Wagner's Parsifal
By: William Kinderman
Series: Studies in musical genesis, structure, and interpretation; Studies in musical genesis, structure, and interpretation
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2013
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 327
ISBN-13: 9780195366921
Description: "William Kinderman's detailed study of Parsifal, described by the composer as his "last card," explores the evolution of the text and music of this inexhaustible yet highly controversial music drama across Wagner's entire career, and offers a reassessment of the ideological and political history of Parsifal, shedding new light on the connection of Wagner's legacy to the rise of National Socialism in Germany. The compositional genesis is traced through many unfamiliar manuscript sources, revealing unsuspected models and veiled connections to Wagner's earlier works. Fresh analytic perspectives are revealed, casting the dramatic meaning of Parsifal in a new light. Much debated aspects of the work, such as Kundry's death at the conclusion, are discussed in the context of its stage history."--book jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [302]-318) and index.
Table of contents: title: Prelude. Parsiful as art and ideology; title: The process of composition. The poem : its background and evolution. Carlo Gozzi's La donna serpente ; The Paris and Dresden periods ; Parzival as wandering pilgrim in Tristan und Isolde ; Kundry as a mysterious compound being ; The prose draft of 1865 ; The completion of the text; title: The genesis of the music. The "Dresden Amen" and "Excelsior!" motives ; The sketch fragments and their reconstruction ; The earliest sketches ; The "core of the whole": the music of the Grail ; The relation of sketches and drafts ; Act 1 ; Act 2 ; Act 3 ; Revision after April 1879 ; The transformation music of act 1; title: Musical form and dramatic meaning. Wagner's late style ; Grail and anti-Grail ; The sense of an ending.