IPHIGENIA LOST AND FOUND: A Newly-Discovered Gluck Arrangement by Richard Wagner

IPHIGENIA LOST AND FOUND: A Newly-Discovered Gluck Arrangement by Richard WagnerAuthor(s): Chris WaltonSource: Fontes Artis Musicae, Vol. 45, No. 3/4 (July-December 1998), pp. 227-236Published by: International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres(IAML)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23509193 .

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IPHIGENIA LOST AND FOUND A Newly-Discovered Gluck Arrangement by Richard Wagner Chris Walton (Zentralbibliothek Zürich)

*

Après avoir fui en Suisse en 1849, Richard Wagner a entre autre assuré sa subsistance

en dirigeant des concerts pour l'Allgemeine Musikgesellschaft de Zürich. Bien qu'il ne reste pratiquement aucune source concernant cette activité, la Zentralbibliothek de

Zürich conserve des matériels de l'ouverture d'Iphigénie en Aulide de Gluck suscepti bles de refléter des indications d'interprétation spécifiées par Wagner, ainsi qu'une conclusion de concert différant de la version antérieure préparée par Wagner pour un

concert à Dresde en 1847.

Nach seiner Flucht 1849 in die Schweiz, konnte Wagner sich finanziell verbessern, indem er als Dirigent einiger Konzerte der Allgemeinen Musikgesellschaft Zürich auf trat. Aufführungsmaterial dieser Aktivität ist bisher jedoch nicht nachzuweisen. Doch sind Stimmensätze zu Glucks Ouverture Iphigenia in Aulis in der Zentralbibliothek Zürich aufgetaucht mit Einzeichnungen zu Dynamik und Ausdruck, die Wagners Aufführung wiederspiegeln dürften, und auch einen Konzertschluß enthalten, der

von der von Wagner für eine Aufführung 1847 in Dresden vorbereiteten Version

abweicht.

When Richard Wagner settled in Zurich in 1849 after fleeing from the failed

May uprising in Dresden, his new place of residence could hardly have been more different from the old. Zurich boasted neither an opera house nor a full sized orchestra and, being staunchly republican, did not have a prince who

might have founded either the one or the other. The city's resident orchestra, run by the Zurich Music Society (the Allgemeine Musikgesellschaft Zürich, hereafter simply AMG) was a small ensemble, comprising a mixture of profes sionals and amateurs. It was directed by one Franz Abt, a man remembered

vaguely today as a minor composer of songs and choral music. The city theatre

was, if anything, an even more ad hoc affair, though operas and operettas were

performed there with some regularity. They were accompanied by an orches

tra remarkably similar in composition to that of the AMG, which inevitably led

to squabbles over conflicting demands on the time of the players. The general

atmosphere was thus hardly one in which the musical life of the city might flourish.

*Chris Walton is head of the Musikabteilung at the Zentralbibliothek Zürich.

227



228 FONTES ARTIS MUSICAE 45/3-4

When Wagner arrived, he was already famous as the Dresden court

capellmeister and composer of Rienzi and Tannhäuser. The news of his sup posedly revolutionary exploits on the barricades might well have eased his

rapid entrance into Zurich's upper social strata, for a hint of radical chic has often been appealing to the ruling classes. Wagner soon seems to have enjoyed the reputation of a sort of musical Che Guevara whom one could nevertheless ask to dinner without running the risk of his biting the hand that wined and dined him. However, he had not yet acquired the habit of complete financial reliance on others, nor were those others willing to allow such a reliance to

develop. His new friends had opened their hearts and their wine cellars to him, but not yet their bank accounts. The books he was writing brought in some

money, but not much (he received five louis d'or for Art and Revolution, five for the Wibelungen, and—later—twenty for Opera and Drama). So after the arrival of his wife Minna and stepdaughter Natalie in Zurich in the autumn of 1849, he had to find gainful employment of some sort. Franz Liszt, his oft-called-upon friend-in-need, wrote to him on 28 October: "Couldn't you organize some con certs in Zurich, the proceeds of which could serve to keep you adequately through the winter?"1 While Liszt was evidently apprehensive that he might soon be compelled to save his friend from penury, it was nevertheless sensible

advice, and Wagner was sensible enough to follow it.

Arranging an invitation to conduct the AMG orchestra seems to have

presented little difficulty. Wagner accordingly made his Zurich debut on 15

January 1850 in the fourth concert of the AMG's concert season. He con ducted only Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, the rest of the program being Franz Abt's responsibility. The audience and the AMG authorities were

enthralled—though Franz Abt probably was not—and in future Wagner was

allowed more or less to pick and choose what he wished to conduct, and when, and at a fee almost three times as high as Abt's meager wage. Wagner made a similar arrangement later in the year with the city theatre. Abt was no match for him, either musically or socially, and left in the autumn of 1852 to take up a

job in Braunschweig. Almost all traces of Wagner's conducting activity at the Zurich city theatre

were lost when it burned down on New Year's Eve in 1889, along with its

library and archives. However, the library of the AMG has survived largely intact, and has been deposited for the last eighty years in the Zurich Central

Library. It contains two tid-bits in Wagner's own hand. There are twelve bars of the double bass part to Beethoven's Egmont music,2 and a fragment the pres ent writer recently discovered of Wagner's arrangement of Mozart's Don Giovanni made for the Zurich theatre in the autumn of 1850. It comprises nine bars of backstage music for the first trumpet, plus the necessary dialogue cues. This may not seem much, but since the only other known fragment com

1. "Ne pourriez-vous de votre côté organiser à Zürich quelques concerts, dont le produit servi rait à vous faire traverser passablement l'hiver?" See Briefwechsel Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner, ed.

Hanjo Resting (Frankfurt aM.: Insel, 1988), 93. In the same letter Liszt says he is penniless at the moment.

2. Shelfmark: AMG I 310.



IPHIGENIA LOST AND FOUND 229

prises two bars and is held by the University Library in Leipzig, Zurich is now the proud owner of the longest extant manuscript of Wagner's "lost" arrange ment of Mozart's opera.3

Of rather more interest are the AMG's holdings of scores and orchestral

parts of works performed by Wagner during his years as guest conductor. To be sure, none of these bear any markings in the hand of the master himself, who presumably conducted from his own scores anyway. Furthermore, the orchestral parts used under his baton were never treated as relics, but were borrowed repeatedly by various orchestras over the ensuing decades. They thus bear many expression marks added by orchestral musicians through the

ages, making it difficult to ascertain who added what, and when. However, in the case of several works, the present writer has indeed been able to trace cer tain expression marks back to Wagner himself—marks that throw light on

Wagner's conducting methods in the early 1850s. Our proof lies in the hand written orchestral parts made for the AMG in the 1850s by local copyist Adam Bauer and in the detailed bills for his work that have survived in the AMG archives.4

Bauer was born in Erbendorf in Bavaria in 1821. He is first mentioned in

Zurich's city records on 31 December 1841, when he rented a room in Obere

Kirchgasse 186. Within a month, he was playing in the AMG orchestra (his first wage receipt is dated 31 January 1842), and it is quite possible that this was in fact the reason for his move to Zurich in the first place. His principal instrument was the viola, though he occasionally played violin and clarinet too. From January 1843, he also worked as copyist for the AMG. In this he was not

alone, being joined by others such as Jean Keller, J. Riiegg Sen, and one Weixlstorfer. By the early 1850s, though, Bauer had advanced to being the AMG's principal copyist.

It has long been known that Bauer worked as copyist for Wagner in Zurich, not least because he is mentioned in the latter's correspondence. What has hitherto gone unnoticed is the fact that Bauer's bills to the AMG for copying the parts for Wagner's concerts state quite specifically that his task was to copy not just the music, but also expression marks and rehearsal letters too. There can be little doubt that those same expression marks were specified by Wagner himself, for this would correspond to what we know, both from his letters and the reports of others, of his apparently meticulous rehearsal technique. In the case of one particular work he conducted in Zurich—the overture to Gluck's

Iphigenia in Aulis—we know for certain that Wagner wanted quite specific

expression marks, since he mentions them in an article he published in the

3. Shelfmark: AMG I 331. Discussed in detail by the present writer in "

'Flickarbeit' oder

Bearbeitung?" in Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14/15 December 1995. Highly recommended is the arti

cle by Egon Voss on the same topic: "

'Ein göttliches, unvergleichliches Werk'—'leider alles

unkonzentriert'. Richard Wagner und Don Giovanni," Festschrift Christoph-Hellmut Mahling zum

65. Geburtstag, ed. A. Beer, K. Pfarr, and W. Ruf (Tutzing: Schneider, 1997), 1463-73.

4. For a detailed discussion of the AMG's orchestral parts as used under Wagner, of their sig nificance for Wagner scholarship, and of Bauer's role as copyist, see the present writer's article

"Richard Wagner als Dirigent in Zürich," in the Tribschener Blätter, No. 55/56. Sept. 1998.




Neue Zeitschrift für Musik on 1 July 1854. Earlier that year, he writes, he had

put this overture on the program of his next Zurich concert at the request of a friend (it was in fact the high-ranking cantonal official Jakob Sulzer). In the

opera, the overture has no final cadence, but leads directly into the first scene

("Diane impitoyable"). Whenever the overture was performed on its own, it was usually with a concert ending supposedly written by Mozart. However,

Wagner found this ending inappropriate because it presupposed a different

tempo from the one he considered to be correct. He accordingly wrote his own

instead, performed it with his Zurich orchestra on 7 March 1854, and then pub lished it as an appendix to his article in the Neue Zeitschrift. This publication is

today the principal source for Wagner's ending, for his autograph is no longer extant.

Gluck's overture has been published several times with Wagner's concert

ending, and is still performed thus today. Most people do not realize, however, that the version of the overture one always hears is in fact inauthentic. In Dresden in 1847, Wagner had made a thorough revision of the whole opera Iphigenia, increasing the size of the orchestra in the process. One thing he did not change was the transition at the end of the overture leading into Aga memnon's first scene. In 1888—five years after Wagner's death—Breitkopf and Härtel stitched his concert ending of 1854 onto his 1847 version of the over ture and published the result. The fact that the concert ending needs a small er orchestra than the rest of the overture merely underlines the fact that they do not fit each other. Nevertheless, this cobbled-together arrangement soon

acquired a firm place in the orchestral repertoire. The various parts for the Iphigenia Overture held by the AMG library were

all catalogued under the shelf number AMG I 314, probably by Max Fehr, sometime librarian and president of the AMG, and author of a hagiographical account of Wagner's years in Switzerland. There is a single part with the shelf mark AMG 1314,1, which Fehr and the editors of the Wagner work catalogue5 quite rightly assumed has no connection with Wagner, for the part was obvi

ously copied many years earlier. There are then several printed parts bearing the shelf mark AMG I 314,2. These are mostly for the woodwinds, were pub lished by Schonenberger in Paris, but do not have Wagner's concert ending, and so were dismissed as of no significance by both Fehr and the editors of the

catalogue. Under the shelf mark AMG I 314,3 we find a further set of printed parts, published by Schlesinger in Berlin, and to which Wagner's concert end

ing has been added by hand. Our eager beaver Max Fehr pasted the following remarks to the inside of the folder on 19 April 1938: "Schlesinger Edition, Berlin, ca 1840 with Mozart's ending, replaced by Wagner's. Wagner's ending comprising 37 bars ... has been added to every part in the Master's own hand!"6 There is then an incomplete set of manuscript parts bearing the shelf

5. See Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis, eds. J. Deathridge, M. Geek, and E. Voss (Mainz: Schott, 1986), 420-22.

6. "Ausgabe Schlesinger, Berlin, ca. 1840 mit Mozarts Schluss, der durch den wagnerschen ersetzt ist. Wagners Schluss von 37 Takten ... ist durch den Meister selber handschriftlich jeder Stimme beigelegt!"



ÎPHIGENIA LOST AND FOUND 231

mark AMG 1314,4, all copied by Bauer, and to which Bauer himself has added

Wagner's concert ending. The editors of the Wagner catalogue were more cau tious than Fehr. They naturally recognized that the hand that copied the end

ing into the Schlesinger parts was not "the Master's own." They did however concede that the Schlesinger parts and Bauer's manuscript parts may indeed have a direct connection to Wagner, but noted that the connection is tenuous. One interesting matter they mention is the fact that Bauer's parts and the

Schonenberger parts all have the same expression marks. There are, however, one or two matters that have hitherto been overlooked.

The parts published by Schlesinger (AMG I 314,3) in fact have nothing what soever to do with Wagner. Judging by their plate number (S 4458), they were

published in or around 1856, several months after Wagner had performed the overture in Zurich for the last time. Although the copyist responsible for

adding Wagner's ending remains anonymous, a comparison of his handwriting with other manuscripts in the Zentralbibliothek proves that he was working for the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra around 1880 or later.7 It is therefore most

unlikely that he had any contact with Wagner in Zurich in the 1850s, and we can feel justified in discarding the Schlesinger parts from any consideration of

Wagner sources. We are now left with the parts published by Schonenberger and the manuscript parts copied by Bauer (AMG I 314,2 and 4 respectively). What has hitherto gone unnoticed is the fact that these two sources together make up an almost complete set of orchestral parts, the only one missing being the second flute, which however even in Gluck and in Wagner's 1847 version differs from the first flute for a total of only two bars. For some reason, it has also been overlooked that Bauer was not just responsible for copying the man

uscript parts, but also for adding the rehearsal letters and the expression marks by hand to the printed Schonenberger parts. His handwriting is quite distinctive, and his bill of 7 April 1854 in the AMG archives states clearly that: "In all parts of the overture, Mr. Wagner's ending was added and all expression marks put in."8 (The same bill later states that Bauer also copied out anew two clarinet parts, two bassoon parts, and four cello/double bass parts.) These

expression marks—namely pianos, mezzofortes and hairpin Crescendos—are not only identical in both the Schonenberger and the manuscript parts, but are almost identical to those Wagner gives in a music example in the main text of his Neue Zeitschrift article. The only difference is that Wagner's sudden pianos and mezzofortes begin in the parts at the beginning of each bar, while in the

published article, they begin with the quaver upbeat (see Examples la and lb).

Wagner had no doubt realized in the meantime that this is the more practical solution, since it corresponds to how orchestral musicians would probably play this passage anyway. This change was thus almost certainly the result of prac tical experience made during his rehearsals in Zurich.

7. The same copyist was responsible for writing out the parts of the Variationen für Orchester

by Iwan Knorr (shelfmark: Mus TMs 180,2), who was born in only 1853.

8. "Von der Ouverture ... in allen Stimmen den Schluss des Herrn Wagner eingerichtet und

alle Vortragszeichen gemacht"




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g^f i H- g*-H>-cfape—c£ m/ p m/ p

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*'/>r/)o/> / 1 fi trt-f f ----- p mf

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EXAMPLE la. Excerpt from Wagner's article in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik.

Wagner's expression marks for the overture were obviously of great impor tance to him. When Schlesinger of Berlin hoped to include Wagner's ending in

a new edition of the overture they were preparing in 1856 (presumably the

same edition that was acquired by the AMG, shelf mark AMG1314,3), Wagner mentioned in a letter to Liszt that it would also be necessary to include his

tempo and expression markings. In fact, the edition appeared with only Mozart's ending, and without any collaboration from Wagner. One further dif

ference remains between Bauer's handwritten parts and Wagner's article in

the Neue Zeitschrift. In some of the parts, Wagner's ending is five bars longer than the version published there. It would seem that the original ending as per formed in March 1854 was longer by this much, and that Wagner shortened it

before publication. Before performing the overture again with the AMG (on 20

February 1855), Wagner had obviously made Bauer write out several parts with the new version of his ending.

There thus remains only one conundrum. If Bauer's handwritten parts were

indeed copied for use under Wagner himself, and if these parts do indeed

belong together with the printed Schonenberger parts, then why wasn't

Wagner's concert ending added to the latter set? The answer is that it was; it is

precisely these parts to which Bauer's bill refers when it states that "In all parts of the overture, Mr. Wagner's ending was added." Wagner's new ending was

copied out by Bauer, glued to the printed Schonenberger parts, but at some

time removed, after which the parts were restored to near-pristine state. If one

looks at them carefully, one can today still just discern the shadow of Bauer's

handwriting where the ink from his glued-on concert ending has trickled

through onto the printed part (see Example 2, where Bauer's characteristic

crotchet rest can be clearly seen). Since we can be sure of possessing the complete set of parts used by

Wagner in March 1854 (with the exception of that missing second flute) ,9 the

9. We can be reasonably certain that Wagner used two flutes, because the bill for the concert

on 7 March 1854 mentions two flautists, Conrad Bär and one Spalinger. Also, a catalogue of the

AMG library from 1831 mentions the existence of two flute parts for the overture; this can only

refer to parts in the Schonenberger edition.




C.LITK. . , VI0L1K0 1" _ Andante „ ^

m*r\rfhpTS?vn OI VERTURK ^rHr , J J T! i . ■ ■ "T~T ' ^Trf V.IBII|t',KSIh -ii'Al l inH -y—'' ^ J. /__ Ll— 'eft* ''r?

"■V! !

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EXAMPLE lb. Note the addition of Wagner's expression marks.




EXAMPLE 2. Bauer's crochet rest has been marked with a circle.




inti|U'0«ftUft>df( in 3«rrv

fil.tTK.

(>C\ KRTI.'RK 1» i I'll l». I.N II- 'ii Al' I.IRK t

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458

EXAMPLE 3. Second oboe part. Note the transpositions down an octave, plus the addition of Wagner's expression marks.




reconstruction of the score is straightforward. We now see that Wagner did not

just add a concert ending, but in fact revised the whole overture. The orches

tration is much closer to Gluck's original than to Wagner's own Dresden

arrangement Both add two clarinets that Gluck did not use; but in Dresden,

Wagner used four horns, three bassoons, and three trumpets, yet only two of

each in Zurich. There are further differences between the two versions. In

Zurich, for example, Wagner transposed the second oboe down an octave at certain points while transposing the first clarinet up an octave (see Example 3). From bar 49 onward, Wagner has also discarded the upbeat quaver in the wind and timpani. More importantly, these parts are the only complete source for the expression marks that were of such significance to him, but to which he

only refers briefly in his article of 1854. They are not present in his 1847 ver

sion, and he in fact later mentioned that he only communicated them to his Dresden orchestra verbally, without noting them down.10 We are thus dealing here with a "Zurich" version of the overture, hitherto unknown, distinctly dif ferent from both Gluck and from Wagner's earlier arrangement, and of which

Wagner's ending comprises but one part of a greater whole. It is also the only authentic concert arrangement of Gluck's overture in Wagner's oeuvre.

During the nine years that Wagner spent in Zurich, he tried in vain to con vince the burgers of the city to found a truly professional orchestra and opera. His withdrawal from active participation in Zurich's musical life in 1855 was not least a consequence of the city's refusal to meet his requests. Not until the 1860s was the professional Tonhalle Orchestra established as a successor to the semi-professional AMG. It is thus fitting that, when on 25 March 1998 Alan Gilbert conducted the first performance of our overture in over 143 years, it was performed by the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra—that same orchestra that

Wagner would no doubt have willingly founded himself.

10. Letter of 1 March 1877 from Wagner to Wilhelm Tappert, quoted in Wagner-Werk Verzeichnis, 422.



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IPHIGENIA LOST AND FOUND: A Newly-Discovered Gluck Arrangement by Richard Wagner

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