Chris Walton, Beethoven’s Ninth under Wagner in 1872: The Annotated Score of Adolf Wallnöfer

July 2026, Volume 20, Number 2, 64–8.

When Christian Thielemann begins the 150th anniversary edition of the Bayreuth Festival in July 2026 with a ‘Festakt’ in the Festspielhaus featuring Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, he will be upholding a Wagnerian tradition in Bayreuth that is older than the festival itself. Wagner conducted this symphony himself on 22 May 1872 to commemorate laying the foundation stone of his new theatre. The venue back then was the Margravial Opera House – a glorious Baroque edifice that had drawn Wagner’s attention to the sleepy little town of Bayreuth in the first place. That event was in several ways a kind of trial run for how Wagner imagined he might organise his festival, once he’d got the necessary infrastructure up and running.