DOCSLIB.ORG

The Texts of Wagner's "Der Junge Siegfried" and "Siegfried" Author(S): Daniel Coren Source: 19Th-Century Music, Vol

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Texts of Wagner's The Texts of Wagner's "Der junge Siegfried" and "Siegfried" Author(s): Daniel Coren Source: 19th-Century Music, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Summer, 1982), pp. 17-30 Published by: University of California Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/746228 Accessed: 08-11-2017 01:27 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to 19th-Century Music This content downloaded from 70.103.220.4 on Wed, 08 Nov 2017 01:27:21 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms The Texts of Wagner's Derjunge Siegfried and Siegfried DANIEL COREN On 10 May 1851 Wagner wrote in a letter On tothe his impetus of this insight, Wagner com- friend Theodor Uhlig: posed a new dramatic poem, Der junge Sieg- fried, intending it as an introduction to Sieg- I have been plagued by an idea all winter, and have been so strongly inspired by it that I am now frieds going Tod, to the original version of Gotterddim- realize it [as a drama]. The idea concerns the merung, lad who which he had written in 1848 and sets out to learn fear, but who is so dumb 1849.that heWith is his fresh vision of Siegfried before not able to succeed. Imagine my astonishment him, when he was able to work with remarkable I suddenly realized that lad is none other speed. than-the He wrote some fragmentary prose young Siegfried, who won the hoard and awakenedsketches for the new drama early in May, an Briinnhilde!'1 extended version by the end of the month, and had completed the entire poem by June 24th.2 Der junge Siegfried can in some respects be viewed as an expansion of Der Nibelungen- 1"Da hat mich nun ... den ganzen Winter eine Idee gep- Mythus als Entwurf zu einem Drama, the orig- lagt, die mich kiirzlich ... als Eingebung so vollstiindig un- terjocht hat, dass ich sie jetzt realisiren werde .... Es war dies der Bursche, der auszieht, 'um das Fiirchten zu lemen,' und so dumm ist, es nie lernen zu wollen. Denke Dir meinen Schreck, als ich plitzlich erkenne, dass dieser Bursche niemand Anders ist, als-der junge Siegfried, der 2Ibid., pp. 63-69. den Hort gewinnt und Briinnhilde erweckt!" Otto Strobel, Richard Wagner: Skizzen und Entwurfe zur Ring- 0148-2076/82/020017+ 14$00.50 C 1982 by The Regents Dichtung (Munich, 1930), p. 65. of the University of California. 17 This content downloaded from 70.103.220.4 on Wed, 08 Nov 2017 01:27:21 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 19TH CENTURY inal prose scenario which had preceded Sieg- mythological material that would have been MUSIC frieds Tod in 1848. Siegfried's life in the forest presented only through narrative or oblique with Mime, his forging of Nothung, his slaying references. But in writing Walki're and Rhein- of Fafner, his understanding of the Forest-Bird, gold, Wagner did considerably more than ex- and his winning of Briinnhilde-in short, all of pand what had been plot exposition into actual Siegfried's mythological accomplishments- dramatic action. As he worked backwards are contained in that brief scenario. On the through the cycle, he inevitably found that he simplest level, Der junge Siegfried makes had to create a more and more detailed explicit the impressive but unspecified dossier mythological world. These details, in turn, of heroic acts that Siegfried brings with him on furnished ideas that had not even occurred to his journey down the Rhine in Siegfrieds Tod, him in writing Der junge Siegfried,: but that be- and the two poems together conform to came some of the most important features of Wagner's original idea of a grand opera center- the finished Ring. ing around Siegfried. After the Walkaire and Rheingold poems In Der junge Siegfried, however, a new layer had been written, Der junge Siegfried was has been added to the mythological attributes necessarily subjected to extensive revision. that Wagner had ascribed to Siegfried in Sieg- Briinnhilde, Mime, Alberich, and Fafner had frieds Tod. In the new drama, Siegfried's con- now acquired detailed past histories, and their cern with fear furnishes his heroism with a roles had to be adjusted accordingly. But most psychological depth it had not possessed be- important of all, by this time the central focus fore, and, as Wagner's letter to Uhlig indicates, of the Ring had shifted from Siegfried to Wo- Siegfried's deeds in themselves are now not tan:as from 1852 on, Wagner saw the world he important as his motivation in performing was creating more and more in terms of the them. Der junge Siegfried-like, eventually, god. When Der junge Siegfried was revised, Siegfried itself-is concerned with the de- Siegfried himself hardly changed, but the Wan- velopment of the hero's psyche through his derer became a far more complex character, pursuit of the unknown. Ultimately this pur- and his scenes were changed much more radi- suit allowed Wagner to reveal his own percep- cally than other portions of the drama. In Der tion of the intimate connection that exists be- junge Siegfried, the Wanderer is merely re- tween fear and sexual experience. signed, in a vague sort of way; this resignation But Der junge Siegfried is not about Sieg- is largely responsible for the unsubstantial im- fried alone. Wotan, in his guise as the Wan- pression he makes. But in Siegfried, after we derer, also appears in this poem-although have seen him in the two previous dramas, his there had been no mention of his presence in quiet exterior covers tensions that must at last the portion of the Nibelungen-Entwurf con- come to the surface. In the third act of Sieg- cerning Siegfried. Compared with the noble fried, Wotan becomes a paradoxical and power- and austere figure with whom we are familiar ful figure. His former passivity becomes an ec- in Siegfried, the Wanderer in Der junge Sieg- static willingness to abandon his powers, yet, fried is only tentatively sketched. However, his despite this willingness, he allows himself to mere juxtaposition with Siegfried shows that be drawn into combat with Siegfried. in 1851 Wagner was already on his way to re- Siegfried's words and actions are transposed casting some of his basic thought about the directly from Der junge Siegfried with virtually Nibelung material. In fact, immediately upon no significant changes. One might at first be the completion of Der junge Siegfried, he felt led to believe that there was simply no need for the necessity of writing the poems for Die Wagner to alter the character who had crystal- Walkzire and Das Rheingold, and had com- lized in his mind so suddenly in May 1851. pleted them by the middle of 1852. Wagner himself surely wanted to create this Walkeire and Rheingold involved further impression when, in 1854, while he was com- penetration into the first few pages of the posing the music for Rheingold, he described Nibelungen-Entwurf, or, from the point of Siegfried as "my ideal of the perfect human be- view of a hypothetical audience for Der junge ing, whose highest consciousness ... can find Siegfried, the unravelling of an obscure mass of expression only in the most actual living..,. of 18 This content downloaded from 70.103.220.4 on Wed, 08 Nov 2017 01:27:21 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms the present."3 But the subsequent history of II DANIEL COREN Wagner's Der Wagner's work on the Ring indicates that Sieg- In examining the revisions of Der junge junge Siegfried fried may have remained as he had been in Der Siegfried, it will be useful to designate two junge Siegfried not because he was entirely broad categories of material. First, there are the satisfactory, but because Wagner had begun to revisions that Wagner might well have made lose touch with him. It should be stressed that even if he had not decided to expand the cycle after 1851, Wagner devoted relatively little from two to four poems; second, there are mental energy to the contents of the dramas inthose made necessary by Rheingold and Wal- the Ring that concern Siegfried. By the time hekdire. had finished the music for Walkire in 1856, his The first category involves, for the most work for the past four years had been almost part, manipulation of detail. While these ma- exclusively devoted to the first half of the cy- nipulations at times become quite involved, cle. The composition of the music for Rhein- they do not reflect the more profound gold and Walkare had, after a start was made, philosophical changes that characterize the re- been quite easy for him, and his musical lan- vision resulting from the growth of the Ring guage had operated with remarkable consis- cycle beyond Der junge Siegfried. It should also tency over more than seven hours of music- be made clear at the outset that substantial drama. But the composition of the music for portions of Der junge Siegfried remain un- Siegfried proved to be a far more difficult task changed in Siegfried-in general, scenes in- and when at length he reached the Waldweben volving Siegfried himself.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Parsifal and Canada: a Documentary Study
    Parsifal and Canada: A Documentary Study The Canadian Opera Company is preparing to stage Parsifal in Toronto for the first time in 115 years; seven performances are planned for the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts from September 25 to October 18, 2020. Restrictions on public gatherings imposed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic have placed the production in jeopardy. Wagnerians have so far suffered the cancellation of the COC’s Flying Dutchman, Chicago Lyric Opera’s Ring cycle and the entire Bayreuth Festival for 2020. It will be a hard blow if the COC Parsifal follows in the footsteps of a projected performance of Parsifal in Montreal over 100 years ago. Quinlan Opera Company from England, which mounted a series of 20 operas in Montreal in the spring of 1914 (including a complete Ring cycle), announced plans to return in the fall of 1914 for another feast of opera, including Parsifal. But World War One intervened, the Parsifal production was cancelled, and the Quinlan company went out of business. Let us hope that history does not repeat itself.1 While we await news of whether the COC production will be mounted, it is an opportune time to reflect on Parsifal and its various resonances in Canadian music history. This article will consider three aspects of Parsifal and Canada: 1) a performance history, including both excerpts and complete presentations; 2) remarks on some Canadian singers who have sung Parsifal roles; and 3) Canadian scholarship on Parsifal. NB: The indication [DS] refers the reader to sources that are reproduced in the documentation portfolio that accompanies this article.
    [Show full text]
  • 05-09-2019 Siegfried Eve.Indd
    Synopsis Act I Mythical times. In his cave in the forest, the dwarf Mime forges a sword for his foster son Siegfried. He hates Siegfried but hopes that the youth will kill the dragon Fafner, who guards the Nibelungs’ treasure, so that Mime can take the all-powerful ring from him. Siegfried arrives and smashes the new sword, raging at Mime’s incompetence. Having realized that he can’t be the dwarf’s son, as there is no physical resemblance between them, he demands to know who his parents were. For the first time, Mime tells Siegfried how he found his mother, Sieglinde, in the woods, who died giving birth to him. When he shows Siegfried the fragments of his father’s sword, Nothung, Siegfried orders Mime to repair it for him and storms out. As Mime sinks down in despair, a stranger enters. It is Wotan, lord of the gods, in human disguise as the Wanderer. He challenges the fearful Mime to a riddle competition, in which the loser forfeits his head. The Wanderer easily answers Mime’s three questions about the Nibelungs, the giants, and the gods. Mime, in turn, knows the answers to the traveler’s first two questions but gives up in terror when asked who will repair the sword Nothung. The Wanderer admonishes Mime for inquiring about faraway matters when he knows nothing about what closely concerns him. Then he departs, leaving the dwarf’s head to “him who knows no fear” and who will re-forge the magic blade. When Siegfried returns demanding his father’s sword, Mime tells him that he can’t repair it.
    [Show full text]
  • The Bayreuth Festspielhaus: the Metaphysical Manifestation of Wagner's Der Ring Des Nibelungen Matthew Timmermans University of Ottawa
    Nota Bene: Canadian Undergraduate Journal of Musicology Volume 8 | Issue 1 Article 6 The Bayreuth Festspielhaus: The Metaphysical Manifestation of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen Matthew Timmermans University of Ottawa Recommended Citation Timmermans, Matthew (2015) "The Bayreuth Festspielhaus: The Metaphysical Manifestation of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen," Nota Bene: Canadian Undergraduate Journal of Musicology: Vol. 8: Iss. 1, Article 6. The Bayreuth Festspielhaus: The Metaphysical Manifestation of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen Abstract This essay explores how the architectural design of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus effects the performance of Wagner’s later operas, specifically Der Ring des Nibelungen. Contrary to Wagner’s theoretical writings, which advocate equality among the various facets of operatic production (Gesamtkuntswerk), I argue that Wagner’s architectural design elevates music above these other art forms. The evidence lies within the unique architecture of the house, which Wagner constructed to realize his operatic vision. An old conception of Wagnerian performance advocated by Cosima Wagner—in interviews and letters—was consciously left by Richard Wagner. However, I juxtapose this with Daniel Barenboim’s modern interpretation, which suggests that Wagner unconsciously, or by a Will beyond himself, created Bayreuth as more than the legacy he passed on. The juxtaposition parallels the revolutionary nature of Wagner’s ideas embedded in Bayreuth’s architecture. To underscore this revolution, I briefly outline Wagner’s philosophical development, specifically the ideas he extracted from the works of Ludwig Feuerbach and Arthur Schopenhauer, further defining the focus of Wagner’s composition and performance of the music. The analysis thereby challenges the prevailing belief that Wagner intended Bayreuth and Der Ring des Nibelungen, the opera which inspired the house’s inception, to embody Gesamtkunstwerk; instead, these creations internalize the drama, allowing the music to reign supreme.
    [Show full text]
  • WAGNER and the VOLSUNGS None of Wagner’S Works Is More Closely Linked with Old Norse, and More Especially Old Icelandic, Culture
    WAGNER AND THE VOLSUNGS None of Wagner’s works is more closely linked with Old Norse, and more especially Old Icelandic, culture. It would be carrying coals to Newcastle if I tried to go further into the significance of the incom- parable eddic poems. I will just mention that on my first visit to Iceland I was allowed to gaze on the actual manuscript, even to leaf through it . It is worth noting that Richard Wagner possessed in his library the same Icelandic–German dictionary that is still used today. His copy bears clear signs of use. This also bears witness to his search for the meaning and essence of the genuinely mythical, its very foundation. Wolfgang Wagner Introduction to the program of the production of the Ring in Reykjavik, 1994 Selma Gu›mundsdóttir, president of Richard-Wagner-Félagi› á Íslandi, pre- senting Wolfgang Wagner with a facsimile edition of the Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda on his eightieth birthday in Bayreuth, August 1999. Árni Björnsson Wagner and the Volsungs Icelandic Sources of Der Ring des Nibelungen Viking Society for Northern Research University College London 2003 © Árni Björnsson ISBN 978 0 903521 55 0 The cover illustration is of the eruption of Krafla, January 1981 (Photograph: Ómar Ragnarsson), and Wagner in 1871 (after an oil painting by Franz von Lenbach; cf. p. 51). Cover design by Augl‡singastofa Skaparans, Reykjavík. Printed by Short Run Press Limited, Exeter CONTENTS PREFACE ............................................................................................ 6 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................... 7 BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF RICHARD WAGNER ............................ 17 CHRONOLOGY ............................................................................... 64 DEVELOPMENT OF GERMAN NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS ..68 ICELANDIC STUDIES IN GERMANY .........................................
    [Show full text]
  • ARSC Journal, Vol.21, No
    Sound Recording Reviews Wagner: Parsifal (excerpts). Berlin State Opera Chorus and Orchestra (a) Bayreuth Festival Chorus and Orchestra (b), cond. Karl Muck. Opal 837/8 (LP; mono). Prelude (a: December 11, 1927); Act 1-Transformation & Grail Scenes (b: July/ August, 1927); Act 2-Flower Maidens' Scene (b: July/August, 1927); Act 3 (a: with G. Pistor, C. Bronsgeest, L. Hofmann; slightly abridged; October 10-11and13-14, 1928). Karl Muck conducted Parsifal at every Bayreuth Festival from 1901 to 1930. His immediate predecessor was Franz Fischer, the Munich conductor who had alternated with Hermann Levi during the premiere season of 1882 under Wagner's own supervi­ sion. And Muck's retirement, soon after Cosima and Siegfried Wagner died, brought another changing of the guard; Wilhelm Furtwangler came to the Green Hill for the next festival, at which Parsifal was controversially assigned to Arturo Toscanini. It is difficult if not impossible to tell how far Muck's interpretation of Parsifal reflected traditions originating with Wagner himself. Muck's act-by-act timings from 1901 mostly fall within the range defined in 1882 by Levi and Fischer, but Act 1 was decidedly slower-1:56, compared with Levi's 1:47 and Fischer's 1:50. Muck's timing is closer to that of Felix Mottl, who had been a musical assistant in 1882, and of Hans Knappertsbusch in his first and slowest Bayreuth Parsifal. But in later summers Muck speeded up to the more "normal" timings of 1:50 and 1:47, and the extensive recordings he made in 1927-8, now republished by Opal, show that he could be not only "sehr langsam" but also "bewegt," according to the score's requirements.
    [Show full text]
  • From Page to Stage: Wagner As Regisseur
    Wagner Ia 5/27/09 3:55 PM Page 3 Copyrighted Material From Page to Stage: Wagner as Regisseur KATHERINE SYER Nowadays we tend to think of Richard Wagner as an opera composer whose ambitions and versatility extended beyond those of most musicians. From the beginning of his career he assumed the role of his own librettist, and he gradually expanded his sphere of involvement to include virtually all aspects of bringing an opera to the stage. If we focus our attention on the detailed dramatic scenarios he created as the bases for his stage works, we might well consider Wagner as a librettist whose ambitions extended rather unusually to the area of composition. In this light, Wagner could be considered alongside other theater poets who paid close attention to pro- duction matters, and often musical issues as well.1 The work of one such figure, Eugène Scribe, formed the foundation of grand opera as it flour- ished in Paris in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Wagner arrived in this operatic epicenter in the fall of 1839 with work on his grand opera Rienzi already under way, but his prospects at the Opéra soon waned. The following spring, Wagner sent Scribe a dramatic scenario for a shorter work hoping that the efforts of this famous librettist would help pave his way to success. Scribe did not oblige. Wagner eventually sold the scenario to the Opéra, but not before transforming it into a markedly imaginative libretto for his own use.2 Wagner’s experience of operatic stage produc- tion in Paris is reflected in many aspects of the libretto of Der fliegende Holländer, the beginning of an artistic vision that would draw him increas- ingly deeper into the world of stage direction and production.
    [Show full text]
  • Riccardo Muti Conductor Rudolf Buchbinder Piano Wagner Siegfried’S Rhine Journey and Funeral March from Götterdämmerung Beethoven Piano Concerto No
    Please note that pianist Leif Ove Andsnes has withdrawn from these concerts. The CSO welcomes Rudolf Buchbinder, who has graciously agreed to perform. The program remains unchanged. PROGRAM ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SECOND SEASON Chicago Symphony Orchestra Riccardo Muti Music Director Pierre Boulez Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO Thursday, June 13, 2013, at 8:00 Friday, June 14, 2013, at 1:30 Saturday, June 15, 2013, at 8:00 Riccardo Muti Conductor Rudolf Buchbinder Piano Wagner Siegfried’s Rhine Journey and Funeral March FROM Götterdämmerung Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58 Allegro moderato Andante con moto— Rondo: Vivace RUDOLF BUCHBINDER INTERMISSION Bruckner Symphony No. 1 in C Minor Allegro Adagio—Andante Scherzo: Lively Finale: Agitated and fiery These performances have been enabled by the Juli Grainger Fund. Support of the music director and related programs is made possible in part by a generous gift from the Zell Family Foundation. This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts. COMMENTS BY PHILLIP HUSCHER Richard Wagner Born May 22, 1813, Leipzig, Germany. Died February 13, 1883, Venice, Italy. Siegfried’s Rhine Journey and Funeral March FROM Götterdämmerung iegfried’s Death was the original then e Young Siegfried, and finally Stitle of the prose sketch for an e Valkyrie each demanded yet opera that grew, over the span of another opera before it to provide twenty-eight years, into the most background and to set all the nec- monumental undertaking in the essary narrative strands in motion.
    [Show full text]
  • Accidental Tourism in Wagner's Bayreuth
    1 Accidental Tourism in Wagner’s Bayreuth An Analysis of Visitors’ Motivations and Experiences in Wagner’s Bayreuth. Myrto Moraitou Master Thesis Dissertation Accidental Tourism in Wagner’s Bayreuth An analysis of visitors’ motivations and experiences in Wagner’s Bayreuth Master Thesis Name: Myrto Moraitou Student number: 433480 Supervisor: Prof. Dr. S. L. Reijnders Date: June 12th 2018 Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication Arts, Culture and Society Erasmus University Rotterdam Accidental Tourism in Wagner’s Bayreuth An analysis of visitors’ motivations and experiences in Wagner’s Bayreuth Abstract This research offers an analysis of the motivations and experiences of visitors in Wagner’s Bayreuth. Wagner’s Bayreuth is a great example of music tourism as it is maybe the first site where music lovers from around the world visited in order to listen and experience classical music. Taking as a starting point the theories developed on music tourism studies on sites related to popular music such as the ones of Connell and Gibson (2003), Gibson and Connell (2005, 2007) and Bolderman and Reijnders (2016), this research will try to identify whether these theories apply also on the classical music field, based on the example of Wagner’s Bayreuth. This paper addresses four visitor elements; the motivation, the expectation, the experience and evaluation of the above. The personal ‘identity’ of each visitor plays also an important role on their motives and evaluation procedure of the experience, as it defines the relationship between the visitor and the place and also the way of evaluation through their personal story. Through the analysis of these elements, using a qualitative approach with in depth interviews based on these elements, the findings suggest that there are some similarities in the behavior of the visitors between Wagner’s Bayreuth and previous researches on popular culture sites.
    [Show full text]
  • The Influence of Ludwig Feuerbach's Philosophy
    1 THE INFLUENCE OF LUDWIG FEUERBACH’S PHILOSOPHY UPON THE LIBRETTO OF RICHARD WAGNER’S MUSIC-DRAMA ‘PARSIFAL’ By Paul Heise Research Consultant – The Richard Wagner Society of Florida [email protected] Home Tel: 727-343-0365 Home Add: 2001 55TH St. South Gulfport, FL 33707 ELABORATION OF A TALK PRESENTED TO THE BOSTON WAGNER SOCIETY ON 5/30/07, AT THE WELLESLEY FREE LIBRARY While it is well known that the atheist German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach’s influence upon Richard Wagner’s libretto for his music-drama The Ring of The Nibelung is great, it is usually assumed that Feuerbach’s influence upon Wagner’s writings and operas dropped off radically after his 1854 conversion to the pessimist philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. For this reason the librettos of Wagner’s other mature music- dramas completed after 1854, namely, Tristan and Isolde, The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, and Parsifal, are widely regarded as expressions of Wagner’s post-1854 Schopenhauerian phase. It is therefore quite surprising to find in key passages from the libretto of Wagner’s last work for the theater, Parsifal, a remarkable dependence on Feuerbachian concepts. This paper will examine that influence closely. A familiarity with the libretto of Parsifal is assumed. This paper has retained all the extracts from Feuerbach’s and Wagner’s writings (and recorded remarks) discussed in my original talk of 5/30/07. However, a number of key extracts which had to be dropped from the talk due to time constraints have been restored, and other extracts added, both to fill in logical gaps in the talk, and also to address certain questions posed by audience members after the talk.
    [Show full text]
  • Diegeheimnissederformbeirich
    Intégral 30 (2016) pp. 81–98 Die Geheimnisse der Form bei Richard Wagner: Structure and Drama as Elements of Wagnerian Form* by Matthew Bribitzer-Stull Abstract. Wagnerian operatic forms span a continuum. At one end lie the delin- eated, non-developmental, “structural” kinds of shapes, at the other the “formless” streams of music that arguably depend on the extra-musical for their continuity and coherence. In between we find musical processes that embody more of a senseof motion and development than the fixed structures, but that cohere without the need of a text or programme. In this article I attempt to illustrate this range by applying my analytic methodology to two contrasting examples, one leaning heavily toward the structural (the Todesverkündigung scene from Die Walküre Act II, Scene 4) and the other (the Act II, Scene 2 love duet from Tristan und Isolde) best understood as a musi- cal representation of the drama. The overarching point I make with this comparison is that the range of Wagnerian formal techniques is best served by a flexible, multi- valent analytic orientation. Keywords and phrases: Wagner, opera, form, Alfred Lorenz, Tristan und Isolde, Der Ring des Nibelungen, Die Walküre. Introduction Lorenz’s study was the first serious attempt to present the formal process of the Wagnerian Musikdrama in a system- nyone familiar with Alfred Lorenz’s exhaustive analyses of Der Ring des Nibelungen, Tristan und Isolde, atic, analytic way, an argument against the then-prevalent A 1 Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Parsifal, published be- view that Wagner’s late music was formless.
    [Show full text]
  • Die Geburt Des Festspielgedankens Aus Dem Geist Derbäderkur
    343 DIE GEBURT DES FESTSPIELGEDANKENS AUS DEM GEIST DERBÄDERKUR Matthias Theodor Vogt (Rom) Im gleichen Jahr, 1876 wie das Boyreuther Festspielunternehmen eröffnet in Falkenstein am Taunus ein Institut mit ähnlich strenger Tageseinteilung für seine Gäste: die erste geschlossene Anstalt zur Behandlung von' Tuber­ kulose-Krahken. Oie Organisation des Tagespl<lnels der Kranken ebenso wie die Einführung der liegekur (zuvor war es weitgehend eine Sitzkur, gewesen) bringen so· große Erfolge, daß Oettweilers System der Aussetzung, seiner Patienten an die freie Natur Schule macht~ Thomas Manns Zauberberg über• liefert ein anschauliches Bild der in ebensolcher Ausschließlichkeit um die Krankheit und'-ihre Kurierong kreisenden Gespräche,' wie es in Bayreuth dem Werk Wagners widerfährt. Zu den Eigentümtichkeiten des Festspietablaufs _gehört seit Anbeginn die strikte Regulierung des Tagesablaufs seiner Festspielgäste. Eine eigene Ver­ haltensanweisung- war nicht nöt.ig,· da' diese sich von selbst ergab. Einkaufen oder Spielbankbe'suche wie in den mondäneren unter den Badeorten war in dem absichtsvoll gewählten Provinzort nicht möglich - wer nicht zu Hause blieb und den Klavierauszug oder wenigstens die damals schon zahlreiche Sekundärliteratur studierte, ging spazieren. Nach dem Mittagessen {die Jagd nach Eßbarem, die 1876 zumindest tür. Tschaikowsky den musikalischen Eindruck überwogen zu haben scheint, war unvorhersehbarl legte der frühe Beginn der Aufführung und die Anstrengung des langen und konzentrierten Sitzoos auf den damals freilich noch bequemeren und vor allem ,schweißdurch• lässigen Stühlen eine Siesta .nahe. 'Der Gang zum Hügel war der nächste Spaziergang. Froh um etwas frische _luft und Bewegung 'war man in den bewußt einstündig gewählten Pausen noch ,dem mindestens ein:-. beim so unglücklich verlängerten ersten Götterdämmerungs-Akt bekanntlich ..über zwei­ stündigem Sitzen- ohne Klimaanlage.
    [Show full text]
  • Richard Wagner and Buddhism
    CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Richard Wagner and Buddhism Tristan and Isolde and The Victors Dorothea Watanabe Dauer Richard Wagner’s influence on the cultural developments of the nineteenth century was probably more profound and more diverse than that of any other artist of that period. Wagner became the object either of ardent enthusiasm or bitter contempt, and this has remained unchanged to this day. Again and again Wagnerians and anti-Wagnerians have confronted each other over the works of this great but controversial artist and thinker. Since World War II these confrontations have become more belligerent, and this alone may suffice to secure for Wagner’s works and ideas a recognition as long as interest in Western art and music, as we have known it, continues. The Renaissance focussed the cultural interests of the Western World almost exclusively on antiquity. Up to 1854 Wagner was no exception to this trend. However, he made a rigorous distinction between the world of Greece and the world of Rome, and had praise only for Greece and its ideal of the self-confident man. The young Wagner, until 1848, was an enthusiastic admirer of Feuerbach, Bakunin, Prudhomme and other March Revolutionaries. After the failure of the revolution and because of his participation in the movement that led to the so-called May Uprising, a warrant for the arrest of the former Hof-Kapellmeister at the Dresden Staatstheater was issued. With a passport bearing the name of a Professor Widmann,1 he fled to Zurich. At that time the thirty-six year old Wagner was firmly convinced of the need for a political reorganization of Germany, since he could also expect a comparable transformation in the arts 1 Guy de Pourtates, Richard Wagner, Mensch und Meister (Berlin: Th.
    [Show full text]