Manuscript of a humorous song dedicated by Wagner to Louis Kraft, proprietor of the hotel in Leipzig where Wagner stopped during his first trip to Bayreuth.
With all that he had already accomplished, Wagner could have retired to the easy life he often so fervently spoke about. But the urge to compose never left him. He set to work on Parsifal, the poem he had completed some months before. When the opera was all finished he endeavored with his usual kinetic energy to raise money for its production. It was given its first performance on July 26, 1882. There were sixteen more performances.
Wagner, after all the excitement of Bayreuth, left for a vacation in Venice. In spite of repeated heart attacks, he considered seriously the writing of another symphony. But he had done his work. There was to be no second symphony. Wagner died of his heart illness on February 13, 1883. He was buried at Bayreuth.
Overture to “Rienzi”
Bulwer’s Rienzi revived an old desire of Wagner’s to make an opera out of the story of the last of the Tribunes. He was in Dresden during the summer of 1837 and there he read Barmann’s translation of the Bulwer novel. However, he did not begin actual work until the following July. First, of course, came the text. Later that month he started on the music. By May 1839, he had completed two acts. The remainder of the score, with the exception of the Overture, was written and orchestrated in Paris. The Overture was finished on October 23, 1840.
On October 20, 1842, Rienzi was given its world première at the Royal Saxon Court Theater, Dresden. Amusingly, the performance began at 6 P.M., and it went on and on until midnight. America was not to become acquainted with the opera until March 4, 1878, when it was given at the Academy of Music, New York.
The thematic material employed in the Overture stems from music in the opera itself, such as the “long-sustained, swelled and diminished A on the trumpet,” which is the signal for the people’s uprising against the nobles; Rienzi’s Prayer; a theme of the chorus, Gegrüsst sei hoher Tag; the theme of the revolutionary forces, Santo spirito cavaliere; the stretto of the second Finale, Rienzi, dir sei Preis; and a subject similar to the phrase of the nobles set to the words, Ha, dieser Gnade Schmach erdruckt das stolze Herz!
The score of the Overture calls for one piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two valve-horns, two plain horns, one serpent (nowadays replaced by the double-bassoon), two valve trumpets, two plain trumpets, three trombones, one ophicleide (replaced by the bass-tuba), two snare-drums, bass drum, triangle, cymbals, and strings.
The People’s Chorus, commencing Act II of Rienzi.