Wagner, Richard Nine articles On Conducting
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Description
Wagner, Richard Nine articles On Conducting
translation and commentary by Nicholas Logie PhD (Open)
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Wagner’s nine articles on conducting were first published in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (Leipzig) and appeared on a weekly basis between the 26th November 1869 and 21st January 1870. The articles took pride of place on the title pages of eight editions. The exception being the edition on 1st January 1870, in which an article on preparations for celebrating the Beethoven centenary year relegated Wagner’s article to page 4. Wagner’s nine articles also appeared in the New-Yorker Musik-Zeitung around the same time. The articles were immediately issued in book form, published by C. F. Kahnt, Leipzig (also the publisher of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik) and then incorporated into the Gesammelte Schriften und Dictungen von Richard Wagner (Wagner, R. 1873).
All existing English translations are based on the book form. Two English translations were made not long after the original book publication by Edward Dannreuther (1887) and William Ashton Ellis (1895). There followed an abridged version by Robert L. Jacobs in 1979. There are only two small discrepancies between the articles and the subsequent book and these are noted in the present translation. However, more significantly, the chapter divisions in these translations make immediate sense when one realizes that the book was never conceived as a treatise (the misleading sub-title in the Dannreuther translation) but as a series of articles. The intention of the dual-language layout of the following helps to illustrate the nature of the original publication. In addition, it provides the reader with the opportunity to check the translation itself.
The mounting sense of agitation arising throughout the nine articles is palpable and is confirmed in comments made by Cosima Wagner in her diary and referenced in this translation. There are also a number of themes running through the articles which might be influenced by issues relevant at the time of writing; for example, the Beethoven centenary celebration at the end of 1870, the growing sense of German identity which culminated in the establishment of the German nation in 1871 and the initial planning of Wagner’s own theatre at Bayreuth.
Following Wagner’s nine articles, Parts II and III provide relevant additions to the rich mosaic of Wagner’s complex life. As far as possible, I have tried to find contemporary references in both letters and diaries to the people and events mentioned fleetingly in Wagner’s articles on conducting. In addition, there is a section on Wagner’s own conducting as perceived by his contemporaries. One notable omission in the nine articles is any mention of Berlioz. Wagner and Berlioz were acquainted and spent time together in London in 1855 and Berlioz had a successful career as a conductor especially in Germany. Berlioz had died in March 1869, the year in which Wagner started writing these nine articles on conducting. Thus, there is also a section on Berlioz and the significance of the two composer/conductors on the art of conducting.
Nicholas Logie (2020)
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