Siegfried, Act III
With Wagner's exile from Bavaria in December 1865, a third hiatus ensued in the composition of Siegfried, during which Wagner completed Die Meistersinger. Work on Siegfried was resumed at the start of 1869 and on 23 February the fair copies of Acts I and II were finally completed. A week later, on 1 March, Wagner began the composition of Act III. Working from sketches dating from around 1864 and thereafter, he proceeded to make a preliminary draft of the entire act, as was his usual practice. This was completed fifteen weeks later on 14 June. The second complete draft – the orchestral draft (see above) – was finished on 5 August. The full score was begun on 25 August and completed on 5 February 1871. As explained above, Wagner never made a fair copy of the third act of Siegfried.
It is often said that twelve years elapsed between the second and third acts of Siegfried, but this is an exaggeration. While it is true that eleven years and twenty-nine weeks passed between the completion of the developed draft of Act II and the beginning of the preliminary draft of Act III, Wagner devoted more than a year of this so-called hiatus to the composition of Siegfried, completing the fair copy of Act I, drawing up both the full score and fair copy of Act II, and making sketches for Act III.
Read more about this topic: Der Ring Des Nibelungen: Composition Of The Music
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