Der Ring Des Nibelungen: Composition of The Music - Wagner's Method of Composition

Wagner's Method of Composition

Like his libretti, Wagner's operatic scores generally passed through a series of distinct stages from sketch to fair copy; but because the composer altered his method of musical composition several times during the writing of the Ring, there is not the same uniformity in the evolution of the music that we find in the texts. Furthermore, it was often Wagner's practice to work on two or more drafts of a work at the same time, switching back and forth between them as the fancy took him. Consequently, it is all but impossible to make definitive statements about the exact order in which the various themes, leitmotifs and instrumentations were arrived at. Each score, however, did pass through at least three stages, there being seven possible stages in all:

• Preliminary and Supplementary Sketches (Einzelskizzen) – before beginning the composition proper, Wagner usually made some preliminary sketches to work on. Needless to say, he added supplementary sketches to these throughout the compositional process. These sketches are sometimes little more than fragmentary phrases jotted down on scraps of paper; but they can also be quite lengthy and elaborate sections of music written on several staves. Sometimes they are labelled (e.g. "Fafner", "Waldvogel"). Unlike the preliminary sketches for his earlier operas, however, which were usually settings of lines of text, the sketches for the Ring operas were generally worked out independently of the text; vocal sketches do survive, but more often than not even these are without text. It is highly unlikely that all Wagner's sketches have come down to us, and of course not everything need have been sketched - some of the music for the preliminary drafts may have been composed from scratch as it was required - but the "cleaner" a passage in a draft is, the more likely it is that it was preceded by a sketch.

• Preliminary Draft (Gesamtentwurf) – the first complete draft in pencil (later traced over in ink) of the entire work (in the case of the first two Ring operas) or of an entire act (in the case of the last two). There is generally only one vocal stave and one or two instrumental staves. Instrumental interludes are sometimes elaborated on three staves. The preliminary draft for Das Rheingold was similar in detail to the one Wagner composed for Lohengrin, but those of the following three Ring operas were as detailed as Lohengrin's second complete draft (the so-called "composition draft").

• Developed Draft (Orchesterskizze) – in the case of Siegfried (Acts I and II), the preliminary drafts were elaborated before Wagner proceeded to develop the full scores. In these intermediate drafts, he worked out all the orchestral details, including instrumental doublings. The developed drafts for the first two acts of Siegfried are in ink and are written on one vocal and two instrumental staves throughout. In WWV these developed drafts are called Orchesterskizzen, a term which WWV also employs to describe the more elaborate second drafts of the later acts of the Ring.

• Orchestral Draft (Orchesterskizze) – in the composition of the third act of Siegfried and all three acts of Götterdämmerung, the preliminary draft was followed by an elaborate short score written in ink on two or three vocal staves and as many as five instrumental staves. These Orchesterskizzen, as Wagner himself styled them, are even more detailed than the developed drafts of the first two acts of Siegfried.

• Instrumentation Draft (Partiturerstschrift) – in the case of the four scenes of Das Rheingold, the preliminary draft was followed by what Wagner termed an Instrumentationsskizze, in which he worked out most of the orchestral details. This draft was written in pencil and on as many staves as were required by the instrumentation. It is thus but one remove from being a full score, and in WWV both are referred to by the same name. The instrumental prelude that precedes Scene 1 was not included in the instrumentation draft, however, but was written out in ink in full score without any intermediate stage, as is explained below.

• Full Score (Partiturerstschrift) – the final score, in which the instrumentation is fully detailed and separate staves are allocated to the various instruments and singers. The full scores for Die Walküre and Siegfried (Acts I and II) are in pencil; those for Das Rheingold (Prelude), Siegfried (Act III) and the whole of Götterdämmerung are in ink. Needless to say, as many staves are used as are required by the instrumentation. No full score was made for Das Rheingold (Scenes 1-4), as the instrumentation draft was considered sufficiently detailed for a fair copy to be made directly from it.

• Fair Copy (Reinschrift der Partitur) – a clean copy in ink of the full score. Wagner only drafted fair copies for Das Rheingold, Die Walküre and the first two acts of Siegfried. In the case of the Das Rheingold (Scenes 1-4), there was no full score as such, so the fair copy was the only copy of the full score. In the case of Siegfried (Act III) and the whole of Götterdämmerung the full scores were written neatly in ink, so Wagner did not deem it necessary to draft a separate fair copy. The fair copy of Das Rheingold was, incidentally, the first fair copy Wagner ever made of one of his operas.