle on 13 August 1876, in the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. Though Das Rheingold is praised by many, it is not as widely acclaimed as the other three operas in The Ring cycle. A performance lasts about two and a half hours, making it easily the shortest drama in the cycle and one of the composer’s most concise works.

The first instalment of the tetralogy sets the magical and mysterious scene for what is to follow. In the depths of the Rhine country, three Rhinemaidens guard the Rhinegold, a treasure of immense value. One day the Nibelung dwarf Alberich is mesmerised by the sight of the Rhinegold and the maidens explain that whoever wins the gold and forges it into a ring, will gain power over the world, though he must first renounce love. Frustrated by his unsuccessful attempts to seize the girls, Alberich curses love and steals the gold. Meanwhile, Wotan, lord of the gods, is reproached by his wife Fricka. He has promised to give Freia, goddess of youth, to the giants Fasolt and Fafner in return for their building a fortress for the gods, but he has delayed in fulfilling his promise. When the giants demand their reward, Loge, the god of fire, suggests an alternative payment. They could pay the giants the powerful ring recently forged by Alberich from the Rhinegold. The giants agree to this proposal and Wotan and Loge leave for the Nibelungs’ underground home…

The opera’s music conjures a series of motifs that will re-appear in the later parts of the cycle, following the principles laid down in Wagner’s writings. Highlights from the opera, often heard in concert recitals, include: Erda’s warning to Wotan, Weiche, Wotan, weiche! (Yield it, Wotan, yield it!), as she urges him to give up the ring he has taken from Alberich; Wotan’s greeting to Valhalla Abendlich strahlt der Sonne Auge (At evening the eye of the sun shines) and the entrance of the gods into Valhalla.

Another standout section is without doubt the prelude at the start of the work. One of the most famous openings in the operatic repertoire, the piece begins with a low E flat, before introducing increasingly elaborate figurations of an E-flat major chord, emulating the ebb and flow of the Rhine river. For four whole minutes, the prelude never strays from this single chord, winning it the distinction of being of the most famous ‘drones’ in Western music. Interestingly, the idea for the prelude came to the composer in his sleep, as he explains in his biography:

"After a night spent in fever and sleeplessness, I forced myself to take a long walk the next day through the hilly country, covered with pine woods. It all looked dreary and desolate, and I could not think what I should do there. Returning in the afternoon, I stretched myself, dead tired, on a hard couch, waiting for the long-desired hour of sleep.

It did not come, but I fell into a kind of somnolent state, in which I suddenly felt as though I were sinking in quickly flowing water. The rushing sound formed itself in my brain into a musical sound, the chord of E flat; major, which continually re-echoed in broken forms; these broken chords seemed to be melodic passages of increasing motion, yet the pure triad of E flat; major never changed, but seemed by its continuance to impart infinite significance to the element in which I was sinking. I awoke in sudden terror from my doze, feeling as though the waves were rushing high above my head. I at once recognised that the orchestral overture to the Rheingold, which must long have lain latent within me, though it had been unable to find definite form, had at last been revealed to me.

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A page from Wagner’s autograph score of ‘Das Rheingold’

The first page of the score

First performance at Bayreuth, 1876

The Rhinemaidens in the first Bayreuth production in 1876

Scene 1 of ‘Das Rheingold’ from the Bayreuth Festival production in 1876

Emil Fischer as Wotan at the 1889 New York premiere

The Festspielhaus, home of the Bayreuth Festival

Auditorium in 1876

The building in 1882

Die Walküre

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In the summer of 1852, Wagner and his wife rented the Pension Rinderknecht, a pied-à-terre on the Zürichberg, now Hochstrasse 56–58 in Zürich. There he worked on the prose draft of the second instalment of The Ring cycle, Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), originally titled Siegmund and Sieglinde: the Valkyrie’s Punishment. The fair copy of the libretto was completed by mid-December, though Wagner had already begun to sketch the key section that would become his most famous creation of all. On 23 July 1851 he wrote down on a loose sheet of paper the theme for the Ride of the Valkyries (Walkürenritt), as well as several other early sketches, written while still working on the libretto. Yet, it was not until 28 June 1854 that Wagner began to transform these into a complete draft of all three acts of the opera. This preliminary draft was completed by late December 1854. During this time, Wagner was also finishing touches on the final orchestral version of Das Rheingold.

Wagner decided to move straight on to developing a full orchestral score in January 1855 without bothering to write an intermediate instrumentation draft, as he had done for the first instalment on the cycle. He was soon to regret this decision, as numerous interruptions, among which was a four month visit to London, rendered the project more difficult than originally anticipated. As much time elapsed between the drafts, Wagner found that he could not remember how he had intended to orchestrate the initial draft. Accordingly, several passages had to be composed again from the beginning. Nevertheless, Wagner persevered with the task and the opera was completed in Zürich on 23 March 1856.

The plot is based on the Norse mythology told in the Volsunga Saga and the Poetic Edda. In Norse mythology, a Walküre (valkyrie) is one of a host of female figures that choose the warriors that may die in battle and those that live. Selecting among half of those that die, the valkyries bring their chosen warriors to the afterlife hall of the slain, Valhalla, ruled over by the god Odin, while the less fortunate warriors go to the goddess Freyja’s afterlife field Fólkvangr. Valkyries are also represented as lovers of heroes and other mortals, where they are sometimes described as the daughters of royalty, occasionally accompanied by ravens.

The opera opens with Siegmund, son of Wotan, the King of the Gods, pursued by his enemies during a storm.  Siegmund stumbles into an unknown house, where he is discovered by the beautiful Sieglinde lying exhausted by the hearth; they feel an immediate attraction for each other. They are interrupted by Sieglinde’s husband, Hunding, demanding to know the identity of the stranger. Calling himself Woeful, Siegmund narrates the events of his disastrous life, only to discover that Hunding is a kinsman of his enemies. Hunding informs his guest that they must fight to the death at dawn.

Left alone, Siegmund calls on his father, Wälse, for the sword he once promised him. Then Sieglinde reappears, who confesses that she has given Hunding a sleeping potion. She tells of her forced wedding, when a one-eyed stranger had thrust into a tree a sword that has since resisted every attempt at pulling it out. She confesses her unhappiness and Siegmund embraces her, promising to free her from Hunding. As moonlight floods the room, Siegmund compares their attraction to the marriage of love and spring, encapsulated in the beautiful aria Winterstürme wichen dem Wonnemond, (Winter storms have waned in the moon of delight). When Sieglinde learns that his father’s name is Wälse, she at once recognises him as her twin brother. Siegmund pulls the sword from the tree and calls Sieglinde bride and sister, drawing her to him with passionate fervour, as the lovers are unable to repel their feelings.

The prelude offers a masterly depiction of a storm gathering for its final and furious onslaught, conjuring the sense of the wind sweeping through the forest. In the early section, only the string instruments are scored. Gradually, the instrumentation increases in scope and power. The climax employs a tremendous fortissimo on the contra tuba and tympani, followed by the crash of the Donner Motive on the wind instruments.

Once again Wagner weaves leitmotifs into the opera, adding a further dimension to a story that is complex with deep associations. At the beginning of Die Walküre, as Siegmund stands in the entrance we hear the Siegmund leitmotif. A sad and weary strain on cellos and basses, it is further embellished with a haunting figure on the horns. The music connotes Siegmund’s weary and melancholic presence, entering from the storm, cast down by the many sad trials he has faced in his life.

In the second Act, Wotan commands Brünnhilde, his favourite Valkyrie daughter, to shield Siegmund in his forthcoming fight with Hunding. The soprano that sings Brünnhilde requires a powerful voice and the role is usually taken by the most skilled singer in the opera. When Brünnhilde appears, she sings Hojotoho!, her famous battle cry and a very demanding section to perform.

Other orchestral highlights include the prelude to the second Act and, of course, the famous Ride of the Valkyries, which introduces the third act. Famous in more recent times due to its inclusion in Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now (1979), the leitmotif of the piece, labelled Walkürenritt, lasts around eight minutes, building up successive layers of accompaniment until the curtain rises to reveal a mountain peak where four of the eight Valkyrie sisters of Brünnhilde have gathered in preparation for the transportation of fallen heroes to Valhalla. As they are joined by the other four Valkyrie sisters, the familiar tune is carried by the orchestra, while, above it, the Valkyries proclaim their sinister battle-cry. Apart from the song of the Rhinemaidens in Das Rheingold, it is the only ensemble piece in the first three operas of the entire Ring cycle.

Die Walküre was first performed on 26 June 1870 in the National Theatre Munich against Wagner’s wishes. He had originally intended for it to be premiered as part of the entire cycle, but was forced to allow the performance at the insistence of his patron King Ludwig II. By the January of the ensuing year, Wagner received numerous requests for the Ride to be performed separately. Furious at this, he believed that such a performance would be an utter indiscretion and forbade it. However, the piece was still printed and sold in Leipzig and Wagner subsequently wrote a complaint to the publisher Schott. In the period up to the first performance of the complete Ring cycle, Wagner continued to receive requests for separate performances, his second wife Cosima recording that "Unsavoury letters arrive for R. – requests for the Ride of the Valkyries