Reorchestration of Wagner’s Parsifal: Rescored for soloists, chorus and chamber orchestra

The purpose of this reorchestration is to make Wagner’s opera available to smaller orchestras with fewer singers. The flower maidens have been reduced to three parts, and the restructuring of Wagner’s orchestral combinations is the fruit of Matthew King’s research into equivalent timbral possibilities: Wagner’s orchestra is massively reduced but in such a way that the  instrumental mixtures seem (to the listener) to be virtually indistinguishable in timbral effect from Wagner’s original orchestration. Matthew King's collaboration with the Mahler Players extends back to 2019 and includes reductions, for chamber orchestra, of several acts from Wagner's opera as well as the elaboration of Wagner's late unfinished symphonic sketches in the orchestral piece Richard Wagner in Venice: a Symphony.  

 

Matthew King's new chamber orchestra version of Parsifal was created for a new production of the opera in Inverness in May 2026, with Julian Hubbard in the title role, Sir John Tomlinson in the role of Gurnemanz and Magdalena Anna Hofmann as Kundry, involving student singers and members of the local community in the chorus. This builds on earlier performances of Act 2 (2025) and Act 3 (2024) in Inverness Cathedral, and a theatrical production of Act 3 in Temple Church in 2025 by the Orpheus Sinfonia conducted by Peter Selwyn. Matthew King has also rescored Act 1 of Die Walküre, Act 2 of Tristan und Isolde and Act 3 of Siegfried for the Mahler Players. These have also been performed by the Roma Tre orchestra in Rome.

RESEARCH AREA: orchestral reduction; intensive research into Wagner’s orchestral technique; maintaining the famous ‘lit from behind’ luminosity of the original score; symbolism and semiotic function of timbre ‘in such a way that colour itself becomes action’ (Adorno); orchestral texture and balance: almost every single instrumental combination has been reconstructed with the intention of creating authentic sonic results which closely Wagner’s sonic conception.