Franz Lachner's 1842 Festspiel

[tpaloj]

Today I wanted to present a reconstruction of Franz Lachner's forgotten Festspiel composed for the wedding of Maximilian II and Maria of Bavaria in 1842. It consists of an Overture and four numbered incidental sections. As is customary with these kinds of works, there are long swathes of unaccompanied narration inbetween the musical numbers as well. There are two narrators, Bavaria and Borussia, and a chorus.

For its first and only performance the stage design and paintings were created by the famous artist Simon Quaglio, known for his striking set design on the premiere of Mozart's Zauberflöte. The festspiel's text was written by a painter Felix Schiller. His relation to Friedrich S is unknown to me.

I was able to find two digitized manuscripts:
1) Lachner's autograph, which doesn't include the Overture.
2) Copyist's score of the whole work including its Overture, plus some additional leaves in Lachner's handwriting tucked in between, such as one for solo harp accompanying some narration, and a page at the end with trombones to incorporate into the coda. Lachner also rewrote and discarded his original concluding pages to Nr.1 in favor of a new ending, which contains some passages for the harp.

I like the feisty Overture, which starts conventionally but really kicks off around 1:30. It sounds like an overture to a lost Rossini opera or something, though Lachner was reserved enough not to add any cymbals... The rest of the score is mainly scenic: shorter, light incidental scenes accompanying the narration, a few fanfares here and there. I liked the cantabile writing in Nr.4 well enough. A loud coda, earlier introduced in the Overture, concludes the work promptly.


It would be very hard to justify restaging this whole Festspiel nowadays for obvious reasons. The overture on its own would make a really fun concert opener, but that's about it probably. I don't know if it was worth transcribing the whole thing, but there we have it, for reference if nothing else. A really rare piece, it makes for some interesting Lachner trivia indeed.

YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/spuCZS3IUAI
LIBRETTO: https://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10729647-5
1842 PLAYBILL: https://imgur.com/a/92lSGCb


A newspaper review of the Festspiel's premiere:

– – Hierauf begann das von dem Maler Felix Schiller gedichtete Festspiel, welches sehr effektvolle plastische Szenen enthielt. Borussia und Bavaria, in ihren gegenseitigen Erscheinungen repräsentirt durch Fräulein Denker und Madam Dahn, erstere besonders durch ihre majestätische Gestalt, voll Hoheit und Weihe, übten einen eben so mächtigen Eindruck, als die Schlußdekorationen von Hohenschwangau und Fischbach, durch die Meisterhände der Architekturmaler Quaglio und Schnitzlein ausgeführt, wahrhaft überraschten Die Allerhöchsten und Höchsten Herrschaften weihten diesem Spiele, so wie auch der darauffolgenden Oper "die Puritaner" bis zum Schlusse eine ungetheilte Aufmerksamkeit.

[Reverie]

It would be very hard to justify restaging this whole Festspiel nowadays for obvious reasons. The overture on its own would make a really fun concert opener, but that's about it probably. I don't know if it was worth transcribing the whole thing, but there we have it, for reference if nothing else. A really rare piece, it makes for some interesting Lachner trivia indeed.

I agree with this summary. Many thanks for sticking with it to the end. It's more than Lachner trivia rest assured.