Parsifal, WWV 111: Act III, Sc. 4: Kartfreitagszauber: Full Orchestra Conductor Score

The 3-act opera Parsifal was conceived of by Richard Wagner (1813-1883) in 1857, but not completed until 1882. Telling the story of Parsifal, the "pure fool" destined to claim kingship in the country of the Holy Grail, the work premiered on July 26, 1882 under conductor Hermann Levi at the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, the hall built for Wagner's works. Parsifal is unique in that Wagner only permitted it to be performed in Bayreuth, with the ban on all other performances maintained after Wagner's death by his wife Cosima, although some unauthorized performances were staged during this time. The ban was lifted on January 1 of 1914, and the demand resulted in over fifty European opera houses staging the work before August of that year. In Act III, Parsifal returns after years of wandering to the domain of the Grail on Good Friday, carrying the sacred spear that he has recovered from Klingsor; the aged knight Gurnemanz recognizes both Parsifal and the spear, baptizes him, and proclaims him the new guardian and king of the Grail, while Kundry washes his feet and Parsifal in turn baptizes her. As Parsifal observes that the surrounding fields and flowers seem strangely beautiful on a day commemorating Christ's suffering, Gurnemanz explains the Good Friday Spell: nature rejoices because humanity has been redeemed, and the innocent flowers need no longer mourn mankind's sin. The resulting Karfreitagszauber is one of Wagner's most luminous orchestral passages, transforming motives associated with the Grail, faith, suffering, and redemption into music of extraordinary serenity before Parsifal and Gurnemanz proceed toward the Grail ceremony that concludes the drama. The Dutch conductor and composer Wouter Hutschenruyter (1859-1943) subsequently fashioned the Good Friday Spell into this self-contained orchestral concert arrangement, preserving Wagner's large orchestral palette while shaping the operatic passage for performance without voices or stage action. Today, Hutschenruyter's concert arrangement of the Good Friday Spell is considerably less common than Wagner's familiar orchestral excerpts from Die Meistersinger, Lohengrin, Tannhäuser, or the Ring, but it retains a place in the orchestral repertoire as a practical independent presentation of one of Parsifal's most celebrated passages. The Karfreitagszauber itself has a long concert tradition (the Boston Symphony Orchestra, for example, performed the excerpt as early as November 1882) and remains admired as one of Wagner's supreme orchestral evocations of spiritual renewal and transcendence. Instrumentation: 3.3(3rd opt.)+1(EH).3(3rd opt.)+1(BCl; opt.).3(3rd opt.)+1(CBsn; opt.): 4.3(3rd opt.).3.1: Timp: Str (9.8.7.6.5 in set). Reprint edition.