 | |
| Vol. 24., No. 12 | January 21, 1999 |
| |
| Vol. 24., No. 12 | January 21, 1999 |
BY LAUREN MARSHALL
Based on a rare score discovered in Columbia's Rare Book and Manuscript Library, a forgotten orchestral arrangement was performed by the New Jersey Symphony on Jan. 15 for the first time in almost a century.
The score, a symphonic synthesis of Act II of Wagner's opera Siegfried arranged by Anton Seidl including music known today as "Forest Murmurs," was discovered at Columbia by author and New York Times music critic, Joseph Horowitz while doing research for his award-winning book entitled, Wagner Nights (University of California Press, 1994).
The score, published in 1901, was a part of the Seidl archive, a gift to Columbia by Seidl's widow given in 1905. Since that time, the score remained at the Rare Book and Manuscript library virtually untouched until its discovery by Horowitz.
At the turn-of-the-century, when opera was the rage in Europe, America, lacking opera houses, became a hotbed of musical activity as the works of operatic giants such as Wagner were re-arranged and re-introduced as symphonic music. Seidl, a conductor and former protégé of Wagner, was at the forefront of this American movement.
It is well known that Seidl, while conducting his Wagner arrangements, worked from memory. Following his death in 1898, it is said that Seidl's widow asked composer Arthur Farwell to reconstruct the conductor's scores from the existing individual instrumental scores of Seidl's arrangements. Horowitz was thrilled to discover one such score at Columbia.
"It was a remarkable discovery," Horowitz claims. "It recaptures a time when Wagner's operas were more widely and freely excerpted and abridged than today. The score is not only a memento of Seidl, but also the only evidence of exactly what was performed under his direction. The moment I found the score, I dreamt of the possibility that it could be performed today."
Seidl's Siegfried synthesis score was featured Jan. 15 and 16 as part of a three-week-long festival subtitled "The Symphonic Wagner;An American Tradition" by the New Jersey Symphony.
The festival was the culmination of a collaborative effort between Zdenek Macal, music director of the New Jersey Symphony; Casimer Kossakowski, music researcher and New Jersey Symphony librarian, and Horowitz.