composer insight

wagner

NEWSFLASH

On 13 April 2010, BBC Classical Music Magazine announced its Disc of the Year at an Awards ceremony at Kings Place, London. Wagner’s Lohengrin, performed by the WDR Symphony Orchestra, Cologne, conducted by Semyon Bychkov, won the coveted prize and the Opera Award. The Award was presented by actor Simon Callow. Read the press release in full

Semyon Bychkov on Wagner

“Wagner’s operas are the closest music to Buddhism that I know,” says Semyon Bychkov. He goes on to explain: “It is in a permanent state of unfolding. Yes, of course, there is a moment when it starts – but only because it is at that point we hear it. The story had actually begun a long time ago. And if you are not familiar with it, it’s all right, because during the next five hours, someone will make sure to inform you!

“So it is sequential writing. It has no beginning, and it has no end. What is Buddhism if not that? It is a constant and eternal reincarnation. Now, that is astonishing. Because it simply means that his idea of time is not within the confines of an hour that has 60 minutes, or a day that has 24 hours, and so on.

“But now comes the question of the tempo at which his music has to unfold. And he writes about it himself. We find the right tempo from speaking the text. He said this when he received the timings of a performance of Lohengrin, at Weimar, conducted by Liszt. He realised that it had taken much longer than he had intended, because the singers had lingered over the recitatives. And he said, ‘I have already thought about it, and I have written the rhythm of the speech into the music. So you find the right tempo from the way the text is spoken.’

“This leads logically to the story of Strauss conducting Parsifal in Bayreuth, and causing a scandal with his tempos. He said in his own defence, ‘I was here in 1882 when Parsifal was given for the first time. I was sitting next to my father who played first horn. And every so often a little door behind Levi would open, and the master himself would put his head in and say, “Levi, don’t drag the tempo.” Everything that has been done to this music since is a travesty.’

“Believe it or not, the original set of Parsifal orchestral parts has survived in the Bayreuth archives, and it was used almost until the First World War, with many musicians documenting the timings of the acts. And it is true that after that first decade, it got slower and slower and slower. Wagner had died one year after the premiere. Levi was not there any more. Cosima was telling everyone how deep and solemn it must be. And as the music sounds so glorious when it is played slowly you can’t easily argue with this.

“But Strauss remembered exactly how it must be. And when you start thinking that there is a text, and people have to sing that text in sentences, not syllables, you see that it makes absolute sense.”

“Bychkov’s expansive, impassioned conducting brings a rare cohesion and integrity to Wagner’s operatic problem child. I haven't heard a Tannhauser to match it.”
[Wagner Tannhauser / Royal Opera, Covent Garden]
Sunday Times, December 2010

“The success of the evening mostly resides with Semyon Bychkov who once again showed that he is the best conductor of Wagner that Covent Garden has had for decades. For me his Wagner has only probably ever been bettered in the performances I heard conducted by Reginald Goodall. Bychkov’s interpretation has a persuasive grandeur, an almost seamless flow, and exquisite attention to musical detail. He brings out sounds from the Covent Garden orchestra that I wonder if they knew they were capable of...”
[Wagner Tannhauser / Royal Opera, Covent Garden]
MusicWeb International, December 2010

“At Covent Garden, thanks to the magic wrought by conductor Semyon Bychkov, the opera for once seemed like an integrated dramatic whole. Weighty, measured, slow-burning, and lit from within by superb orchestral playing, Bychkov’s interpretation has a sense of gravity that pays long-term dividends.”
[Wagner Tannhauser / Royal Opera, Covent Garden]
Daily Telegraph, December 2010

Recordings featuring wagner: