Wagner's Parsifal. By William Kinderman

Abstract

When I reviewed A Companion to Wagner’s ‘Parsifal’ seven years ago (Rochester, NY, 2005), co-edited by William Kinderman and Katherine Syer, a chapter by Kinderman on ‘The Genesis of the Music’ prompted me to make a prediction: ‘it underlines his position as the undisputed authority on Parsifal sketches and heightens the eagerness with which his full-length study of the subject is awaited. … Kinderman provides a fascinating insight into what will surely become a major study’ (Wagner Journal, 1 (2007), 86). The resulting book does not disappoint. Kinderman offers a comprehensive survey of the genesis of Parsifal and presents fresh insights into contentious issues of musical structure and interpretation. As he points out, Wagner’s final opera seems particularly well suited to the format stipulated by the Oxford series, ‘Studies in Musical Genesis, Structure, and Interpretation’. An unusually large number of preliminary sketches have survived in addition to the complete drafts, and many can be precisely dated from entries in Cosima Wagner’s diaries. Kinderman pieces the fragments together for the first time and constructs a convincing narrative for the creative process, with particular emphasis on the relationship between text, drama, and musical form, and on counterbalancing the heavy burden of associations left by the nationalist appropriation of the opera during the half-century after Wagner’s death.