Orchestration of Wagner's Parsifal

or Parsifal Wagner reduced the number of brass instruments, although he called for trumpets and trombones onstage, but retained a full section of woodwind. He added the contrabassoon which he used to strengthen the bass line of the Faith motive (no.3). For this opera the percussion section is relatively small, in keeping with Wagner's clear intention to achieve a blended orchestral sound.

n his later operas Wagner made use of multiple harps, an instrument that was now fully chromatic. In the first act of Parsifal the harps are only heard twice. During the first scene with Amfortas (the Waldesmorgenpracht) the harp plays an arpeggio of B major, the key of Good Friday. The harps are heard again with the Swan motive (no.17), a reminiscence of Lohengrin. The harps are busier in the second act in connection with the erotic sphere, as Egon Voss described it in his dissertation on the instrumentation of this opera. At the end of the act there is a harp glissando that portrays the spear flying through the air when Klingsor throws it towards the hero. The harps are featured again in the final scene of the third act, for example at the healing of Amfortas, and in the final apotheosis (E. Voss again). Unfortunately the harps can be hidden in the orchestral and choral texture of this passage and therefore some conductors increase the number of harps to four here.

distinctive feature of Wagner's late style is his preference for doubling of voices. Where for example Berlioz might have given one instrument or instrumental subgroup a melody, Wagner employs two or three instruments or subgroups. Sometimes from the same section of the orchestra but often chosen from two orchestral sections. For example, at the very beginning of the work, we hear clarinets and bassoons with violins and celli, soon joined by the cor anglais. Later he uses doubling combinations such as: horns and celli; trumpets and violas; clarinets and violins; oboe, clarinet and tremolando violins; clarinets and tremolando violas; oboe, horns and violins.

he leading motives are often introduced by one grouping of instruments and then taken up by another group. For example, the motive of the Grail (no.2) is first heard on trumpets and bassoons changing to woodwind, then it returns in the strings. Over the entire opera, each of the principal motives is heard in different instrumentations, as shown for some of them in the table below (from Bauer, 1978, pages 263-4). For each of the principal motives (as selected by Bauer) it gives the number of times the motive appears with a particular combination of instruments.