La Walkyrie (L'avant Scène Opéra, #228)

Paru chez Grasset en 1935, les Lettres françaises de Wagner est pour cette édition dans les Cahiers rouges concentré aux cinquante plus importantes lettres du compositeur. La première date de 1840, la dernière de 1882, un an avant sa mort. Elles montrent l'importance du rôle de la France pour sa carrière et sa vie personnelle. Elles rappellent, d'abord, la misère et la tristesse dans laquelle il a vécu lors de son premier séjour à Paris, sa découverte de la musique contemporaine française, son admiration pour Berlioz, son émotion après avoir lu l'éloge d'un de ses opéras par Gérard de Nerval. Elles révèlent, ensuite, sa grande proximité avec Liszt, à qui il confie ses émois, ses doutes, ses joies et déceptions artistiques. Elles révèlent, enfin, son intimité, de l'amitié avec Catulle Mendès à son amour fou pour sa femme, Judith Gautier, fille de Théophile, en passant par sa solitude et sa souffrance. Le meilleur de Wagner, loin des délires de ses pamphlets contre les Juifs dans la musique et autres délires idéologico-mystiques. Entre chacune des lettres, un commentaire revient sur le contexte dans lequel Wagner les écrit : à quelle oeuvre il travaille, qui il fréquente, la bienveillance ou, plus souvent, la malveillance de la critique à son égard, l'état des rapports entre les nations d'Europe, notamment la France et l'Allemagne. Les informations sont si nombreuses, et les lettres si personnelles, qu'on pourrait qualifier ce livre d'autobiographie. L'intimité d'un génie de la musique.

Lettres françaises

Götterdämmerung: Dritter Tag Aus Dem Bühnenfestspiel "Der Ring Des Nibelungen"

The Richard Wagner Complete Edition presents the composer's entire output for the first time in a reliable form. The conductor Michael Balling, in the early years of the 20th century, attempted to make Wagner's work more accessible for research and performance, but the edition only reached 10 volumes - some with grave shortcomings - and was discontinued after Balling's death in 1925. A further attempt at a complete edition by Otto Strobel was abandoned at the preliminary stages. This third attempt at a complete edition will be the first scholarly, critical edition, based on an evaluation of all the accessible source materials and the latest findings of serious Wagner research. As the edition is also intended for practical performance, the musical text has been kept free of philological insertions ; these are listed in the appendices of each volume in the Critical Commentary. Numerous, partly unpublished works - some relatively unknown - and variant versions are published here for the first time. The edition presents authentic texts for Wagner specialists and researchers and critically based performing materials. Contrary to widely held opinions, even the well-known works of Wagner are not necessarily available in reliable editions. The genesis, history and performances directed by Wagner himself are extensively documented so as to present as complete an image as possible of Wagner's compositional intentions.

Choral Works - Partition et notes critiques.

An important addition to our newly produced orchestral materials is the first publication of vocal scores of Wagner's ten great operas, in every important version, based on the Complete Edition. The score corresponds to the performance materials from the Complete Edition. For practical use in rehearsal cues and bar numbers throughout. The publisher has secured the services of renewed musicologists associated with the Richard Wagner Complete Edition who convey detailed information in critical forewords. The forewords are given in three languages(German, English, French). Uniform and attractive front cover designs with reproductions of paintings from the Wagner era underline the series design of the edition. DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is today still considered a German festival and national opera : this evaluation is borne out by the opera's performance history, the history of its reception and customary performance practice. Critical minds will perhaps recall the quotation from Friedrich Nietzsche's publication "Jenseits von Gut und Böse" [Beyond Good and Evil] in which the Vorspiel [Prelude] to Meistersinger is described as 'magnificent, ornate and ponderous art' and Wagner's music in general as being 'rough and coarse'. This music according to Nietzsche possesses 'no trace of the fine southern clarity of the sky and nothing of grace', but instead 'a cumbersome garb, with a touch of licentious barbarism and solemnity' and 'even a certain degree of ungainliness'. Nietzsche's evaluation is regarded by many as an insight into the essence of the matter, although it is evident that Nietzsche was exaggerating in order to be provocative. What is more important today is however that this characterisation appears to have been the result of an approach to the performance of Meistersinger which had neglected or even gone as far as to misappropriate elements of this work. This is also the conclusion reached in the Meistersinger Edition of the Critical Complete Edition of the Musical Works of Richard Wagner (Richard Wagner, Sämtliche Werke, Vol. 9, I-III, edited by Egon Voss, Mainz 1979-1987). It has in fact been established that the first print of the score published by B. Schott's Söhne in Mainz in 1868 contained numerous errors and omissions, particularly with regard to dynamic markings and articulation. The difference between staccato dots and dashes which has an influence on the tone was simply ignored. The substantial omission of these staccato markings unambiguously draws attention to the fact that Wagner intended a lighter-weight sound than was produced in adherence the first edition. The same also holds true for the dynamic markings which were submitted to a general levelling process in the first edition, thereby entirely masking their original broad scope of differentiation. [... ] When the saying 'the music sets the tone' is cited, it is in actual fact tempo, dynamics which are implied. If the new findings incorporated into the Meistersinger edition of the Critical Complete Edition are taken seriously, this will inevitably produce a new Meistersinger sound. " (Egon Voss, quoted from the foreword of the new Meistersinger vocal score ; translated by Lindsay Chalmers-Gerbracht) WWV 96

Wagner Urtext-Klavierauszüge

An important addition to the newly produced orchestral materials by Schott Music is the fi rst publication of vocal scores of Richard Wagner's ten great operas in every important version. For the first time, we are able to offer theatres and interested opera-lovers vocal scores as urtext editions conceived following uniform editorial criteria : The score corresponds to the performance materials from the Complete Edition. For practical use in rehearsal and study, every vocal score includes rehearsal cues and bar numbers throughout. The publisher has secured the services of renowned musicologists associated with the Richard Wagner Complete Edition who convey detailed information in critical forewords. The forewords are given in three languages (German, English, French). Uniform and attractive front cover designs with reproductions of paintings from the Wagner era underline the series design of the edition. GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG This piano reduction corresponds to the edition of the score of Götterdämmerung contained in the complete critical edition of the musical works of Richard Wagner (Richard Wagner, Sämtliche Werke, Vol. 13, I-III, edited by Hartmut Fladt, Mainz 1980ff. [Richard Wagner, Complete Works]). The first printed edition of the score was published by B. Schott's Söhne, Mainz (plate number 21953) in the summer of 1876, but was supervised by the conductor Hermann Levi and not by Wagner himself. This edition displays deviations from the autograph which cannot be considered as adhering to Wagner's intentions. For this reason, the critical edition is largely based on Wagner's autograph score. Individual changes made during the first performances of the work in Bayreuth in 1876 have been identified in the footnotes. WWV 86 D

De Richard Wagner, ce sont 269 lettres à Minna Wagner, 149 lettres à Mathilde Wesendonck et 35 lettres à Judith Gautier puis 14 lettres de Mathilde Wesendonck à Richard Wagner, 67 lettres de Cosima Wagner à Judith Gautier et 2 lettres de Judith Gautier à Cosima Wagner. Cette correspondance composée de 536 envois foisonnants est enrichie de 3519 notes inédites et inévitables. S'échelonnant de 1842 à 1898, soit sur cinquante-six ans, cette littérature épistolaire ajuste un éclairage, et non des moindres, quant aux tréfonds du compositeur hors normes. Paris, Bordeaux, London, Saint-Pétersbourg, Wien, Berlin, Dresde, Leipzig, Bayreuth, Lucerne, Genova, Venezia, entre autres, au fil des pérégrinations de l'auteur, défilent. C'est toute l'Europe qui caracole sous nos yeux ébahis - ils demeurent -, de tant d'énergie créatrice sans cesse prodiguée par ce musicien unique. Avec sa célèbre encre violette, il s'évertue envers ses belles aimées à ne pas les oublier et à prendre soin d'elles, entièrement dévoué. On saura gré d'apprendre, de même, les complexités parfois douloureuses de la composition musicale, notamment celle de Tristan und Isolde, légendaire bien avant de le devenir.
Yves Courmes, Philippe Olivier, Samuel Tastet ne sont plus à présenter. Le premier dirige le Cercle Richard Wagner Nice Rive Droite avec passion et dextérité, ponctuées d'un enthousiasme remarquable. Le second, historien de la musique spécialisé dans l'opéra, se révèle être un incommensurable expert de Richard Wagner. En 1961, alors qu'il avait huit ans, il fut bercé à Bayreuth. Quant au troisième, intrépide éditeur, il publie à cheval sur deux pays, la France et la Roumanie, une littérature hors courants. Sans oublier Maria Mikhaylova, artiste-peintre, dont l'oeil précieux et précis anoblit graphiquement ce premier volume de la collection BRW. Une « tétralogie » oeuvrant pour Une autre tétralogie...

Une autre tétralogie (Minna, Mathilde, Judith & Cosima) : correspondance 1842-1898

This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature.

L'avant scène opéra no 34/35 : Tristan et Isolde

Edition enrichie de Jean-François Candoni comportant une préface et un dossier sur le roman. 

Richard Wagner s'est voulu tout autant écrivain et penseur que compositeur, homme de théâtre et chef d'orchestre. Son autobiographie est une fresque haute en couleur, riche en événements et en rencontres exceptionnelles. C'est aussi un formidable témoignage sur la vie artistique et intellectuelle du XIXe siècle. 

Artiste polymorphe, Wagner a épousé toutes les tendances de son siècle, et il en résume toutes les contradictions : se côtoient chez lui cosmopolitisme et nationalisme, goût de la provocation et soif de reconnaissance sociale, amour du prochain et pulsions racistes, mysticisme religieux et sensualisme, goût pour le monumental et fascination pour le détail. La lecture de Ma vie permet de cerner cette personnalité paradoxale, excessive et fascinante.

La Walkyrie (L'avant Scène Opéra, #228)

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