The idea of the opera occurred to Wagner at Marienbad in 1845. He then
sketched a scenario which differed widely from the one finally adopted.
It is possible that certain scenes were written while he was at work on
_Lohengrin_; there is a legend that the quintet was finished in 1845.
Some add to this quintet the songs of Sachs and Walther. Wagner wrote to
a friend on March 12, 1862: “Tomorrow I hope at least to begin the
composition of _Die Meistersinger_”—the libretto was completed at Paris
in 1861. He worked at Biebrich on the Rhine in 1862 on the music. The
prelude was sketched in February of that year. The instrumentation was
completed in the following June.
He wrote to his friend Dr. Anton Pusinelli from Penzing near Vienna on
March 14, 1864: “I have tried with the greatest care to ensure myself
the proper leisure for completing the _Meistersinger_ by next winter.
Unfortunately, everything has been very difficult for me because my
continual indisposition and my sad frame of mind have kept company with
my other trials, so as to make it more difficult for me to have any
desire for work.” He wrote again to Pusinelli in a long letter about his
“poor wife” Minna, questioning whether he should return to her: “Under
favorable conditions I finally _can_ complete my _Meistersinger_. Very
probably this work will quickly become popular, and it _can_ bring in
good returns for me. But one can’t _count_ on this, and my life from
month to month must not depend on such possibilities; for if I have no
‘good inspirations,’ then I have nothing to write down, and with
continual worries I no longer have very good inspirations now.”
At Lucerne on May 10, 1866, he wrote that he had won for a little time
the quiet for creating “a great and joyful work. Wish me this success
and—perhaps I dare to say it—wish it to the world!” He had already
completed Act I and was progressing well with Act II, which was finished
in December.
In 1868 he wrote from Lucerne: “In Dresden I had in mind an attempt to
procure some guarantee for the _Meistersinger_ against abominable
incompetence of the _Kapellmeisters_ there, and with what a nice
reception was I met there!” The principal _Kapellmeister_ was Julius
Rietz, who was hostile to Wagner, as he had been at Leipsic.
The prelude is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets,
two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba,
kettledrums, triangle, cymbals, harp, and the usual strings.
Wagner in his Autobiography tells how the idea of _Die Meistersinger_
formed itself; how he began to elaborate it in the hope that it might
free him from the thrall of the idea of _Lohengrin_; but he was impelled
to go back to the latter opera. The melody for the fragment of Sachs’
poem on the Reformation occurred to him while going through the
galleries of the Palais Royal on his way to the Taverne Anglaise. “There
I found Truinet already waiting for me and asked him to give me a scrap
of paper and a pencil to jot down my melody, which I quietly hummed over
to him at the time.” “As from the balcony of my flat, in a sunset of
great splendor, I gazed upon the magnificent spectacle of ‘Golden’
Mayence, with the majestic Rhine pouring along its outskirts in a glory
of light, the prelude to my _Meistersinger_ again suddenly made its
presence closely and distinctly felt in my soul. Once before had I seen
it rise before me out of a lake of sorrow, like some distant mirage. I
proceeded to write down the prelude exactly as it appears today in the
score, that is, containing the clear outlines of the leading themes of
the whole drama.”
Wagner conducted the two overtures. The hall was nearly empty; there was
a pecuniary loss. This was a sore disappointment to Wagner, who had
written to Weissheimer on October 12, 1862: “Good: _Tannhäuser_
overture, then. That’s all right for me. For what I now have in mind is
to make an out-and-out sensation, so as to make money.” He had proposed
to add the prelude and _finale_ of _Tristan_ to the Prelude to “_Die
Meistersinger_”; but his friends in Leipsic advised the substitution of
the overture to _Tannhäuser_. There was not the faintest applause when
Wagner came on the platform; but the prelude to _Die Meistersinger_ was
received with such favor that it was immediately played a second time.
One critic wrote of the _Meistersinger_ prelude, “The overture, a long
movement in moderate march tempo, with predominating brass, without any
chief thoughts and without noticeable and recurring points of rest, went
along and soon awakened a feeling of monotony.” The critic of the
_Mitteldeutsche Volkzeitung_ wrote in terms of enthusiasm. The
_Signal’s_ critic was bitter in opposition. He wrote at length and
finally characterized the prelude as “chaos,” a “tohu-wabohu and nothing
more.”