Richard Wagner’s 1868 opera, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (“The Mastersingers of Nuremberg”), is a comic love story, set in the sixteenth century. Its plot centers around the historical Master Singers, an ancient guild of amateur poets and musicians who were primarily middle class master craftsmen of various trades. The guild’s Tabulatur, or law book, established an intricate system of rules which dictated the structure and performance of songs.
The opera’s principle theme involves the conflict between tradition and innovation. The young hero, Walther, is a brazen outsider who enters the singing contest with a radical song which breaks all of the rules. In contrast with the guild’s conservatism, he states that he “learned to sing from nature and birds.” Ultimately, Walther triumphs, winning the competition, as well as the hand of Eva in marriage. A balance is found between tradition and new ideas.
Wagner, himself a musical radical filled with new ideas, composed the Prelude to Act 1 of Die Meistersinger in 1861 before beginning work on the opera itself. During a train trip from Venice to Vienna, he “immediately and with the greatest clarity conceived the main section of the overture in C major.”
A drama of instrumental voices, the Prelude reveals all of the opera’s principle leitmotifs (recurring motifs associated with people, situations, or ideas). It begins with a majestic theme evocative of the guild’s tradition. A longing, sighing motif accompanies the love-at-first-sight meeting of Walther and Eva in a church soon after the curtain rises. There is also the bustling, energetic music of the mastersingers’ apprentices. With a nod to musical tradition, Wagner weaves these themes into a double fugue. The Prelude’s spectacular final moments bring a blazing display of counterpoint in which three independent themes weave together. It is a feat which has been compared with the finale of Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony. Commentator Richard Atkinson provides a fascinating analysis of this brilliant contrapuntal display.
This performance, featuring Giuseppe Sinopoli and the Staatskapelle Dresden, was recorded in Tokyo’s Suntory Hall on January 24, 1998. Wagner served as Hofkapellmeister of the Staatskapelle Dresden for five years in the mid 1840s.
Featured Image: photograph by Tanja Niemann