Sketch Study

I began my discussion of source study in chapter 7 by situating it within the taxonomy of literary criticism techniques laid out by Gustave Rudler. Similarly, I will begin this chapter by reviewing what Rudler refers to as critique de genèse, with which we can recreate Wagner's poietic process for the solo. We will thus move from the solo's general sources of inspiration to the development of its final musical text.

Rudler rightly suggests that the study of a work's sketches should not begin until the study of its sources is “completed, or at least well underway.” This is exactly how I have proceeded, as my investigations in chapter 7 have allowed me to show how Wagner employed the borrowed materials that inspired him. However, I have saved another source for chapter 11, a citation from Schopenhauer that will shed new light on the interpretations in chapters 7 and 8. I have followed Rudler's advice by first examining Wagner's writings and letters, a process that my expanded tripartite model refers to as external poietics. In contrast, my study of the solo's development in this chapter will rely solely on the information provided by Wagner's sketches.

Rudler states that the researcher must then proceed by studying the work's first drafts and variants. I view these sketches as external documents, insofar as they differ from the final version of the work. Jean Molino describes them as “poietic documents, in which we must uncover everything that differs from the published version of a work, no matter what its nature, in order to bring to light the circumstances of its production.”

But another poietic approach is also available to us, which I refer to as inductive poeitics. This method hypothesizes about the creative process from the starting point of the musical structures present in the work's final version. This approach does not appear in Rudler's methodology; however, Molino considers it in his survey of poietic studies, deeming it to be an acceptable approach. He writes: