After the Prelude, the orchestra enters into the "Liebestod" or "Love-Death," that passionate flow of phrases, taken mostly from the material in the second act Love-Duet. Isolde (in the opera) sings her song of sublimated desire. Franz Liszt is responsible for the application of the term "Liebestod" to that part of the music which originally had been named "Verklärung" by Wagner himself.
Prelude to "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg"
"The completion of _Die Meistersinger_, Triebschen, Thursday, October 24, 1867, 8 o'clock in the evening, R. W." These words were inscribed on the last sheet of the manuscript of Wagner's only operatic comedy. This was some twenty-two years after the very first drafts were drawn at Marienbad. The doctor had ordered a complete rest. But rest to Wagner meant ennui. Perhaps, he thought, he might be able to rest while composing a lighter work. The idea took hold. He gave it considerable thought. He could just about see this airy piece's "rapid circulation through the European opera houses." Indeed, he judged that "something thoroughly light and popular" might be just the thing to make his everlasting fame.
Hans Sachs, of course, is the hero of this masterpiece. A historic character, Sachs was built by the composer into something of an ideal of homespun charm and wit and philosophy. But Wagner also evened a score with an old enemy in his composition of this work. The music critic Eduard Hanslick appears as the crotchety, pedantic and unprincipled Beckmesser, thus earning for himself a ridiculous immortality.
How Wagner could have written this opera with all the troubles besetting him is hard to comprehend. Yet no financial snarls, domestic tribulations, romantic attachments or what-not could stay it even though it took years to come forth.
As for the Prelude, Wagner himself has written an interesting analysis, which is here appended:
"The opening theme for the 'cellos has already been heard in the third strophe of Sachs' cobbler-song in Act II. There is expressed the bitter cry of the man who has determined to renounce his personal happiness, yet who shows the world a cheerful, resolute exterior. That smothered cry was understood by Eva, and so deeply did it pierce her heart that she fain would fly away, if only to hear this cheerful-seeming song no longer. Now, in the Introduction to Act III, this motive is played alone by the 'cellos, and developed in the other strings till it dies away in resignation; but forthwith, and as from out the distance, the horns intone the solemn song wherewith Hans Sachs greeted Luther and the Reformation, which had won the poet such incomparable popularity. After the first strophe the strings again take single phrases of the cobbler's song, very softly and much slower, as though the man were turning his gaze from his handiwork heavenwards, and lost in tender musings. Then, with increased sonority, the horns pursue the master's hymn, with which Hans Sachs, at the end of the act, is greeted by the populace of Nuremberg. Next reappears the strings' first motive, with grandiose expression of the anguish of a deeply-stirred soul; calmed and allayed, it attains the utmost serenity of a blest and peaceful resignation."