| gia' nel 1845 | Primi pensieri sul >Gral< (Lohengrin) |
| April-May 1857 | RW writes a prose sketch (now lost) for Parsifal. |
| 27 June 1857 | RW breaks off work on Siegfried to concentrate on Tristan und Isolde. |
| October 1858 | RW's thoughts return to Parsifal and Die Sieger. He writes to Mathilde Wesendonk about compassion, the Buddha, art and redemption. Countess d'Agoult sends him a Chinese statue of the Buddha. |
| May 1859 | RW reads Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival in a new translation sent to him by Mathilde Wesendonk. He writes to tell her that Wolfram understood nothing of his subject. RW will have to invent everything, keeping the sublime 'purity' of Parsifal in the foreground. |
| August 1860 | RW completes Tristan. He writes to Mathilde Wesendonk about reincarnation and purity. He describes Lohengrin as a reincarnation of Parsifal who inherits his father's purity. In another letter RW tells her that, once he had realised that the seductress of the second act of Parsifal was the same Kundry we saw in the first act, everything had fallen into place. |
| 27-30 August 1865 | At King Ludwig's request RW writes the first prose draft of Parsifal. He considers alternative treatments of the spear, which had by now become a unifying element of the story. |
| 25 January to 23 February 1877 | RW writes the second prose draft. He makes only minor changes; the spear that stops in mid-air is added to the second act; |
| 14 March 1877 | RW changes the name of the hero from Parzival to Parsifal. |
| 29 March 1877 - Giovedi Santo | RW completes the poem of Act 1 |
| 19 April 1877 | RW completes the poem (libretto). |
| August 1877 | RW begins the Act 1 composition sketch. |
| August 1877 to 31 January 1878 | Composition of Act 1 orchestral sketch. |
| 29 January 1878 | Completion of the Act 1 composition sketch. |
| 30 September 1878 | Completion of Act 2 composition sketch. |
| 13 March to 11 October 1878 | Composition of Act 2 orchestral sketch. |
| 30 October 1878 to 16 April 1879 | Composition of Act 3 composition sketch. |
| 14 November 1878 | RW begins the Act 3 orchestral sketch. |
| 25 December 1878 (Cosima's birthday) | Performance of the Prelude to Act 1 by the Meiningen orchestra at Haus Wahnfried. |
| 26 April 1879 | Completion of the Act 3 orchestral sketch. "Aus!" |
| 4.1.-30.10. 1880 | RW in ITALIA (Napoli, Siena Venezia...) |
| 23 August 1879 to 25 April 1881 | Full orchestral scoring of Act 1. |
| 6 June to 20 October 1881 | Full orchestral scoring of Act 2. |
| 5 November 1881 to 13 January 1882 | Full orchestral scoring of Act 3. |
| 26 July 1882 | First performance, Bayreuth Festspielhaus. |
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