34.The latest and most atrocious outrage on good taste in this respect is the labelling of Beethoven's great B flat sonata as "the Hammerklavier." All musicians of finer feeling should unite to kill this absurd name.
A musical composition is a vessel into which many wines can be poured. It cannot in itself express either any material object or any definite feeling which involves such an object. No music can alone, without a suggestion from elsewhere, express a person, a place, or love or fear or a battle or "a calm sea and prosperous voyage," or any similar thing. But it has a marvellous power of receiving suggestions which are offered to it, by words or otherwise, of carrying them on and, by means of its own forces of movement and proportion, intensifying their expression to, a degree inconceivable without its aid. Mathematics present an exact analogy to music, and are to science what music is to art. Both are ideal forms which in one sense only attain complete individuality when they are pure, but in another sense have no meaning until they are applied to some object of nature. A mathematical formula is only true so long as it remains an ideal in the mind; but its existence has no other purpose than to state a law for material phenomena, when it at once loses its essential qualities as a mathematical formula, certainty and accuracy. In this way we may understand simultaneously the supremacy of absolute music and the truth for which Wagner contends, that music can never be anything but expression.
Dr. Hanslick's dictum that music has no other means for its expression than movement and symbolism cannot be admitted. It can express through association. All the senses have in some degree the faculty of recalling in the mind impressions with which they have once been associated. Who has never had the memory of his home or of some place familiar to his childhood recalled by the scent of a flower or a plant? No sense possesses this power in anything like the same degree as that of hearing, especially when the connection has been established through a musical strain. It is on this principle that Wagner mainly relies in his dramatic musical motives. In itself the connection is in the first instance artificial. A musical strain of a striking individual character is brought into connection with some idea of the drama, it may be a person or a scene or an incident, in short, anything which may serve as a dramatic motive, and thenceforward whenever the musical strain is heard, the idea with which it has been associated will be called up in the mind of the hearer. All the resources of modern music are then at the disposal of the composer for exhibiting his motive in the most varied lights, intensifying, varying, contrasting, or combining with other motives, as the dramatic situation requires.
It often happens that the musical strain is heard before its association with an idea of the drama has been established, as, for example, in the instrumental prelude. The idea then seems to hover in the music as a vaguepresentiment(Ahnung) of something that is to come. A superb example of this occurs at the end ofDie Walküre. Wotan has laid his daughter to rest, and surrounded her with a barrier of fire. "Let none cross this fire who dreads my spear," he cries, and at once the threat is answered by a defiant blast from the trombones uttering a strain which has not yet taken definite form, but which we learn from the sequel is the theme proper to Siegfried the hero, who is destined to bring to an end the power of the god.
Or the motive may reappear after it has served its purpose on the stage; it is then areminiscenceof past events. No finer example of this could be found than in the music of Isolde's swan-song, the so-calledLiebestod, which is built up out of the motives of the life into a symphonic structure of almost unparalleled force and truth.
Before beginning the detailed consideration of our work, I wish to say a few words on some features of the music. As I am writing for the general reader and not for the musician, I shall endeavour to express myself in generally understood terms, and avoid technical details.
Each of Wagner's works presents a distinct and strongly defined musical physiognomy marking it off from all the others. The music of each is cast in its own mould and is at once recognizable from that of the rest. The most characteristic features of the music ofTristan und Isoldeare its concentratedintensityand the ineffablesweetnessof its melody. The number of musical-dramatic motives employed is very small, but they are insisted upon and emphasized by a musical working out unparalleled in the other works. InRheingold, for example, some twelve or fifteen motives--if we count only those of well-marked contours, and which are used in definite dramatic association--can be distinguished; whereas in the whole ofTristanthere are of suchLeitmotivein the narrowest sense not more than three or four. The treatment is also very different. TheRingis not entirely innocent of what has been wittily called the "visiting-card" employment of motives, while inTristanthe musical motive does not repeat, but rather supplements, the words, indicating what these have left untold, thus entering as truly into the substance of the drama as it does into that of the music.
The most important motive of all, the one which pervades the drama from beginning to end, is the love-motive. Its fundamental form is that in which it appears in the second bar of the Prelude in the oboe (No. 1).[35] Variants of it occur without the characteristic semitone suspension (1a) or with a falling seventh (1b). The cello motive of the opening phrase of the Prelude may also be considered as derived from the same by contrary movement (1c).
35.See the musical examples at the end.
Of equal importance, though occurring less frequently, and only at important and decisive moments, is the death-motive (2). This motive is less varied than the last, recurring generally in the same key--A flat passing into C minor--and with similar instrumentation, the brass and drums enteringppon the second chord.
The second act opens with a strongly marked phrase which is the musical counterpart of the great metaphor so conspicuous throughout the act, of the day as destructive of love. The working out of this motive whilst the lovers are together is a marvel of musical composition, and it always returns in the same connection.
Perhaps we may also include among these fundamental musical-dramatical motives one occurring in the middle of the second act at the words "Sehnen hin zur heilgen Nacht" (No. 4). It is akin to the death-motive proper, but the solemn harmonies are here torn asunder into a strain so discordant that without the dramatic context it would scarcely be bearable. It is the rending of the bond with this life and with the day. The music here reminds us that, however heroically the lovers accept their inevitable end, they feel that it means a rough and painful severance from that life which was once so dear and beautiful. Other motives are reminiscences more or less of a purely musical nature or connected only in a general way with scenes or incidents of the drama. They call back indistinctly scenes of bygone times, and will be spoken of as they occur in the work.
The best preliminary study for Wagner's use of motives is that of Beethoven's sonatas and symphonies.Macmillan's Magazinefor July, 1876, contains a valuable article by the late Mr. Dannreuther which will be useful as an introduction, and ought to be familiar to all who are interested in modern developments of music. Mr. Dannreuther there treats of the type of variation peculiar to Beethoven, which he compares to the metamorphosis of insects or of the organs of plants: "It is not so much the alteration of a given thought, a change of dress or of decoration, it is an actual creation of something new and distinct from out of a given germ." He then proceeds to trace the principle in some of Beethoven's later works, and shows how for example the great B flat sonata (Op. 106) is built upon a scheme of rising tenths and falling thirds; the A flat sonata (Op. 110) upon two simple melodies. Wagner's procedure is similar; he takes a musical motive which has already been used and brings forth out of it something totally new, scarcely resembling its parent in external features, and yet recognizable as the same.
The problem before Wagner was how to render this new acquisition available for the drama, and we shall best understand him if we look upon him as all his life seeking its solution, each work representing an experimental stage rather than a perfectly finished model. In the earlier part of theRinghe began with a purely conventional conjunction of a musical strain with a tangible and visible object--a ring, a giant, a goddess, etc. This is wrong method, and, although generally his instinctive sense of dramatic propriety kept him from going very far astray, the effects of his wrong procedure are occasionally visible. Why, for example, should a given melody in thirds on two bassoons denote a ring? and why should it bear a thematic kinship to another melody denoting Walhall? The association is purely conventional and serves no purpose, for the material object, a ring, is fully expressed in the word; there is nothing more to be said about it than that it is just a ring, and we do not want the bassoons to repeat or confirm what is quite intelligible without them. InTristanthis pitfall is mostly avoided, but it is inDie MeistersingerandParsifalthat we find the motives most skilfully employed.
A critical analysis of the harmonic structure of our work does not fall within the scope of this treatise. It will be found in text-books specially devoted to the subject. I can here only offer a few general remarks.
Modern harmonies are made theoretically much more difficult than they need be by our system of notation, which grew up in the Middle Ages. The old modes knew no modulation in our sense, and in the seventeenth century, when the tempered system came into vogue, making every kind of modulation possible, the old notation was retained. How unsuited it is for modern music appears from the drastic contradictions which it involves. It is quite a common thing to see the same note simultaneously written as F sharp in one part and as G flat in another. This is what makes modern harmony seem so much more difficult than it really is, for when the music comes to beheard, these formidable-looking intervals resolve themselves into something quite natural and generally not difficult of apprehension by a musical ear. Unfortunately we are compelled to learn music through the medium of a keyed instrument, generally through the most unmusical of instruments, the piano, and we learn theory largely through the eye and the reason instead of through the ear. The problems of harmony will seem much simpler if we remember that its basis is theinterval--music does not know "notes" as such, but only intervals--that the number of possible intervals is very small and their relations quite simple, and that everything which is not reducible to a very simple vulgar fraction is heard, not as a harmony, but as a passing note, an inflection of a note of a chord. In fact the advance made in chord combinations since the introduction of the tempered system is not very great. All, or nearly all, the chords used by Wagner are to be found in the works of Bach. The suggestion to explain Wagner's harmonies by assuming a "chromatic scale" rests upon a misapprehension of the nature of a scale. Every scale implies a tonality, i.e. a tonic note, to which all the other notes bear some definite numerical relation. There cannot be a chromatic scale in the scientific sense in music; what we call by that name in a keyed instrument is merely a diatonic scale with the intervals filled in; it always belongs to a definite key, and the accidentals are only passing notes. It is in passing notes that we must seek the key to Wagner's harmonies. With Wagner more than with any other composer since Bach the parts must be read horizontally as well as vertically. As long as we look upon harmonic progressions as vertical columns of chords following one upon the other we may indeed explain, but we shall never understand them. Each chord must be viewed as the result of the confluence of all the separate voices moving harmoniously together. This, too, will help us to grasp the character of "altered" chords, so lavishly employed by Wagner, and of "inflection," by which term I mean to denote all kinds of passing notes, appoggiaturas, suspensions, changing notes, and the like. All are phenomena of harmonic notes striving melodically onwards, either upwards or downwards.
Although little has been done in the invention of new combinations, the character of the harmonic structure has changed considerably since the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This is evident at first glance on comparing a score of Haydn or Mozart with one of Wagner or Liszt. There, although chromatic harmonies are not unfrequent, they occur only sporadically, the general structure being diatonic, whereas with the later masters the whole tissue is chromatic; the score fairly bristles with accidentals, and a simple major or minor triad is the exception. Very different too is the periodic structure. The phrases no longer fall naturally into eight-bar periods interpunctuated with cadences, but are determined by the text, and although the eight-bar scheme is generally maintained--much disguised, it is true, but still recognizable--it is determined not by half-closes at the sections, but by the eight beats of the two-line metre, while the periods follow each other in even flow without any indication of cadence. In other words the musical form is governed by the declamation.
Theory of harmony is one thing, living music quite another. The musical hearer of a work likeTristan und Isoldewill understand its harmonic structure, though he know nothing of the theoretical progression of the chords, provided the performance be good, i.e. correct, just as a man ignorant of grammar will understand a sentence which is clearly enunciated. The composer needs no theory of harmony; his ear is his only guide, as the eye of the artist is a sufficient guide for his colouring without any theory of colour. There is only one thing which the composer must keep before him and which the hearer must consciously be able to recognize--the Tonality. The problem of harmony therefore in practice reduces itself to that of modulation. To recognize the tonality quickly and certainly, look for the cadences. They are as it were landmarks, placed along the melodic road, indicating from time to time where we are.
I cannot dismiss the subject of harmony without mentioning the chord which from its employment at decisive moments and its extraordinary mystic expressiveness has been called the soul of theTristanmusic. Its direct form is
music
as it occurs in the beginning of the Prelude.
The instrumentation ofTristandoes not present any special features different from that of Wagner's other works. It is less heavily scored than theRing, and at the same time the instrumentation is more concentrated. Wagner usually employs his wind in groups of at least three in each colour--e.g. three flutes, two oboi and one English horn, two clarinets and a bass clarinet, etc.--and so is able to keep his colours pure. It is partly to this that the extraordinary purity of his tone in the tutti is due, partly also to the sonority imparted to the brass by means of the bass tuba, and still more to the consummate skill of the composer in the distribution of his parts.
There is an interesting note at the beginning of the score in which the composer seems to be trying to excuse himself for using valve instruments in the horns. While admitting the degradation of tone and loss of the power of soft binding resulting from the use of valves, he thinks that the innovation (which I need scarcely observe is not his) is justified by the advantage gained in greater freedom of movement. In such matters one must be allowed to form one's own judgment, and though it may seem like trying to teach a fish to swim, a humble amateur may be permitted to wish that Wagner had here resisted the tide of progress. It is not only that the tone and power of binding are injured, but the whole character of horns and trumpets is altered when they are expected to sing chromatic passages like the violin and the clarinet. As the point is of some interest, I should like to bring it before the reader with some examples. The essential character of the horns is nowhere more truly conveyed than in the soft passage near the beginning of the overture toDer Freischütz, and it is the contrast between the two nature scales on the C horn and the F horn which gives the character to this lovely idyll. The trumpets are capable of even less variety of expression than the horns, as their individuality is even more strongly marked. How entirely that character is conditioned by the mechanism of the instrument may be illustrated by an example. The third movement of Beethoven's seventh symphony contains an interludemolto meno mosso. The choral theme is accompanied by a continuous A, sustained in octave in the violins, which in the intervals between the verses descends to G sharp and returns
music
The repeat at the end entersff.after a strong crescendo, and at this point the sustained A is taken over from the violins by the trumpets and given forth with piercing distinctness above the tutti of the orchestra, the effect being one of extraordinary brilliancy. Now comes the point with which we are concerned. In the intervals the trumpet cannot descend to G sharp, because it has not got the note in its natural scale, and is therefore obliged to repeat
music
Indisputably the composer would have written G sharp had the trumpet been able to play it; it was only the defective scale of the instrument which led him to write A, but the effect of hearing A when we expect G sharp is electrifying; the unbending rigidity of the trumpet is here expressed with a vividness and force which nothing else could have given.
Many more examples might be brought from the works of the great composers to show how the horns and trumpets have lost in expressive power by having adopted the chromatic scale of other instruments. Wagner's use of the brass generally is most skilful; he is especially happy in avoiding the blatancy and coarseness which soils the scores of some composers. Neither trumpets nor drums are much used continuously in the score ofTristan. The former are often employed in the lower part of their scale and only for particular effects. Trombones generally utter single chords, or slow successions of chords, adding solemnity to the sound, and crowning a climax. A favourite instrument with Wagner is the harp, and he uses it freely inTristan. The effect is, as it were, to place the orchestra upon springs, adding lightness and elasticity to the tone, as may be noticed in the accompaniment to the duet at the end of the first act.
We often hear Wagner's melody described as if it were not melody in the ordinary meaning of the word, but a kind of "recitative" or "declamation." The great French singer, Madame Viardot Garcia, was asked on one occasion in a private circle to sing the part of Isolde. She took the score and sang ita prima vistato Klindworth's accompaniment. On being told that in Germany singers could not be found to undertake the part, alleging that it was too difficult and unmelodious, she naïvely asked whether German singers were not musical! Assuredly any person to whom Wagner's music, especially that ofTristan, appears unmelodious is unmusical, or at least defective in the sense for melody. Wagner's music is easy to sing; much easier, for example, than that of Mozart. This, however, is only true for singers who are highly musical. The great majority have not had any real musical education, and it is to these that the common notion that Wagner's music is unsingable, that it ruins the voice, is due. The notion that recitative and melody are things opposed to one another is itself a misunderstanding. The characteristic mark of recitative in the narrow sense is that it is not bound by rhythmic forms, and therefore has a somewhat dry, matter-of-fact character, which would become tedious if it continued unrelieved--as life would be dull without any sweets. Wagner says: "My melody is declamation, and my declamation melody." There is no line of demarcation; they are as inseparably united as emotion and intellect. But although the stream of emotion in human life is continuous, it is not continually at the same tension. Moments of high exaltation alternate with more subdued intervals, and a very large part of the mechanical routine of life is emotionally almost quiescent. In the drama the emotional element alternates with the narrative, and according as the one or the other predominates, the weight of the expression is in the music or the words; each therefore rises and falls in alternation. Even in Shakespeare's spoken drama traces of this ebb and flow may be noticed, the language becoming more musical under the stress of higher emotion. In the opera the intervals between the lyricarias, etc., had to be filled in with dry explanation or narrative, and there arose therecitative secco, a rapid recitation in which the melody is reduced to a mere shadow. The German language was unfitted for dry recitative of this type, and these filling-in parts had therefore to be spoken--a device which proved intolerable, since it destroyed the illusion of the music. Wagner, as we saw, got over the difficulty by choosing a form of drama in which the emotional element was supreme, and the narrative filling in reduced to a minimum. We further saw how inTristan und Isoldethe principle is driven to such an exaggerated extreme as sometimes to render the action almost unintelligible. Nowhere is the music unmelodious or uninteresting, but it is elastic and pliable and changes its character with the emotional intensity of the dramatic situation, being more subdued in parts of the first act, asserting itself whenever rage, irony, tenderness, or other emotion call for expression; omnipotent in the great love-duet, culminating in the nocturne, and once more soaring in highest ecstasy in Isolde's dissolution, with endless gradations in the portions between. Hearers who are not accustomed to the dramatic expression of music attend only to those moments of intense lyric expression, just as in the opera they attend only to thearias; all else appears to them uninteresting and unmelodious. This is to miss the essential thing in Wagner's works--the drama itself; but it is precisely what is done by those hearers who are incapable of the effort of following attentively the dramatic development.
It remains for us now to examine the work itself, scene by scene, that we may see how the principles of art which we have been considering in the preceding chapters are illustrated. The following notes are written with a practical end; they are intended to assist those who are unacquainted with the work and are about to hear it for the first time to follow the composer's intentions. They do not profess to give a full commentary or explanation, but only to start the reader on the right path that he may find the way for himself. Those who read German should begin by thoroughly mastering the text. Tristan is not like a modern problem play to be understood at once from the stage, without any effort. There are many, I regret to say, who spare themselves even this trouble, but it is indispensable, for even if singers always enunciated their words more distinctly than they do, it would be quite impossible to follow the difficult text on first hearing. Beyond this, however, very little preparation is necessary; especially the study of lists ofLeitmotiveshould be avoided, since they give a totally wrong conception of the music. We cannot study an edifice by looking at the bricks of which it is built. Lectures with musical illustrations, provided they are really well done, by a competent pianist, are valuable, and it is also of use to study selected scenes at the piano with text and music, the scene on the stage being always kept before the mind, and the voice part being sung as far as possible. For those who are quick of musical apprehension such studies are not necessary, but the careful reading of the text is indispensable for all. In all studies at the piano the arrangement of Hans von Bülow should be used, even by those who are unable to master all its difficulties, since the simplified arrangements are very imperfect. As a help to those who study the text at home, I have recounted the general course of the action and dialogue just in sufficient outline to enable the reader to follow what is going on, adding here and there a literal translation, where it seemed desirable, especially where the meaning of the original is difficult to grasp.
Some introductory matter must first be told. Marke, King of Cornwall, has lately been involved in a war with the King of Ireland, whose general, Morold, has invaded the country to compel tribute. Tristan, King Marke's nephew, has defeated the army and killed Morold, but himself been wounded in the fight. His wound refusing to heal, he has sought the advice of the renowned Irish princess and medicine-woman, Isolde. She had been the betrothed bride of Morold, and in his head, sent back to Ireland in derision, as "tribute," by the conqueror, she has found a splinter from the sword which slew him, and has kept it. While Tristan is lying sick under her care she notices a gap in his sword, into which the splinter fits, and she knows that he is the slayer of her lover. She approaches him with sword upraised to slay him; he looks up at her; their eyes meet; she lets the sword fall, and bids him begone and trouble her no more. Tristan returns to Cornwall cured. His uncle is childless, and wishes to leave the kingdom to Tristan when he dies. But there are cabals in the state; a party has been formed, under Tristan's friend Melot, to induce King Marke to marry and beget a direct heir to the throne. Tristan joins them, and with great difficulty persuades his uncle to despatch him to Ireland to bring the Princess Isolde to be Markers wife. The curtain rises when they are on board the ship on the voyage to Cornwall, just approaching the land.
The Prelude is a condensed picture of the entire drama. As an instrumental piece it is unable to render the definite actions, but it can give with great distinctness a tone or an atmosphere out of which these acts will shape themselves in the sequel, a presentiment of what is to be. The subject of our work is Love trying to raise itself out of the contamination of human life into a higher and purer sphere, but failing so long as it is clogged with the conditions of bodily existence. The text of the Prelude may be taken from the words of Tristan in the third act:
Sehnen! Sehnen!Im Sterben mich zu sehnen,Vor Sehnsucht nicht zu sterben.
This theme is enunciated with almost realistic eloquence in the very first phrase, in the two contrasting strains, the love-motive striving upwards in the oboe, and its variant fading downwards in the 'cello. The union of the two produces a harmony of extraordinary expressiveness, which I have already referred to in the last chapter as the "soul of theTristanmusic." Every hearer must be struck with its mysterious beauty, and it has been the subject of many theoretical discussions. It is best understood as the chord on the second degree of the scale of A minor, with inflections:
music
G sharp being a suspension or appoggiatura resolved upwards on to A while the D sharp (more properly E flat) is explained by the melody of the violoncelli, which, instead of moving at once to D, pass through a step of a semitone. There is, however, one thing to be noticed in this melody. The dissonant D sharp (or E flat) is not resolved in its own instrument, the violoncelli, but is taken up by the English horn, and by it resolved in the next bar. This instrument therefore has a distinct melody of its own, consisting only of two notes, but still heard as a kind of sigh, and quite different from the merely filling-in part of the clarinets and bassoons. There are really three melodies combined:
music
It will not be necessary for us to anatomize any more chords in this way. I did so in this case in order to show the intimate connection between the harmony and the melody, and how the explanation of the harmonies must be sought through the melodies by which they are brought about.
The entire Prelude is made up of various forms of the love-motive. The key is A minor, to which it pretty closely adheres, the transient modulations into a'+, c'+, etc., only serving to enforce the feeling of tonality. The reason for this close adherence to one key is not far to seek. Wagner never modulates without a reason; the Prelude presents one simple feeling, and there is no cause for or possibility of modulation.[36] At the 78th bar the music begins to modulate, and seems tending to the distant key of E flat minor, the love-motive is taken upforteandpiù forteby the trumpets, but in bar 84 the modulation abruptly comes to an end, the soaring violins fall to the earth, and the piece ends as it began, with a reminiscence of the first part in A minor. An expressive recitative of the violoncelli and basses then leads to C minor, the key of the first scene.
36.See the remarks on modulation at the end of his essayUeber die Anwendung der Musik auf das Drama, Ges. Schr.x. pp. 248 seq., where he gives the advice to young students of composition: "Never leave a key so long as you can say what you have to say in it."
ACT I., SCENE I.--The scene opens in a pavilion on the deck of the ship. Isolde is reclining on a couch, her face buried in the pillows. Brangäne's listless attitude as she gazes across the water, the young sailor's ditty to his Irish girl as he keeps watch on the mast, reflect the calmness of the sea as the ship glides before the westerly breeze, and contrast with the tempest raging in Isolde's breast. Suddenly she starts up in alarm, but Brangäne tries to soothe her, and tells her, to the soft undulating accompaniment of two bassoons in thirds, how she already sees the loom of the land, and that they will reach it by the evening. At present Brangäne has no suspicion of anything disturbing her mistress, whose feelings are indicated by an agitated passage in the strings (No. 6). She starts from her reverie. "What land?" she asks. "Cornwall? Never." Then follows a terrific outburst:
Is. Degenerate race, unworthy of your fathers!Whither, oh mother, hast thou bestowed the mightover the sea and the storm? Oh, tame art of thesorceress, brewing balsam-drinks only! Awake oncemore, bold power! arise from the bosom in which thouhast hidden thyself! Hear my will, ye doubtingwinds: Hither to battle and din of the tempest, tothe raging whirl of the roaring storm! Drive thesleep from this dreaming sea; awake angry greedfrom its depths; show it the prey which I offer; letit shatter this haughty ship, gorge itself upon theshivered fragments! What lives thereon, the breathinglife, I give to you winds as your guerdon.
Both the words and the music of this wonderful invocation are worthy of attention. Especially the words of the original German with their drastic alliteration may be commended to those who still doubt Wagner's powers as a poet. The music is mostly taken from the sailor's song (No. 5), but quite changed in character; the rapid staccato movement with the strongly marked figure of the bass have transformed the peaceful ditty into a dance of furies. The entry of the trombones at the wordsHeran zu Kampfeis characteristic of Wagner's employment of the brass throughout the work. Their slow swelling chords add volume and solemnity to the orchestral tone. They continue for a few bars only, and the voice distantly hints at the love-motive (zu tobender Stürme wüthendem Wirbel), but for a moment only; it goes no further.
The terrified Brangäne tries to calm her, and at the same time to learn what is the cause of her anger. She recalls Isolde's strange and cold behaviour on parting from her parents in Ireland, and on the voyage; why is she thus? A peculiar imploring tenderness is imparted to her appeal at the end by the falling sevenths, an interval which we have already met with in the Prelude and which is characteristic of this act.
Her efforts are vain; Isolde starts up hastily crying "Air! air! throw open the curtains!"
SCENE II.--The curtain thrown back discloses the deck of the ship with the crew grouped around Tristan, who is steering,[37] his man Kurwenal reclining near him. The refrain of the sailors' song is again heard. Isolde's eyes are fixed upon Tristan as she begins to the strain of the love-motive accompanied by muted strings:
Chosen for me!--lost to me!. . . . .Death-devoted head! Death-devoted heart!
enunciating with these words the death-motive (No. 2).
37.A curious mistake in the stage-management may be noticed. The scene is obviously laid in the forecastle; one glance at the stage is enough to show this, and the sails are set that way. Nor can it be altered, for it would never do to have them looking among the audience for the land ahead. So that Tristan's ship has her rudder in the bow! Rarely is Wagner at fault in trifles of this kind; in all other respects the deck-scene is admirably truthful. The sailors hauling, the song in the rigging, the obvious time of day--in the "dogwatches"--are little touches of realism which will be appreciated by all who know board-ship life.
She turns to Brangäne, and with a look of the utmost scorn, indicating Tristan, she asks:
What thinkst thou of the slave? ... Him there who shirks my gaze, and looks on the ground in shame and fear?
Isolde here strikes the tone which she maintains throughout the act until all is changed by the philtre. Never has such blighting sarcasm before been represented in the drama as that which Isolde pours out upon Tristan. She is by far the stronger character of the two. Her rage is volcanic, and uses here its most effective weapon. Tristan writhes under her taunts, but cannot escape. The music unites inseparably with the words; even the rime adds its point as in mockery she continues Brangäne's praise of the hero:
Br. Dost thou ask of Tristan, beloved lady? thewonder of all lands, the much-belauded man, the herowithout rival, the guard and ban of glory?
Is.(interrupting and repeating the phrase in mockery).Who shrinking from the battle takes refuge where hecan, because he has gained a corpse as bride for his master!
She commands Brangäne to go to Tristan and deliver a message; she is to remind him that he has not yet attended upon her as his duty requires.
Br. Shall I request him to wait upon you?
Is.[Tell him that] I, Isolde,command[my] presumptuous[servant] fear for hismistress.
While Brangäne is making her way through the sailors to where Tristan is standing at the helm, an interlude made of the sailors' song phrase is played on four horns and two bassoons over a pedal bass, the strings coming in in strongly marked rhythm on the last beat of each bar, marking the hauling of the ropes to clear the anchor. Tristan is in a reverie, scarcely conscious of what is going on around him; the love-motive once in the oboe shows how his thoughts are occupied. He starts at the word Isolde, but collects himself, and tries to conceal his evident distress under a manner of supercilious indifference. Brangäne becomes more urgent; he pleads his inability to come now because he cannot leave the helm. Then Brangäne delivers Isolde's message in the same peremptory words in which she has received it.
Kurwenal suddenly starts up and, with or without permission, sendshisanswer to Isolde. Tristan, he says, is no servant of hers, for he is giving her the crown of Cornwall and the heritage of England. "Let her mark that, though it anger a thousand Mistress Isoldes." Brangäne hurriedly withdraws to the pavilion; he sings an insulting song after her in derision of Morold and his expedition for tribute:
"His head now hangs in Ireland,As tribute sent from England!"
As she closes the curtains the sailors are heard outside singing the refrain of his song, which is a masterpiece of popular music. One can imagine it to be the national song of the Cornish-men after the expedition. With regard to its very remarkable instrumentation, I cannot do better than quote the remarks of that admirable musician, Heinrich Porges: "The augmented chord at the wordsauf ödem Meere, the humorous middle part of the horns, the unison of the trombones which, with the sharp entry of the violas, effect the modulation from B flat to D major, impart the most living colour to each moment."
SCENE III.--(The interior of the pavilion, the curtains closed.) Isolde has heard the interview, and makes Brangäne repeat everything as it happened. Inexpressibly pathetic is the turn which she gives to the words of the song as she repeats the phrase of Brangäne:
Is. (bitterly). "How should he safely steer the shipto King Marke's land...." (with sudden emphasis,quickly) to hand him thetributewhich he brings fromIreland!
--the last sentence being to the refrain of the song.
Upward scale passages of the violins are suggestive of a sudden impulse, and there now begins (K.A. 25'1) a movement of great musical interest in which Isolde tells Brangäne of Tristan's previous visit to her as "Tantris," recounting how she discovered him by the splinter of the sword, the words: "Er sah mir in die Augen," bringing the characteristic form of the love-motive with the falling seventh (1b). Brangäne cries out in astonishment at her own blindness. Isolde continues to relate "how a hero keeps his oaths":Tantrisreturned asTristanto carry her off "for Cornwall's weary king" (K.A. 29'5):
Is. When Morold lived, who would have dared tooffer us such an insult?... Woe, woe to me! UnwittingI brought all this shame on myself. Instead ofwielding the avenging sword, helpless I let it fall, andnow I serve my vassal!
Again rage overcomes her at the thought of Tristan's treachery. Her inflamed imagination conjures up his report of her to King Marke:
Is. "That were a prize indeed, my lord and uncle!how seems she to thee as a bride? The dainty Irishmaid I'll bring. I know the ways and paths. Onesign from thee to Ireland I'll fly; Isolde, she is yours!The adventure delights me!" Curse on the infamousvillain! Curse on thy head! Vengeance! Death!Death to us both!
She subsides exhausted amidst a stormy tutti of the orchestra with the trombonesff.
Br. (with impetuous tenderness). Oh, sweet, dear,beloved, gracious, golden mistress! darling Isolde!hear me! come, rest thee here (she gently draws her tothe couch).
The music presents no special difficulties in this scene. It is so complete in itself that, as has been truly remarked, it might well be performed as an instrumental piece without the voice. It would be impossible to follow here the endless subtleties of the working out, nor is it necessary, since they will reveal themselves to every musical hearer who is familiar with the methods of Beethoven. The whole movement is in E minor, and is built on a motive which has grown out of the love-motive by contrary movement, with a characteristic triplet accompaniment. Throughout it follows the expression of the words closely, using the previous motives, and is a model of Wagner's musical style in the more lyric portions. Wagner has remarked in one of his essays how Beethoven will sometimes break up his motives and, taking one fragment, often consisting of not more than two notes, develop it into something entirely new. The following scene is built on motives developed out of the last two notes of the love-motive, either with or without the falling seventh:
music
It must here be noted how entirely Brangäne misunderstands the situation. Wagner has intentionally represented her as a complete contrast to Isolde, as one of those soft, pliable natures who are capable of the most tender self-sacrificing devotion, but are utterly wanting in judgment. Woman-like, she thinks that it is only a passing storm which she can lull with caressing words. Her scarcely veiled suggestion that, though Isolde may marry King Marke, she need not cease to love Tristan, shows the enormous gulf which separates her from her terrible mistress. She suggests administering the philtre which her mother has prepared for Marke to Tristan. The music, in which, so long as Brangäne is speaking, gaiety and tenderness are mingled, is permeated with the love-motive. Isolde thinks of her mother's spells with very different feelings; the music becomes more gloomy, and with the words, "Vengeance for treachery--rest for my heart in its need," the death-motive, with its solemn trombone-chords, betrays the thought in her mind. She orders Brangäne to bring the casket. Brangäne obeys, and innocently recounts all the wonderful remedies which it contains:
Br. For woe and wounds is balsam; for evil poisonsantidotes. The best of all I hold it here (holding upthe love-potion).Is. Thou errst. I know it better (seizing the blackbottle containing the death-drink and holding it aloft).Thisis the drink I need!
A motive already heard in the Prelude (bar 29, bassoons and bass clarinet) now becomes very prominent in the brass:
music
The falling seventh here carries an air of profound gloom appropriate to the deadly purpose of Isolde.
At this moment a diversion occurs outside. The ship is nearing the port, and the crew are heard taking in the sails preparatory to anchoring. Kurwenal enters abruptly.
SCENE IV.--I have already remarked how happily Wagner has contrived to hit off the character of the board-ship life. Here it is the clatter and bustle of coming into port that is represented; people hurrying about the deck, the young sailors' motive joyously ringing from the violins and wood, sailors hauling, and the colours fluttering in the breeze (semiquaver motives in clarinets and bassoons), all are preparing for the shore. Kurwenal enters and roughly orders the "women" to get themselves ready to land. Isolde is to prepare herself at once to appear before King Marke escorted by Tristan. Isolde, startled at first by Kurwenal's insolence, collects herself and replies with dignity:
Take my greetings to Sir Tristan and deliver him my message. If I am to go at his side to stand before King Marke, I cannot do so with propriety unless I first receive expiation for guilt yet unatoned. Therefore, let him seek my grace. (On Kurwenal making an impatient gesture, she continues with more emphasis.) Mark me well and deliver it rightly: I will not prepare to land with him; I will not walk at his side to stand before King Marke unless he first ask of me in due form to forgive and forget his yet unatoned guilt. This grace I offer him.
Kurwenal, completely subdued, promises to deliver her message and retires.
The orchestral accompaniment during Isolde's speech has a very solemn character imparted to it by slow chords of the trombones,piano, with somewhat feverish semiquaver triplets on the strings, snatches of the love-motive and other motives being heard in the wood-wind; while in the pauses, runs on the violins mark Kurwenal's impatience. The death-motive will be noted at the words "für ungesühnte Schuld."
SCENE V.--This is a scene of great pathos. Like Elektra[38] when she recognizes Orestes, so Isolde, when left alone with the only friend who is true to her, throws aside all her haughty manner, forgets her wild thirst for revenge, and for a moment gives way to all the tenderness which is hidden under that fierce exterior. Death is just before her; she throws herself into Brangäne's arms, and delivers her last messages to the world. The unhappy girl, still quite in the dark as to her mistress's intentions, only vaguely feeling the presage of some impending calamity, is told to bring the casket and take out the death-potion, Isolde significantly repeating the words in the previous scene. Brangäne, almost out of her senses, obeys instinctively, and in the midst of her entreaties Kurwenal throws back the curtain and announces Sir Tristan.
38.Soph.,Elektra, 1205 seq.
SCENE VI.--My purpose in these notes is to explain what may at first seem difficult; it is no part of my plan to expound the obvious. The following scene, where for the first time the two principal personages stand face to face, though the most important that we have met with so far, is perfectly clear, both in the music and the words. No one could mistake the force of the blasts of the wind instruments with which it opens (No. 8). The device of repeating a motive in rising thirds was adopted by Wagner from Liszt, and is very common inTristan. We first met with it in the opening bars of the Prelude, where the love-motive is so repeated.
The first part of the scene is a trial of wits between Isolde and Tristan, in which the latter is helpless as a bird in the claws of a cat. The dialogue as such is a masterpiece, unrivalled in the works of any dramatic poet except Shakespeare. At last, crushed by her taunts, Tristan hands her his sword, asking her to pierce him through, only to be answered with scorn still more scathing than before. "No," she says. "What would King Marke say were I to slayhis best servant?" There is not a trace of love in the scene; nothing but anger and contempt. In other parts of the act there are indications of smouldering fire which threatens to break out upon occasion, but there is nothing of the kind when they are together. If once, when he lay helpless and in her power, she was touched with pity for so noble a hero, that has long ago been overcome, or only remains as a distant memory of something long past and gone. It has been truly observed that Tristan and Isolde are not like Romeo and Juliet, two children scarcely conscious of what they are doing. Both are in the full maturity of life and in the vigour of their intellectual powers.
In keeping with the dialectic, argumentative character of the dialogue, the music is generally dry and formal, but broken through occasionally with rending cries of agony, and interpolated with moments of tender emotional beauty. The orchestra generally gives the tone to the situation, only occasionally departing from that rôle to enter at critical moments to support and enforce specific words or actions. The leading motive throughout is the one which I have quoted: "vengeance for Morold."
After some preliminarypersiflage, in which she laughs to scorn the excuse which he offers for having kept away from her from a sense of propriety, she at once comes to the point:
Is. There is blood-feud between us!
Tr. That was expiated.
Is. Not between us!
Tr. In open field before all the host a solemn peacewas sworn.
Is. Not there it was that I concealed Tantris, thatTristan fell before me. There he stood noble andstrong; but I swore not what he swore; I hadlearned to be silent. When he lay sick in the silentroom speechless I stood before him with the sword.My lips were silent, my hand I restrained, but the vowpassed by my hand and my lips, I silently swore tokeep. Now I will perform my oath.
Tr. What didst thou vow, oh woman?
Is. Vengeance for Morold.
Tr. Is that what is troubling you?
Once, and once only, does the victim turn to retort upon her with her own weapon of irony. The attempt is disastrous. At once changing her tone she assumes the air of an injured woman. Tristan has taken her lover from her, and does he now dare to mock her? As her thoughts wander back to past days of happiness she continues in strains of surpassing tenderness, mingled with hints of warlike music in the trumpets:
Is. Betrothed he was to me, the proud Irish hero;his arms I had hallowed; for me he went to battle.When he fell, my honour fell. In the heaviness of myheart I swore that if no man would avenge the murder,I, a maiden, would take it upon me. Sick and wearyin my power, why did I not then smite thee?
She states the reason why she did not slay him when he was in her power in language so strange that I can only give a literal translation:
I nursed the wounded man that, when restoredto health, the man who won him from Isolde shouldsmite him in vengeance.
Such is the German; what it means I must confess myself unable to explain, and can only suspect some corruption in the text.
There is a solemn pause in the music; the love-motive is uttered by the bass clarinet. Nothing is left for the vanquished and humbled hero but to offer her what atonement he can. He hands her his sword, bidding her this time wield it surely and not let it fall from her hand. But she has not yet finished with him:
Is. How badly I should serve thy lord! Whatwould King Marke say if I were to slay his bestservant who has preserved for him crown and realm?... Keep thy sword! I swung it once when vengeancewas rife in my bosom, while thy measuringglance was stealing my image to know whether Ishould be a fit bride for King Marke. I let the swordfall. Now let us drink atonement.
The motive of the drink of death is here heard in trombones and tuba. It recurs constantly in the following portion.
She then signs to Brangäne to bring the drink. The noise of the sailors furling the sails outside becomes louder.
Tr. (starting from a reverie). Where are we?
Is. CLOSE TO THE PORT! (death-motive). Tristan,shall I have atonement? What hast thou to answer?
Tr. (darkly). The mistress of silence commands mesilence. I grasp what she conceals, and am silentupon what she cannot grasp.
Another dark saying, of which, however, we fortunately have the explanation from Wagner himself. "What she conceals" is her love for Tristan; "what she cannot grasp" is that his honour forbids him from declaring his love for her.[39]
39.Glasenapp's Biography, v. 241 (footnote).
Even now, on the brink of dissolution, while actually holding the cup which is to launch them both into eternity, Isolde cannot bridle her sarcasm:
Is. We have reached the goal; soon we shallstand ... (with light scorn) before King Marke! (death-motive).
With dreadful irony she repeats the words with which she supposes Tristan will introduce her:
"My lord and uncle! look now at her! A softerwife thou ne'er could'st find. I slew her lover and senther his head; my wound the kindly maid has healed.My life was in her power, but the gentle maiden gaveit to me; her country's shame and dishonour--thatshe gave as well; all that she might become thywedded bride. Such thanks for kindly deeds I earnedby a sweet draught of atonement offered to me byher favour in expiation of my guilt."
Sailors(outside). Stand by the cable! Let go theanchor!
Tr. (starting wildly). Let go the anchor! Veer herround to the tide! (he tears the cup from Isolde's hand).Well know I Ireland's queen, and the wondrous mightof her arts. I took the balsam she once gave to me;now I take the cup that quite I may recover. Markwell the oath of peace in which I say my thanks:
To Tristan's honour--highest faith!To Tristan's woe--bold defiance![40]
Delusion of the heart; dream of presage; solecomfort of eternal sorrow; kind drink of forgetfulnessI drink thee without flinching (he puts thecup to his lips and drinks).
Is. (tearing the cup from him). Treachery again.Half is mine! Traitor, I drink to thee! (she drinksand dashes the cup to the earth).
40."Ehre" and "Elend" are dative.
Instead of falling dead, the lovers stand transfixed gazing at each other. Brangäne has changed the drinks, and they have drunk the draught of love for that of death. Wagner sometimes expects his artists to possess powers beyond those which are allotted to man. The actors have here to express by gesture the change of feeling which gradually comes over them. They start, tremble, the love-motive steals into and at last dominates the orchestra, and they fly into one another's arms.
The increasing commotion outside and the cheers of the men indicate that King Marke has put out from the shore and is nearing the ship. An aside of Brangäne at this moment is not without significance. She has been sitting apart in suspense and confusion; now, as she begins to realize the consequences of what she has done, she gives way to despair. How much better would a short death have been than the prospect of the life that is now before them! The fact of her courage giving way so soon shows that she was only acting under a momentary impulse.
Little more need be said of the rest of the scene. The lovers raise their voices in a jubilant duet. Almost unconscious of their surroundings they are dragged apart. The royal garments are hastily laid over them, and the curtain falls to the joyful shouts of the people as King Marke steps on board.
Tu sentiras alors que toi-même tu environnes tout ce quetu connais des choses qui existent, et que les existantes que tuconnais existent en quelque sorte dans toi-même.--Avicebron(MUNK).
ACT II.--If the essence of the drama lies in contrast and surprises, thenTristan und Isoldemay be called the most dramatic of Wagner's works. In the first act we had the picture of a woman of volcanic temperament goaded to fury by cruelty and insult; in the second we have the same woman gentle, light-hearted, caressing, with nothing left of her past self except the irresistible force of her will. Isolde is not restrained by any scruples about honour, nor need she have any; in full possession of the man she loves, she can abandon herself to the moment. The music almost shows the flush upon her cheek, and she seems twenty years younger. She is quite conscious of the inevitable end, and quite prepared to meet it, but that is as nothing in the fulness of the present moment. Her words and her actions are characterized by a playful recklessness, anabandonwhich finds admirable expression in a characteristic motive (No. 9). Thematically related to this is another motive which we shall meet with very frequently in the sequel (No. 10). It is not directly connected with any definite dramatic event except generally with the first scene. The halting fourth quaver in each half-bar imparts a nervous restless character which at the meeting of the lovers becomes a delirium of joy.
The events of the second act seem to take place on the evening of the day after the landing, or at least very soon after--exact chronology is not necessary. The lovers have arranged a meeting in the palace garden in front of Isolde's quarters after the night has set in. A burning torch is fixed to the door; its lowering is to be the signal to Tristan to approach. King Marke and the court are out on a hunt, and the signal cannot be given until they are out of the way.
The Prelude opens with an emphatic announcement of the principal motive of the act (the "daylight"--No. 3) in the full orchestra without brass. A cantabile strain in the bass wood-wind continued in the violoncelli with a broken triplet accompaniment in the strings seems to tell of the expected meeting. The new motive (No. 9) is heard in its proper instrument, the flute, but gives way to No. 10, which is worked in conjunction with the love-motive, settling again in B flat as the curtain rises. It is a clear summer night; the horns of the hunting-party grow fainter in the distance. Brangäne, with anxiety in her expression, is listening attentively and waiting for them to cease when Isolde enters.
A word must be said about the music of the hunting motive. The key is, as has already been said, B flat major. In the bass a pedal F is sustained by two deep horns or by the violoncelli, while six horns (or more) on the stage play a fanfare on the chord of C minor alternating with that of F major. A very peculiar colouring is imparted to the first chord, partly by the very dissonant G (afterwards G flat), partly by the minor third of the chord. This is a completely new effect obtained from the valve horn, fanfares on horns and trumpets having before always been in the major, since the natural scale contains no minor chord. Brangäne and Isolde listen intently: Isolde thinks the horns are gone, and what they hear is only the murmuring of the stream and the rustling of the leaves. The fanfare is taken up by wood-wind (K.A. 85'2(1)), and at last melts into a new sound, with clarinets in 6-8 time against muted violins and violas in 8-8, beautifully suggestive of the rustling of leaves. Then the horns are heard no more. Brangäne, who has been on the alert, suspects a trap behind this hunting-party, which has been arranged by Tristan's friend Melot, but she doubts his good faith. Isolde gaily laughs at her cares; her heart is bursting and she recks of nothing but the approach of Tristan. The music is almost entirely made up of her joyful motive, and there begins a first indication of that wonderful lyric outpouring which continues until it culminates in the Nocturne, and which has placed the second act ofTristanon an eminence of its own, apart and unapproached. She throws open the flood-gates of her heart as in words recalling Lucretius:
Te, dea, te fugiunt venti, te nubila caeliAdventumque tuum, tibi suavis daedala tellusSummittit floras, tibi rident sequora ponti.
She tells of the all-ruling, all-subduing might of "Frau Minne." The ode is full of lyric inspiration, and is generally recalled in the sequel by the motive No. 11, which consists of two parts, the melody in the first and second violins, and that in the bass--strictly a horn passage, but here in the lower strings. The accompaniment of the ode is throughout in keeping with the rhapsodical character of the words and melody: note the long, persistent A of the first and second violins in octaves at the words "des kühnsten Muthes Königin, des Weltenwerdens Waltering," followed by their joyous upward flight; the broken chords of the harp; the swelling upward semitones of flute, oboe, and clarinet bringing forth the germ of No. 11b.; the trombone chords at the words "Leben und Tod sind unterthan ihr"; the arpeggio accompaniment of the violas, and the wonderfully poetic climax at the end, "des Todes Werk ... Frau Minne hat es meiner Macht entwandt." Brangäne's entreaties are vain; again she cannot feel what Isolde feels--notice the difference between her melody and the soaring freedom of Isolde's. A little later (K.A. 99'4 seq.) Isolde's immovable resolution is admirably expressed by her persistence on one note. At last she seizes the torch and hurls it to the ground to a terrific downward rush of the strings and the yell of the death-motive in the trumpets, the entire orchestra with drums being heard together for the first time.
SCENE II.--Isolde signals to her lover with her white scarf to music redolent of Weber'sOberon, and of the transition to the final movement of Beethoven's sonataLes Adieux. From the moment when he enters, neither words nor music come to full articulation; all is swept away in the whirlwind of the dominant rhythm
music
a variant of the motive No. 10, in still more rapid tempo. For a great part of the time the entire orchestra is occupied, and until far into the scene the voices are quite unable to pierce the volume of sound from the orchestra.[41]
41.I convinced myself in 1906 that this is not the case in Bayreuth theatre, the acoustic qualities of which are unique.
We take up the scene again when the storm has in some measure subsided at the words "wie lange fern, wie fern so lang" on p. 109 of the piano score. To make anything like a detailed analysis of the elaborate working out of the daylight motive with other subsidiary motives which now follows would be impossible here, and would only be of use to the student of composition. The music wanders through many keys, but C major is generally discernible as the centre round which the tonality oscillates. The words demand closer attention, and I must invite those of my readers who have been driven back by the difficulties of the road to accompany me along the dull path of literal translation and comment.
The keynote of the dialogue is the opposition of day and night, typifying delusion and reality, avidyâ and Atman. In the words of Aeschylos:
Greek text
The dialogue cannot be understood by the light of the rationalist theory that love and marriage are things to be contracted for the sake of the benefits which they bring to both parties. Those who approach it from this standpoint must be content with the explanation sometimes heard that "lovers are to be excused if they behave like lunatics, since it is part of their condition." This is not quite the poet's intention. With Wagner love is asacrifice--or for those who so prefer it, asacrament. Hence the deep mystery of the kinship of love, the vivifying principle, with death, typified in the Hindu emblem of theling. In the present scene it is often difficult to tell whether the strains denote the languishing of love or the fading away of life. The best preparation would be to read the opening portion of the seventh book of Plato'sRepublic. It is difficult to think that this passage was not in Wagner's mind when he composed the scene; although the imagery is rather different, the thought is similar. Plato is speaking of the roots of knowledge; Wagner conceives of Love as Plato does of knowledge, and in the minds of both love and knowledge are the same, as are also music and philosophy. The idea comes at once to the front in Isolde's enigmatical
Im Dunkel du, im Lichte ich.
We remember that according to Plato there are two kinds of blindness: one is from living in the dark, the blindness of ignorance; the other from having gazed too steadfastly at the sun when the eyes were not strong enough to bear it. Tristan was dazzled with the light of the sun, and therefore unable to see the truth. For with Wagner the sun is not, as with Plato, the source of all light and truth, but rather the enemy of love and truth. To put it more shortly, the meaning of the line which I have quoted is: "You were blinded by ambition; I saw more clearly." Tristan understands her as meaning the light of the torch for the extinction of which he was so long waiting. Then follows a discussion in which she urges that it was through her act, in pulling down the torch, that he was led from the light of day to the darkness of love. Porges here makes the true remark that the mainspring of Tristan's life is ambition; that love is naturally foreign to him, but that he is at last drawn to it by Isolde.
We resume at p. 114 of the piano arrangement. The German construction is exceedingly difficult and confusing. I translate literally:
Tr.The day, the day that glossed thee o'er, thatcarried Isolde away from me thither where she resembledthe sun in the gleam and light of highestglory. What so enchanted my eye depressed my heartdeep down to the ground. How could Isolde bemine in the bright light of day?
Is. Was she not thine who chose thee? What didthe wicked day lie to thee that thou shouldst betraythy beloved who was destined for thee?
Tr. That which glossed thee o'er with transcendentsplendour, the radiance of honour, the force of glory,the dream of hanging my heart upon these held mein bonds. The day-sun of worldly honours, which,with the clear refulgence of its shimmer, shone brightupon my head with the vain delight of its rays, penetratedthrough my head into the deepest recess ofmy heart. That which there watched darkly sealedin the chaste night, that which unconscious I receivedthere as it dawned, an image which my eyes did nottrust themselves to look at, when touched by thelight of day, lay open gleaming before me.
In these mysterious words Tristan indicates the impression which Isolde had made upon him at their first meeting. He regarded her through the spectacles of his political ambition, with its vain delight of personal glory, which had penetrated from his head to his heart. It illumined the image of Isolde slumbering yet unconscious (ohne Wiss' und Wahn) in his breast, and revealed it to the day--namely, as a prize in the political game which he was playing:
That which seemed to me so glorious and so noble,I glorified before the whole assembly; before allpeople I loudly extolled the most lovely royal brideof the earth. The envy which the day had awakenedagainst me, the jealousy which became alarmed atmy good fortune, the misfavour which began toweigh down my honour and my glory, I defied themall, and faithfully determined, in order to uphold myhonour and my glory, to go to Ireland.
Is. Oh vain slave of the day.
Here (K.A. 119'3 at the words "Getäuscht von ihm....") there begins a new development of the same motive which has occupied us hitherto (No. 3) with the first indications of the syncopated accompaniment which forms so prominent a feature of the following part. Explanations are now finished. The words begin to find wings. For moments it seems as if all consciousness of earthly things were lost and the lovers were dissolved into dreamland:
Wo des Trugs geahnter Wahn zerrinne.
K.A. 122. The modulation into the key of the death-motive, A flat, is effected through the chord of the augmented sixth. The violins keep up a broken triplet accompaniment, trombones entering on the A major chord, oboe lightly breathing the principal motive (No. 3), while the voice follows its independent melody, to us a simile of Wagner's like a boat designed to move exactly upon that sea, and under those conditions. The whole passage is a vision of the death which they are awaiting, but without its bitterness, only as the portal of eternity.
On p. 123 the voice brings the intervals of the chord which throws an atmosphere over the whole of the rest of the scene, and which has already been mentioned as "the soul of the Tristan music." The intervals are enharmonically the same as those of the chord in the first bar of Prelude--F, A flat, C flat, E flat,=F, G sharp, B, D sharp--but the treatment and surroundings are very different.
A reference to the draught occasions a joyful outburst on the part of Tristan, which is of importance as explaining its real significance:
Tr. Oh hail to the drink.... Through the doorof death whence it flowed it divulged to me wide andopen the joyful kingdom of night, wherein before Ihad only dreamed as one awake.
The words are accompanied by a violin figure in very rapid tempo, which was already prominent in the early part of the scene at the meeting. The exultant episode soon ends, the stormy tempo continuing, and by degrees all subsides into the discordant motive which I have quoted as the fourth of the fundamental dramatic-musical motives, and seeming to indicate the agony of death (No. 4).
Already there have been indications of a characteristic accompanying rhythmic figure consisting of one note repeated in triplets, and now as the lovers sink on a bank of flowers in half-conscious embrace, its nervous character is enhanced by a complex syncopation. The passage beginning 131'4 is in the mystic mood of Beethoven's last sonatas and quartets. The triplet movement seems inspired by the similar movement in the sonata Op. 110 from the beginning of the slow movementAdagio ma non troppoto the end. In both the feverish pulsation indicates a morbid condition, leading in Beethoven to a calmly triumphant end. The second movement of the quartet Op. 127,Adagio ma non troppo, with which Porges compares the scene, gives a different side, from which the morbid element is absent. The rhythm which dominates this scene is a development of the preceding triplet rhythm and must be taken quite strictly--3-4 time, the first two crotchets being divided into triplet quavers, the last into two. The syncopated chords are on the four strings, all muted, and each divided into two parts. In the tenth bar (counting from the double barmässig langsam3-4) the woodwind (Cl. Hr. Fag.) enter, sustaining the chord "sehr weich," the first clarinet having the upper note, quite soft, like a sigh, forming a cadence after each phrase of the voice part. The extreme nervous tensity is emphasized almost beyond endurance by the incessant syncopated triplets of the strings. The lovers are raised entirely away from the external world; it is the sleep of approaching death into which they sink; rather dissolution into eternity. The words begin to lose coherence and meaning, and are often purely interjectional.
One passage may be noted for its interesting modulations, the alternating duet with the words "Barg im Busen uns sich die Sonne." It is in phrases of three bars in rising semitones, A flat--A natural--A natural--B flat, ending in the beautiful strain No. 13 as they fall asleep in one another's arms.
We have now in Brangäne's watch-song, and the instrumental nocturne that accompanies it, reached the highest point of the musical expression, not of the Tristan drama alone, but of all music since Palestrina. Before such music silence is the only thing possible. It scoffs at our words; it is not of this earth. Many will now prefer to draw the veil, to pass over the little that I have to say, and resign themselves to the aesthetic impression. For those who feel curiosity to know the mechanism by which its wondrous effect is brought about, I will analyse the instrumentation. The thematic material employed is very slight; only here and there a motive from the preceding is indicated as if in a dream.