Customer Reviews

Parsifal in Full Score (Dover Vocal Scores)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Wagner's Parsifal, his "last" opera, is also in many ways his most moving on an intellectual and spiritual level. Full of Schopenhauerian resignation which rises beyond the pessimism of The World as Will and Idea into the world of Buddhist renunciation, Parsifal uses Christian metaphor to show the futility of striving and the peace to be gained from release.

However, this review will obviously be of the Dover edition of the full score, not the opera itself. Also, I won't comment on the previous negative review, except to add that the reviewer should do Wagner and the world a favor and read Macgee's The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy, and give the slanderous and bizarre Wagner-Hitler link a well-deserved rest. Wagner was an anti-semite, but to somehow link this to Hitler is a classic example of the genetic fallacy (where did this idea ever come from, anyway? The Nazis loved Beethoven far more than Wagner's left-wing revolutionary aural madness,it never really fit with their style....)

The Dover editions of Wagner's full scores are the most useful editions available for actually listening to and studying Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerken, and are a bargain at twice the price. Professional musicians will of course recognize that the G. Schirmer editions are the ones most often used for actual performances and rehearsals, particularly the Schirmer piano reductions (either the good old green hardbacks or the orange paperbacks). But even professionals make good use of the Dover editions, since they are ideal for sitting down with a good set of headphones and a cup of coffee to take in the brilliance that was Wagner.

The same comments of my review for Dover's reprint of Peter's full-score of Wagner's second opera of his "Ring" cycle" hold for the equivalent reprint of that publisher's edition of "Parsifal" (though NOT for "Tristan und Isolde", alas...):

Unlike Schott's editions (which Dover uses for its reprints of the other 3 operas of the cycle "Der Ring des Nibelungen" {"The Nibelung's Ring"}, the Peters version reprinted here DOES have the voice and instrumental staves mostly arranged in proper order, making things a great deal easier to follow. [Alas, there's one exception - having the voices and stage-directions (though not stage instruments - that part at least is already in proper order) between the violas and the 'celli (harking back to Baroque "basso-continuo" usage) - at least they're consistent with it which helps...] Also the fonts used by the Peters engraving are a fair bit clearer than those of Schott in their first editions (their current edition of the complete works of Richard Wagner is SUPERLATIVE but no doubt fantastically expensive!!!).

This score is not only a steal at the price, it's an excellent score, period (though I could visualise it using fewer pages if the engravings were done differently whereby the systems would have been somewhat smaller but done for a larger paper-size). No qualms about my recommendation - GET IT!!!!

Even if you're not a musician, it's pretty easy to follow the music on the full score while listening to a cd (of course you have to be able to read a score!); you then can understand much of Wagner's technique and effects (the violin arpeggios e.g.), recognize the leit-motivs and their variants.
The price of this 800 page book is a bargain, and it's really enjoyable to go deep inside the music.

Dover scores are always a pleasure and a great treasure to have. It is great to obtain scores, longtime out of print and luxuriously reissued. However this Parsifal is not a 'republish'. The Peeters Verlag score of Parsifal in Full Score (to my knowledge published first by Peeters time in 1909) was never realy out of print. The interesting matter is here that certain remarks are made by Felix Mottle (1856-1911 ((100.Anniversary!))) who's a genuine Wagnerian Legacy. Mottle was assistent to Hans Richter (1843-1916)with whom he prepared the first ever complete Ring des Nibelungen in 1886 (the period during the very Bayreuth Festival that Liszt died,..shortly after the performance of Tristan und Isolde). The newer reprints have not such substantive information, where everything is put in a musicologist Preface or something like that.
This Dover score is made, as usual with Dover's exellent paperbound, pages are easy to turn and the texture is VERY readable. Including the precious remarks. To follow a historic recording (Wagner: Parsifal) or, in case, any good performance, it is a real pleasure to have this 'Reference' on your side.
Conclusion:
Publication and Design: Excellent
Great for both, professionals and music lovers (well, for those who are, of course, in the capabilty of reading notes..)

Parsifal, Wagner's last opera, and the only one written for a Bayreuth premiere, tells the story of Percival's recovery of the Holy Grail. It was written with the same passion for Christian mythology with which the anonymous medieval English mystery writers wrote their plays. Unfortunately, this powerfully spiritual music drama provides the setting for one of Wagner's most disgraceful bits of anti-semitic insensitivity. Hermann Levi, the premiere's conductor, waited backstage to enter the pit and begin the performance. Seconds before he entered, Wagner grabbed the score from Levi's hands, stating coldly, "give it back, I can't have a Jew like you conduct this." Then, after a tense pause, he smiled and said, "I was just joking. Here." Unquestionably, Wagner was two things: an insensitive brut whose anti-semitism later inspired the sociopathy of Adolf Hitler, and a musicodramatic genius. Dover reprinted an early twentieth century Peters edition of Parsifal. From a scholarly viewpoint, Peters is a most reliable German publisher. Dover provides a translation of the cast list and the table of contents. Unfortunately, there is no English translation of the text, and no glossary of German musical terms. Nonetheless, any good recording will provide a reliable libretto, and the musical terms can be looked up in any good German or musical dictionary. As always with Dover, the book is easily read and built to last. It may be a little small for podium use, but it is perfect at home in front of the stereo. There is, unfortunately, no reprint of the original title page, as the Tristan and Walkure scores have. The original title page serves no purpose really, but sometimes it's fun to open to that title page...and dream.