LISZT AS KAPELLMEISTER: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SYMPHONIC POEMS ON THE WEIMAR STAGE by JOANNE CORMAC A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Music Department College of Arts and Law University of Birmingham September 2012 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract Little research has been carried out into Liszt’s work as Kapellmeister of the Weimar Court Theatre. The nature and extent of his duties, his involvement in productions, festivals and performances, and his relationships with others within the administration has yet to be examined in detail, let alone the implications of all of this for his music. This thesis draws on a wealth of primary source material to provide new insight into this area. It begins by drawing a general picture of Liszt’s work in Weimar. Then, it attempts a detailed ‘re-historicisation’ of four of Liszt’s Weimar symphonic poems. The thesis returns four of the symphonic poems (Tasso, Orpheus, Festklänge, and Hamlet) to their original dramatic performance contexts. In doing so, it reveals that the Weimar productions or festivals in which they were premiered had a significant impact on their conception and development in numerous, diverse, and sometimes surprising ways. Accordingly, the findings shed new light on the influence of staged genres, particularly melodrama, on the development of the symphonic poem as a genre. Then the thesis explores the revision of these works in order to trace Liszt’s changing conception of what a symphonic poem might be. For Rory Acknowledgements Throughout the last three years of researching and writing this thesis, I have been grateful for the input, advice and support of a number of people and institutions (though any mistakes are mine alone). Firstly, I would like to thank the AHRC for funding this project and the University of Birmingham for providing me with further generous grants for research training and conference attendance. Thanks must also go to the various archives that allowed me access to their holdings: the Goethe and Schiller Archive, the Thüringisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, the Franz Liszt School of Music, the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, and the Franz Liszt Museum in Budapest. In particular, I would like to thank Frau Fiebig and Frau Wagner at the Goethe and Schiller Archive for their help. And I would also like to thank Dr Monika Hennemann for helping me when I was just starting to learn German. Thanks also to the various academics I have met at conferences around the world for their input and to my parents for their support financial and otherwise. But there are a couple of people without whom I could not have completed this thesis. First of all, I have been extremely fortunate in having such a supportive supervisor: Professor Kenneth Hamilton. Thank you for interpreting the role of supervisor in such a generous manner, for your encyclopaedic knowledge of 19th-century music, and for your enthusiasm and great sense of humour that made the project as a whole so enjoyable. And final thanks have to go to my husband, who has patiently put up with having Liszt as a main topic of conversation for three years (and, incidentally, who could now also write a thesis himself on the topic). Thanks for your constant advice and support and for reading all of my drafts. Joanne Cormac September 2012 Contents Introduction p. 1 Chapter One: Liszt as Kapellmeister p. 31 Part One: The Weimar Theatre Management: Personalities and p. 33 Politics Part Two: The Kapellmeister ‘in Extraordinary’ p. 58 Chapter Two: Poetry and Drama in Tasso p. 110 Chapter Three: Orpheus: the Opera Liszt Never Wrote p. 197 Chapter Four: Festklänge and Weimar’s Festival Culture p. 262 Chapter Five: Hamlet: The Symphonic Poem as Melodrama p. 336 Conclusions p. 436 Appendix A p. 450 Bibliography p. 478 List of Figures, Tables, and Transcriptions Introduction Figure 1: Playbill of Liszt’s First Public Concert in Weimar: 29 November 1841 p. 4 Chapter One: Liszt as Kapellmeister Figure 1: The Main Artistic Positions in the Weimar Court Theatre p. 35 Figure 2: Timeline of Weimar Intendants p. 36 Figure 3: Playbill for Liszt’s Concert in Weimar: 22 February 1846 p. 55 Figure 4: Playbill for the Schiller Celebration of 12 November 1856 p. 81 Figure 5: Playbill for Die Erzählungen der Königin von Navarra, 2 February 1851 p. 83 Table 1: Liszt Works originally associated with Weimar Festivals/Productions p. 104 Chapter Two: Poetry and Drama in Tasso Figure 1: Programme of the 1848 Goethe Celebration in Weimar p. 129 Figure 2: the Playbill from the 1848 Torquato Tasso Production p. 155 Table 1: the Existing Tasso Manuscripts p. 112 Table 2: the Formal Structure of Hs 107016 p. 180 Table 3: Existing Analyses of Tasso p. 191 Table 4: Tasso as a Rotational/Sonata Form Hybrid p. 194 Transcription 1: Hs 107016, Adagio p. 135 Transcription 2: Hs 107016, Syncopated Stretto p. 150 Transcription 3: from Letter 184 from Liszt to Hans von Bülow p. 164 Transcription 4: Hs 107016, Recapitulation and transition p. 168 Transcription 5: GSA 60/A 2b p. 184 Chapter Three: Orpheus: the Opera Liszt Never Wrote Figure 1: Playbill of the 1854 Orpheus Production p. 199 Transcription 1: Draft of Ex. 2 from Liszt, Orpheus (GSA 60/A4) p. 208 Transcription 2: Version 1 of the string parts bb. 132-44 p. 223 Transcription 3: Version 2 of the String Parts, bb. 132-40 p. 225 Transcription 4: Autograph Score (GSA 60/A4), bb. 186-203 p. 227 Transcription 5: the Opening of the Autograph Score (GSA 60/A4) p. 234 Transcription 6: Autograph Score (GSA 60/A4), bb. 72-76 p. 238 Transcription 7: the Ending of the Autograph Score (GSA 60/A4) p. 242 Transcription 8: First Draft of the ‘Orpheus’ Theme p. 246 Transcription 9: Autograph Score (GSA 60/A4), bb. 15-27 p. 247 Transcription 10: Draft of Main Orpheus Theme from Festklänge Score (GSA 60/A7d) p. 251 Transcription 11: Short Score, bb. 137-143 p. 253 Chapter Four: Festklänge and Weimar’s Festival Culture Figure 1: Playbill from the Premiere of Festklänge p. 272 Table 1: Existing Analyses of Festklänge p. 300 Table 2: Structure of the Overture p. 324 Transcription 1: Festklänge Overture Score (GSA 60/A7d), bb. 1-4 p. 279 Transcription 2: Festklänge Overture Score (GSA 60/A7d), ‘Andante’ p. 305 Transcription 3: Festklänge, Second Draft (GSA 60/A7a), Andante Sostenuto p. 309 Transcription 4: Festklänge Overture Score (GSA 60/A7d)—Fanfare Fragment dividing the second subject material p. 318 Transcription 5: Festklänge Overture Score (GSA 60/A7d) —Fanfare Fragment in the Recapitulation p. 322 Transcription 6: Overture Score (GSA 60/A7d) —Fanfare before recapitulation of ‘Polonaise theme’ p. 323 Transcription 7: Festklänge, Overture Score (GSA 60/A7d) —the Original Ending p. 326 Chapter Five: Hamlet: The Symphonic Poem as Melodrama Figure 1: Playbill from the Weimar production of Hamlet 9 January 1856 p. 353 Table 1: Existing Analyses of Hamlet p. 403 Table 2: Hamlet as a Rotational Form p. 412 Transcription 1: Liszt, ‘Parzenlied’ from Vor hundert Jahren (GSA 60/ G3a) p. 376 Transcription 2: The original middle section from GSA 60/A 10a p. 418 Transcription 3: The inserted ‘Ophelia section’ p. 425 Abbreviations The Liszt Sketchbooks1 Archive No. Title Dates of Use WRgs MS N6 Revolutionary Symphony 1829-1834 Sketchbook N8 Lichnowsky Sketchbook 1842-1845 N1 Ce qu’on entend Sketchbook c. 1845-? N5 Tasso Sketchbook 1845-1849? N4 Sardanapale Sketchbook 1846-1860s N7 Hugo Songs Sketchbook 1847 N9 Harmonies poétiques 1847 Sketchbook N3 Prometheus Sketchbook 1849/50-? N2 Mazeppa Sketchbook 1851-1866 1 Adapted from Rena Mueller, ‘Liszt’s Tasso Sketchbook: Studies in Sources and Chronology’, Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 28, 1/4 (1986), 273-293 at 273. The Tasso Manuscripts N1 Brief thematic outline N5 Liszt’s first complete sketch, dated August 1847. (2-4 staves with orchestration indications) Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv (GSA) 60/B22c Conradi’s first copy (in his own sketchbook). A copy of Liszt’s sketch with orchestration indications realised. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg Conradi’s second copy. The score used at the - Hs 107016 premiere. It incorporates Liszt’s annotations to the previous copy. GSA 60/A2b Raff’s first copy. Includes Liszt’s annotations to Conradi’s second copy as well as Raff’s own orchestration ideas. It was made between 1850 and ‘51. GSA 60/A2c Liszt’s corrections sheets relating to Raff’s copy. GSA 60/A2a Raff’s second copy. This was probably performed at the Court Concert in Weimar on 19 April 1854, when Tasso was first advertised as a ‘Symphonic Poem’. The Orpheus Manuscripts GSA 60/A4 The only complete extant score. It includes a page from an early short score. Both scores are in Liszt’s hand. GSA 60/A7d Festklänge score also in Liszt’s hand. It contains a sketch of thematic material from Orpheus. GSA 60/A4a Closing music composed by Liszt for the 1854 Orphée production. It was assembled by Peter Raabe from orchestral parts used at the performance. The Festklänge Manuscripts GSA 60/A7d The earliest extant score in Liszt’s hand.