Franz Liszt & Richard Wagner — Mit Correcturen (Three Manuscripts, Each the Work of Two Musicians) — Notebook

Three manuscripts by Liszt and Wagner, each the work of two musicians. Then pages of your own.

The document

A label from the old wrapper of one of these manuscripts reads mit Correcturen von Wagner: with corrections by Wagner. The phrase fits all three. In the Lohengrin, dated December 18, 1852, the music is Wagner's and the hand is Liszt's. In the Fantasia in F-sharp minor, which Wagner wrote at eighteen, the hand is Anton Seidl's, who copied it at Bayreuth around 1877–78, and the corrections are Wagner's, made more than forty years after he wrote the piece. In the O sacrum convivium a copyist wrote out the music, and Liszt went over it in red chalk and blue pencil. All three are kept at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, and this notebook reproduces their 28 pages complete.

Inside the notebook

First, a short guide: the label that gives the notebook its name; Liszt and Wagner, who became father-in-law and son-in-law; Elsa's procession from Lohengrin, which Liszt arranged for the piano and signed off 18 December / Soir = 52., Für Hans.; the Fantasia, and Seidl, who copied it; Wagner's note in the margin, Mordente ausführen!, “play the mordents!”; and the O sacrum, its bars crossed out in red chalk and scored through in blue.

Then the manuscripts, in the order in which they were written: four pages of Liszt's Lohengrin, sixteen of Wagner's Fantasia and the eight of the O sacrum, the last two ruled and never used. The three are on paper of different sizes, and every page is printed at the same scale, 62% of its size, so that they can be compared.

Then the pages are yours: 78 pages of staff paper, with staves like those on the last pages of the O sacrum.

A4, spiral-bound, it lies flat.

Franz Liszt · Elsa's bridal procession from Wagner's Lohengrin, arranged for piano, autograph, December 18, 1852 · Richard Wagner · Fantasia in F-sharp minor, WWV 22, copy by Anton Seidl with corrections by Wagner, Bayreuth, about 1877–78 · Franz Liszt · O sacrum convivium for organ or harmonium, copy with Liszt's corrections, about 1880–85 · Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Mus.ms.autogr. Liszt, F. 14; Wagner, R. 9; Liszt, F. 15