Der Ring Des Nibelungen: Composition of The Music - Siegfried, Acts I and II

Siegfried, Acts I and II

In September or October 1854 the German poet and political activist Georg Herwegh introduced Wagner to the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer's pessimistic and renunciatory philosophy had a profound effect on Wagner, and it was only to be expected that it should influence the composition of the Ring. In 1856 the libretto of Siegfried was revised and a new ending was devised for Götterdämmerung – the so-called Schopenhauer Ending.

When Wagner came to compose Siegfried, he made three significant alterations to his modus operandi. Firstly, he wrote (in ink and on at least three staves) a developed draft between the preliminary draft and the full score; this intermediate draft included most of the orchestral details of the final score; this procedure, Wagner hoped, would facilitate the writing of the full score, obviating the difficulties he had encountered during the composition of Die Walküre. Secondly, he composed one act at a time, carrying the composition of the music through all three stages from preliminary draft to full score (but not necessarily fair copy) for the first act before proceeding to the composition of the second act; this way he ensured that as little time as possible elapsed between the initial drafting of a passage and its final orchestration. Thirdly, he frequently worked on the various drafts at the same time, orchestrating the earlier scenes of an act while still drafting the later ones.

Discounting the earlier sketches he had made for Der junge Siegfried (summer 1851), the composition of Siegfried was begun in Zürich in September 1856. The developed draft was begun on 22 September, almost immediately after the (undated) preliminary draft. The full score was begun on 11 October, so Wagner was working on all three stages at the same time. On 19 December, however, he began to sketch some themes for Tristan und Isolde; from this point on there were to be many interruptions in the composition of Siegfried. Nevertheless, by 31 March 1857 the full score of Act I was finished. Sometime thereafter Wagner began to make a fair copy, but he abandoned this task after just one scene.

Almost two months elapsed before he began work on Act II; the prelude, Fafners Ruhe ("Fafner's Rest") was sketched on 20 May 1857, while the preliminary draft was begun on 22 May, the composer's forty-fourth birthday. On 18 June, he began the developed draft while still working on the preliminary draft; but later that same month he dropped the work (at the point where Siegfried rests himself beneath the linden tree) to concentrate on Tristan und Isolde. The preliminary draft reached this point on the 26th, and the developed draft on the 27th. It seems that Wagner was tiring of theRing and he considered putting it aside for a while:

"I have determined finally to give up my headstrong design of completing the 'Nibelungen'. I have led my young Siegfried to a beautiful forest solitude, and there have left him under a linden tree, and taken leave of him with heartfelt tears." (Wagner, in a letter to Franz Liszt, dated 8 May 1857 )

This hiatus, however, did not last as long as Wagner had anticipated. On 13 July 1857 he took up the work again and finished Act II within four weeks, the preliminary draft being completed on 30 July and the developed draft on 9 August. The full score of the first act was now complete (in pencil), and a fair copy had been made (in ink) of the opening scene; the developed draft of the second act was finished, but the full score had not yet been begun. At this point Wagner once again put the opera aside to concentrate on Tristan und Isolde. Seven years would pass before he took it up again, during which time he completed Tristan and started Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.