13. Orchestration.

A paradox lies at the heart of Wagner’s orchestration. As his compositional ambitions developed through the three early operas, the trio of German Romantic operas and the Ring tetralogy, culminating in the final three masterpieces, so the tonal resources of the existing orchestra were expanded. Yet larger forces did not – contrary to the impression given by contemporary caricatures – simply lead to greater volume and cruder effects. On the contrary, to compare the exuberant tambourines and castanets of Das Liebesverbot, or the bombastic, massive rhetoric of Rienzi, with the rich, velvety textures of the Ring or the refined sonorities of Parsifal, famously described by Debussy as ‘illuminated as from behind’, is to realize just how central the art of orchestration was to Wagner’s project.

On one level, this development reflects Wagner’s own progress towards mastery. Again, one may compare the overwrought triangle part in the early concert overture Rule Britannia with the single stroke of the instrument in the closing bars of Act 2 of Siegfried – praised by Strauss as a ‘wise application of the triangle’. Similarly, the insistent cymbals of Das Liebesverbot, the massed brass of Rienzi or the extravagant six trumpets of the early Columbus Overture may be compared with the magical pianissimo brushing of the cymbals at the start of the long final descent in the Lohengrin prelude, or the delicate touches on a solo trumpet in the second stanza of Elsa’s Dream (Act 1 of the same opera).

On another level, the increased sophistication of Wagner’s scoring accords with developments in the 19th century generally. The beginning of the century heralded the liberation of woodwind and brass instruments, whose sonorities, both solo and in combination, now made more distinctive contributions to the orchestral texture. In opera, more specifically, such composers as Spontini and Weber were employing these timbres imaginatively, adding new colours to the tonal palette; such innovations were soon extended by Berlioz and Meyerbeer as well as Wagner.

The demands of narrative and characterization in opera fuelled these developments, the Wagnerian technique of leitmotif underlining further the association between particular timbres and characters, objects, concepts or emotions. In Lohengrin, according to Liszt, the work’s first conductor, each of the elements has its own distinctive colouring: strings for the Holy Grail, wind for Elsa, brass for Heinrich. Richard Strauss also admired Lohengrin, in particular for Wagner’s deployment of the dritte Bläser – i.e. the addition of the cor anglais to the two oboes, and the bass clarinet to the two clarinets, to form homogeneous and potentially autonomous choruses alongside the three flutes and three bassoons.

In accordance with the general trend in the 19th century, Wagner’s mature orchestra was notable for its considerable reinforcement of strings in relation to woodwind. For the Ring he asked for 16 first violins, 16 seconds, 12 violas, 12 cellos and 8 double basses. Admittedly he called also for quadruple woodwind in the Ring, as in Parsifal, though only triple for Tristan, and double (plus piccolo/third flute) for Die Meistersinger. The ensuing carpet of string sound is a characteristic feature of Wagner’s scores, but there are also countless examples of subtle, delicate effects obtained in a variety of ways.

Expanding the tonal resources of the orchestra involved both the redeployment of existing instruments and experimentation with new ones. In the first category belong the trombones. If trombones were becoming standard in opera house orchestras throughout Europe in the 19th century, then it was Wagner above all who gave them an independent voice. Their enunciations of the striding Spear motif, or that of the baleful Curse, in the Ring proclaimed a new freedom that made possible even more radical innovations in subsequent eras. Perhaps the most significant of the ‘new’ instruments were the ‘Wagner tubas’. Called tenor and bass tubas in the score, they are generally blown, with horn mouthpieces, by a quartet of horn players, and were intended to bridge the gap between horns and trombones. Wagner’s ‘invention’ of these instruments owed much to the experiments of Adolphe Sax and others, just as the bass trumpet and contrabass trombone he had constructed for the Ringalso drew on military band precedents. Wagner called for an alto oboe to be specially constructed for the Ring and Parsifal, but the instrument failed to establish itself permanently. The bass clarinet was not a Wagnerian invention, but it was exploited as a melodic instrument in Tristan and as a useful bass to the woodwind choir elsewhere.

Other special instruments used by Wagner include the 18 anvils in the Ring; the cow horns in Die Walküre, Götterdämmerung and Die Meistersinger; the wind machine in Der fliegende Holländer; and the Grail bells which are not the least of the many problematic issues in Parsifal.

Wagner: (1) Richard Wagner