The overture to _Rienzi_ is at the best mere circus music. It is a good
thing to hear it once in a while, for it shows that Wagner, on occasion,
could be more vulgar than Meyerbeer, whom he so cordially disliked.
* * *
Wagner left Königsberg in the early summer of 1837 to visit Dresden, and
there he read Bärmann’s translation into German of Bulwer’s _Rienzi_.
And thus was revived his long-cherished idea of making the last of the
Tribunes the hero of a grand opera. “My impatience with a degrading
plight now amounted to a passionate craving to begin something grand and
elevating, no matter if it involved the temporary abandonment of any
practical goal. This mood was fed and strengthened by a reading of
Bulwer’s _Rienzi_. From the misery of modern private life, whence I
could nohow glean the scantiest material for artistic treatment, I was
wafted by the image of a great historico-political event in the
enjoyment whereof I needs must find a distraction lifting me above cares
and conditions that to me appeared nothing less than absolutely fatal to
art.” The overture to _Rienzi_ was completed October 23, 1840. The opera
was produced at the Royal Saxon Court Theater, Dresden, October 20,
1842.
The overture is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two
clarinets, two bassoons, serpent (third bassoon), two valve horns, two
plain horns, two valve trumpets, two plain trumpets, three trombones,
one ophicleide, kettledrums, two snare drums, bass drum, triangle,
cymbals, and strings. The serpent mentioned in the score is replaced by
the double bassoon, and the ophicleide by the bass tuba.
All the themes of the overture are taken from the opera itself. The
overture begins with a slow introduction, _molto sostenuto e maestoso_,
D major, 4-4. It opens with “a long-sustained, swelled and diminished A
on the trumpet,” in the opera, the agreed signal for the uprising of the
people to throw off the tyrannical yoke of the nobles. The majestic
_cantilena_ of the violins and the violoncellos is the theme of Rienzi’s
prayer in the fifth act. The last prolonged A leads to the main body of
the overture. This begins _allegro energico_, D major, 2-2, in the full
orchestra on the first theme, that of the chorus, “_Gegrüsst sei hoher
Tag!_” at the beginning of the first _finale_ of the opera. The first
subsidiary theme enters in the brass, and it is the theme of the battle
hymn (“Santo spirito cavaliere”) of the revolutionary faction in the
third act. A transitional passage in the violoncellos leads to the
entrance of the second theme—Rienzi’s prayer, already heard in the
introduction of the overture—which is now given, _allegro_, in A major,
to the violins. The “Santo spirito cavaliere” theme returns in the
brass, and leads to another and joyful theme, that of the _stretto_ of
the second _finale_, “Rienzi, dir sei Preis,” which is developed with
increasing force. In the _coda, molto più stretto_, the “Santo spirito
cavaliere” is developed in a most robust manner.