Programme Notes

RICHARD WAGNER (1813-1883)

PRELUDE TO ACT I, PRELUDE TO ACT III, DANCE OF THE APPRENTICES AND ENTRY OF THE MASTERSINGERS FROM DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NURNBERG

Like other mature operas of Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg took a long time to compose. He began to write it in the 1840s but it was not until October 1861 that he wrote to his publisher with his idea for 'a popular comic opera...with the jovial-poetic Hans Sachs as hero.' In the event, Die Meistersinger was not finished until the summer of 1867, and it was first produced in Munich in June 1868. It is unique among his later works -- the only one whose characters are not creatures of fantasy, or legend, or gods, they are recognisable human beings.

The generosity, comedy and warmth of the opera are all conveyed in the orchestral excerpts we hear this evening. The Prelude (Wagner preferred the word to the term Overture) announces a number of the motifs that will be prominent in the three acts that follow, beginning with the grand theme of the Mastersingers, the members of the noble guild in the mediaeval city of Nürnberg which, when Wagner was composing the opera, was virtually intact with its streets and alleys unchanged. The Introduction to the last act begins with the meditative Midsummer's Eve soliloquy of Hans Sachs the shoemaker, the man of honour whose sturdy good sense and sagacity provide the opera's moral fulcrum. Act Three sees the dismissal of Walther's rival, the pompous and pedantic Beckmesser, and the courtship of Walther von Stolzing and Eva Pogner brought, with Sachs' assistance, to a happy conclusion. But the music has told us that Hans Sachs too has regarded Eva with something more than avuncular fondness. Now in his monologue, he recognises sadly that he must give her up to a younger man. And so, in the Act Three Prelude, the theme of Renunciation is prominent, a resigned downward cadence first heard from the cellos. It is followed by the Apprentices' Dance, a frolicsome interlude in moderate waltz time in which the lads of Nürnberg, in festive clothing and decked with ribbons and flowers, flirt with and tease the local girls.

Then comes the stately brass fanfare which heralds the arrival of the Mastersingers themselves. Their entry is a reprise of the Prelude to Act One: bold, proud, positive, a reaffirmation that life is good and that this time, after all, everything is going to come out right. The Mastersingers' processional music rises to a triumphant C major climax and the scene is set for the opera's joyous conclusion.

Programme Notes by Paul Vaughan ©

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