“IT HAS COST ME MUCH HARDSHIP TO COMPLETE THE SCORE IN TIME”: AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED BY RICHARD WAGNER TO CONDUCTOR THEODORE THOMAS, ON THE 1876 PREMIERE OF WAGNER’S INAUGURATION MARCH
WAGNER, Richard. Autograph letter, twice signed, to conductor Theodore Thomas. Berlin: March 25, 1876. Full sheet measures 8-1/2 inches by 11 inches, folded to form two leaves. Handsomely window-framed with halftone photograph of the composer; entire piece measures 20 by 28 inches. Accompanied by a framed typescript translation.
Twice-signed autograph letter by Richard Wagner to conductor Theodore Thomas, discussing the score of the Grand Inauguration March, composed by Wagner for the entrance of President Grant to the grounds of the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition.
“In the early morning of Wednesday, May 10, 1876, a reporter for the New York Daily Tribune made his way towards the main entrance of the American Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Borne along with the jostling crowd, he moved down the length of the Main Building and, at the further end, under a tremendous wooden platform and out onto the sunbaked fair grounds. He finally succeeded in reaching the guests’ platform, half a mile down the field. From this vantage-point he turned to survey the closely-packed mass of spectators; beyond them, on the stage thrown up along the northern front of the Main Building, he could see some 800 singers and 150 instrumentalists forming the ranks under the supervision of their conductor, the famed Theodore Thomas. Promptly at 10:15, Mr. Thomas led his orchestra into a rendition of eighteen national airs and then, after the arrival of President and Mrs. Grant, into the premiere performance of the Grand Inauguration March, composed for the Centennial by Richard Wagner” (Abram Loft). Theodore Thomas was among the earliest of Wagner’s champions in this country. “He started conducting Wagner’s music when it was brand new… In fact, Thomas’s debut concert as a symphonic conductor, in New York City in 1862, opened with the American premiere of The Flying Dutchman overture. Over the next few years, he introduced some of Wagner’s most important works to this country— the prelude to Tristan and Isolde in 1866, less than a year after the world premiere of the opera in Munich, and the Meistersinger overture seven months later” (Chicago Symphony Orchestra). Of Wagner’s Inauguration March “no praise which has been lavished upon this noble composition overstates its merit, and we are greatly disappointed in the taste of our countrymen if it does not soon become one of the most popular of Thomas’s concert pieces” (Dwight’s Journal of Music). Wagner’s letter to Thomas translates, in part: “While I am writing I suppose the score has already completed the first half of its voyage to you. I sincerely hope that it will reach you in time, and I have already written to our mutual friend Federlein, and told him my wishes in regard to its performance… I hope that the success of the composition will bring you joy. It has cost me much hardship to complete the score in time as I am almost worn out by the excessive demands upon me of a number of concerts in Vienna and Berlin… A few soft and tender passages in the March are meant to depict the beautiful and talented women of North America, as they take part in the Festival cortege. And I am glad to say that it was my intention to have these noble hearted women take the first place in the procession rather than the men, because they were the chief promoters and most energetic in their endeavors for my work.”
A few faint spots, four fold lines. A fine piece handsomely framed.