The ‘Tristan Chord’ as Music-Historical Metaphor

ERIKA REIMAN The 'Tristan Chord' as Music-Historical Metaphor Before the curtain rises on the first act of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, many of the opera's key musical ideas have already been presented. In the opening measures ofthe Prelude, or Vorspiel, we hear the mostimmediately recognizable phrase of the entire work (see example 1). It renders audible the play of desire and death that permeates the opera. Its yearning melodic contour is articulated initially by the cellos, who are answered by a distinctive configuration of woodwinds. The chord that they play is pungently dissonant by the general standards of mid-nineteenth-century musical aesthetics. Though its sonority is delicious, it begs for resolution. This it receives, but the next chord itself must resolve according to traditional practice. This second chord is a 'dominant seventh,' a characteristically penultimate sonority that 'normally' leads to a consonant, restful tonic triad - particularly at the end of a piece. It is typical enough of Wagner's harmonic innovation that the dominant seventh chord does not resolve, but is simply left hanging; this procedure is in itself a musical symbol of the unsatisfied longings of the principal characters in the drama. However, it is the first chord of the work that has become an icon of late nineteenth-century harmonic language and has engendered a huge analytical literature. Generally known as the 'Tristan' chord, it is itself one of the crucial leitmotifs of the work; its dramatic symbolism is multifaceted and depends largely on its situational and harmonic context. Langsam und schmacht.end. Example 1: Tristan und Isolde, opening measures The distinctive sound of this chord rests mostly on one note: the G sharp in its highest voice. Its presence means that the chord is difficult to explain in the vocabulary of traditional harmonic analysis, as we shall see. This G UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY, VOLUME 67, NUMBER 4, FALL 1998 sharp is also the first note of the rising melodic line known as the 'Sehnsuchi ' or 'longing' motive. Indeed, the chord results from the clash of the 'longing' motive with the initiat yearning melody of the piece, associated with sorrow throughout the opera. Thus, the 'Tristan' chord has a multifarious emotional resonance in line with its harmonic significance throughout the work. This resonance shifts somewhat according to the chord's harmonic context. The initial pungent dissonance of the chord contributes to its association with desire. Its need for harmonic resolution speaks to the principal characters' emotional state. As Sebastian Urmoneit has indicated, however, the function of the chord as a leitmotifis altered later in the opera. In the long love duet that is central to act II of the work, Tristan's words 'Das Sehnen hin zur heil'gen Nacht' (specifically 'heil'gen') are accompanied by the pitches of the Tristan chord as we heard them at the beginning of the prelude, but their function has changed: they are presented enharmonically - that is, the crucial G sharp has become an A flat, the 0 sharp is now an E flat, and so on (see example 2). What this means in terms of traditional harmonic analysis is that the chord, though still somewhat dissonant, has now lost some of its need for resolution. Tristan's words here are his quintessential expression of Freud's 'death drive,' and the harmony - as if sensing the possibility of release in death backs away from the potent urgency it possessed earlier. The notes are the same, but their relationship to their musical context has changed in accordance with the demands of the libretto. As listeners traverse Wagner's score, their perception of the Tristan chord subtly changes. In the final measures of the opera, as Isolde completes her transfiguration, the chord is heard for the last time in the context of the key of B major. The note B - the tonic - is now in the bass; the D sharp, the third of the tonic chord, is in the soprano, with the crucial G sharp and F in the middle voices (see example 3). The initial pungency of the chord has nearly disappeared; Wagner still does not dare to use it as a hiD zm heil' gen Nacht J...