OBSERVATIONS ON THE TEXT AND MUSIC
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 of _Leitmotive_ should 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 the _Tristan_ music." 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: Oboi. V' celli. Eng. Horn]
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 up _forte_ and _più forte_ by 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.
[Footnote 36: See the remarks on modulation at the end of his essay
_Ueber 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 might
over the sea and the storm? Oh, tame art of the
sorceress, brewing balsam-drinks only! Awake once
more, bold power! arise from the bosom in which thou
hast hidden thyself! Hear my will, ye doubting
winds: Hither to battle and din of the tempest, to
the raging whirl of the roaring storm! Drive the
sleep from this dreaming sea; awake angry greed
from its depths; show it the prey which I offer; let
it shatter this haughty ship, gorge itself upon the
shivered fragments! What lives thereon, the breathing
life, 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 words _Heran zu Kampfe_ is 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).
[Footnote 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? the
wonder of all lands, the much-belauded man, the hero
without rival, the guard and ban of glory?
_Is._ (_interrupting and repeating the phrase in mockery_).
Who shrinking from the battle takes refuge where he
can, 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 his _mistress_.
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, sends
_his_ answer 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 words _auf 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 ship
to King Marke's land...." (_with sudden emphasis,
quickly_) to hand him the _tribute_ which he brings from
Ireland!
--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
(1_b_). Brangäne cries out in astonishment at her own blindness.
Isolde continues to relate "how a hero keeps his oaths": _Tantris_
returned as _Tristan_ to carry her off "for Cornwall's weary king"
(K.A. 29'5):
_Is_. When Morold lived, who would have dared to
offer us such an insult?... Woe, woe to me! Unwitting
I brought all this shame on myself. Instead of
wielding the avenging sword, helpless I let it fall, and
now 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 Irish
maid I'll bring. I know the ways and paths. One
sign from thee to Ireland I'll fly; Isolde, she is yours!
The adventure delights me!" Curse on the infamous
villain! Curse on thy head! Vengeance! Death!
Death to us both!
She subsides exhausted amidst a stormy tutti of the orchestra with the
trombones _ff_.
_Br_. (_with impetuous tenderness_). Oh, sweet, dear,
beloved, gracious, golden mistress! darling Isolde!
hear me! come, rest thee here (_she gently draws her to
the 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 poisons
antidotes. The best of all I hold it here (_holding up
the love-potion_).
_Is_. Thou errst. I know it better (_seizing the black
bottle containing the death-drink and holding it aloft_).
_This_ is 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.
[Footnote 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 in _Tristan_. 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 slay _his 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 preliminary _persiflage_, 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 peace
was sworn.
_Is_. Not there it was that I concealed Tantris, that
Tristan fell before me. There he stood noble and
strong; but I swore not what he swore; I had
learned to be silent. When he lay sick in the silent
room speechless I stood before him with the sword.
My lips were silent, my hand I restrained, but the vow
passed by my hand and my lips, I silently swore to
keep. 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 my
heart I swore that if no man would avenge the murder,
I, a maiden, would take it upon me. Sick and weary
in 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 restored
to health, the man who won him from Isolde should
smite 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! What
would King Marke say if I were to slay his best
servant who has preserved for him crown and realm?
... Keep thy sword! I swung it once when vengeance
was rife in my bosom, while thy measuring
glance was stealing my image to know whether I
should be a fit bride for King Marke. I let the sword
fall. 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 me
silence. I grasp what she conceals, and am silent
upon 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]
[Footnote 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 shall
stand ... (_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 softer
wife thou ne'er could'st find. I slew her lover and sent
her his head; my wound the kindly maid has healed.
My life was in her power, but the gentle maiden gave
it to me; her country's shame and dishonour--that
she gave as well; all that she might become thy
wedded bride. Such thanks for kindly deeds I earned
by a sweet draught of atonement offered to me by
her favour in expiation of my guilt."
_Sailors_ (_outside_). Stand by the cable! Let go the
anchor!
_Tr_. (_starting wildly_). Let go the anchor! Veer her
round to the tide! (_he tears the cup from Isolde's hand_).
Well know I Ireland's queen, and the wondrous might
of her arts. I took the balsam she once gave to me;
now I take the cup that quite I may recover. Mark
well 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; sole
comfort of eternal sorrow; kind drink of forgetfulness
I drink thee without flinching (_he puts the
cup to his lips and drinks_).
_Is_. (_tearing the cup from him_). Treachery again.
Half is mine! Traitor, I drink to thee! (_she drinks
and dashes the cup to the earth_).
[Footnote 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.
CHAPTER XII
OBSERVATIONS ON THE TEXT AND MUSIC CONTINUED
Tu sentiras alors que toi-même tu environnes tout ce que
tu connais des choses qui existent, et que les existantes que tu
connais existent en quelque sorte dans toi-même.--_Avicebron_
(MUNK).
ACT II.--If the essence of the drama lies in contrast and surprises,
then _Tristan und Isolde_ may 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, an _abandon_
which 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 of _Tristan_ on 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 caeli
Adventumque tuum, tibi suavis daedala tellus
Summittit 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. 11_b._; 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's _Oberon_, and of the transition to the final
movement of Beethoven's sonata _Les 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]
[Footnote 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: eudousa gap phraen ommasin lamprunetai.
e'n haemera de moir aproskopos broto¯n.]
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 a _sacrifice_--or for those who so
prefer it, a _sacrament_. Hence the deep mystery of the kinship
of love, the vivifying principle, with death, typified in the Hindu
emblem of the _ling_. 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's _Republic_. 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, that
carried Isolde away from me thither where she resembled
the sun in the gleam and light of highest
glory. What so enchanted my eye depressed my heart
deep down to the ground. How could Isolde be
mine in the bright light of day?
_Is_. Was she not thine who chose thee? What did
the wicked day lie to thee that thou shouldst betray
thy beloved who was destined for thee?
_Tr_. That which glossed thee o'er with transcendent
splendour, the radiance of honour, the force of glory,
the dream of hanging my heart upon these held me
in bonds. The day-sun of worldly honours, which,
with the clear refulgence of its shimmer, shone bright
upon my head with the vain delight of its rays, penetrated
through my head into the deepest recess of
my heart. That which there watched darkly sealed
in the chaste night, that which unconscious I received
there as it dawned, an image which my eyes did not
trust themselves to look at, when touched by the
light 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 all
people I loudly extolled the most lovely royal bride
of the earth. The envy which the day had awakened
against me, the jealousy which became alarmed at
my good fortune, the misfavour which began to
weigh down my honour and my glory, I defied them
all, and faithfully determined, in order to uphold my
honour 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 door
of death whence it flowed it divulged to me wide and
open the joyful kingdom of night, wherein before I
had 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 movement
_Adagio ma non troppo_ to 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 bar
_mässig langsam_ 3-4) 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.
The syncopated pulsations are resumed in one-half the full number of
strings muted, and continue to the end, as do the broken chords of the
harp. The wood-wind generally sustain soft chords, clarinet, oboe,
flute, and horn succeeding each other with the sighs from No. 12.
[Music]
Brangäne's voice on the watch-tower behind the scene enters at once in
3-2 rhythm against 3-4 in the orchestra. At bar 11 (counting from
first entry of the harp) four pairs of unmuted violins detach
themselves from the body of the strings, and play a quartet
independently, with free polyphonic imitation, afterwards joined by
soli violin, viola, and 'cello, in such close score and intercrossing
as to make the whole resemble a very closely woven pattern of
exquisite beauty, but of which the single threads are hardly
distinguishable.[42] Half the violas, joined later by half the
'cellos, maintain an accompaniment of broken chords. They are the
voices of the night through which are heard the long-sustained notes
of Brangäne's watch-song, wood instruments here and there uttering
motives like passing dreams from the lovers' melodies:
Realms where the air we breathe is love,
Which in the winds on the waves doth move,
Harmonizing this earth with what we feel above.
[Footnote 42: For the independent string parts, see the Appendix.]
At the end three trombones enter, sustaining slow chords. The whole
body of the strings, now united, soar once more and subside to rest.
The dialogue which follows is the most difficult in the whole work. It
will be necessary to take it sentence by sentence. Tristan, as the
cooler and more self-possessed of the two, sees more clearly than
Isolde whither they are tending. He has sunk into a state of almost
complete oblivion, from which Isolde wishes to rouse him. He replies
(139'1(6)): "Let me die, never to awake." Isolde, scarcely yet
realizing that this is indeed the only possible ending, asks
(139'4): "Must then daylight and death together end our love?" He
replies: "Our love? How can death ever destroy that? Were mighty death
standing before me threatening body and life--that life which so
gladly I resign to my love--how could its stroke reach our love? Were
I to die for that [love] for which I gladly would die, yet that love
itself is immortal and cannot end with me. So Tristan is himself
immortal through his love." Now (141'3(8)) she grasps his meaning:
"Our love is the love of _both_--Tristan _and_ Isolde." Then
there follows a little conceit on the virtue of the word "and," i.e.
the bond which unites them both together. The notion is according to
Kufferath taken from a couplet of Gottfried von Strassburg:
Zwei vil kleinin Wortelin, Min und Din,
Diu briuwent michel Wunder uf der Erde.
Tristan continues: "What would die in death (namely, this bodily and
worldly life) is only that which comes between us and prevents us from
loving and living." Isolde returns to her play with the word "and."
"What is true for you is also true for me. Tristan can only die
through Isolde's death." The final conclusion is reached in the great
duet beginning p. 143'1, "We die but to be united for ever in a more
perfect love." with the motive No. 14.
The duet ends with a reminiscence of the nocturne, Brangäne's voice
entering with beautiful effect warning the lovers in the midst of
their rhapsody. I resume at 146'1. The previous dialogue began with
Isolde's rousing of Tristan with the words "_Lausch' geliebter_."
Now _he_ turns to her smiling and asks: "_Soll ich lauschen_?" and
_she_ replies: "_Lass mich sterben_." She has now attained full insight,
and when he finally and seriously puts the question to her: "Shall I
return once more to the day?" she replies with enthusiasm
("_begeistert_"), "Let the day yield to death," and the piercing
harmonies of No. 4 indicate the wrench of the parting. Her mind is now
quite resolved. To another decisive question she replies: "Eternal be
our night!" It is this that Tristan has been waiting for; until he knew
that Isolde was ready to accompany him he could not form his own resolve.
Herein we have the key of the whole of this complex and difficult
scene. Wagner's aim was not, as might appear on a superficial view,
to prolong a rhapsodical love-scene, but a dramatic one, to bring the
two characters, each being such as he had conceived it, to a full
understanding of each other before they could be united in death.
An introductory passage made of the love-motive simultaneously in
direct and contrary movement--the union of opposites--leads to a duet
which opens with the harmonies of No. 4 (K.A. 117). Its character
throughout is triumphant joy, well supported by a running violin
accompaniment which continues to the end. In the course of it there
appears another important motive (No. 15), first in the clarinet. All
ends in a crash of the entire orchestra; Kurwenal rushes in crying,
"Save yourself, Tristan," and in the next moment Marke and his court
enter conducted by Melot. "The wretched day for the last time."
SCENE III.--Words and music of the next scene need little comment. It
may be noted that a great part of Marke's address is in strophic form,
with four lines of two accents followed by one of three accents.
Tristan stands before Isolde screening her as well as he can, crushed
to earth by Marke's calm dispassionate reproaches, with short
interludes on the bass clarinet. The music is of great beauty, but, as
I have observed in an earlier chapter, the explanatory parts are too
much extended. The King calls upon Tristan to say what is the deep,
mysterious cause of such a falling off in his honour. Tristan cannot
answer, but the love-motive in its most complete form, as in the
opening of the Prelude, replies more clearly than words.
Tristan now turns full round to Isolde, and in impressive words asks
her whether she is prepared to follow him to the land to which he is
now going; it is the land where no sun shines, the dark land of night.
The voice takes up the melody No. 12 from an earlier part of the act.
Her reply is if possible even more sublime. When Tristan carried her
to a stranger's country, she had to follow. Now he calls her to his
own, to show her his possession and heritage; how should she refuse?
"Let Tristan lead the way; Isolde will follow."
He then calls upon Melot to fight with him, but first lets fall a
significant remark:
My friend he [Melot] was ... it was he who urged
me on to wed thee to the King. Thy glance, Isolde,
has dazzled him too; out of jealousy he betrayed me
to the King, whom I betrayed.
From these enigmatical words Wagner leaves us to conjecture what we
can. They fight; at the first pass Tristan lets the sword drop from
his hand and falls wounded to the earth.
CHAPTER XIII
OBSERVATIONS ON THE TEXT AND MUSIC CONTINUED
ACT III.--Wagner has described the slow introduction to Beethoven's C
sharp minor quartet as the saddest music ever written. If there is
anything sadder, it is the instrumental introduction to the third act
of _Tristan und Isolde_. Tristan, after being wounded by Melot,
has been carried off by Kurwenal to his own home, Kareol in Brittany,
where he is discovered lying asleep on his couch in the castle garden,
Kurwenal by his side. Nothing could exceed the desolation of the
scene, nor the utter woe expressed in the music which begins with a
new transformation of the love-motive (1_a_). Isolde alone can
cure the sick man, and word has been sent to her to come from
Cornwall. Her ship is just expected, and the shepherd who is on the
watch outside plays a sad strain so long as the ship is not seen, to
be changed to a joyful one when she appears in sight. The plaintive
strain is played on the English horn, an instrument which in the hands
of a skilful player is capable of very great expression, and, unlike
most of the wood, has a considerable range of soft and loud, a quality
of which Wagner has made very happy use.
The melody itself seems to have caused some heartburning to many
excellent critics. Even Heinrich Porges describes it as a sequence of
tones apparently without rule,[43] and has not a word to say about its
enthralling melodic beauty. Really what difficulty there is, is only
for the eye, and only in one note, the constantly recurring G flat,
which is easily accounted for. In a later part of the scene (p. 200),
it will be found fully harmonized.
[Footnote 43: _"Eine scheinbar regellose Tonfolge."_]
SCENE I.--In the first scene of the third act, Kurwenal attains an
importance far beyond what he had in the first and second acts. He,
too, is changed; he is no longer the rough, unmannerly servant, the
events which have passed and the responsibility now resting upon his
shoulders, have brought out the finer qualities of his nature. There
is noticeable in his melody all through the act an air of freedom and
lofty devotion quite different from his former self. He is, as it
were, transfigured, and there is a refinement in his tenderness which
may surprise those who have never observed what delicacy and
sensitiveness are often hidden beneath a rough exterior among the
lower classes.
After a short conversation between Kurwenal and the shepherd, who
looks over the wall to ask how the patient is progressing, Tristan
awakes, asking with feeble voice where he is. Kurwenal relates how he
has brought him to his own home in Kareol, where he is soon to recover
from wounds and death. It is some time before Tristan fully
understands, and as memory begins to awaken, he tells of where he has
been, speaking as one inspired:
I was there where I have ever been, whither for
ever I go, in the wide realm of the world-night, where
there is but one knowledge--divine utter oblivion,
i.e. in that Brahm, that eternal negation, in which all physical life
has its existence. The words are accompanied by _pianissimo_
chords of trombones with tuba. It is the first time that the heavy
brass has been heard in this act, and the effect is excessively
solemn. He continues:
How has this foretaste (of eternal night) departed
from me? Shall I call thee a yearning memory that
has driven me once more to the light of day?
The music of this and the following part is very interesting, but the
modulations are too subtle and too evanescent for analysis. The
motive, which has throughout been associated with the metaphor of
daylight, is united with the languishing love-motive and with No. 4,
of which three motives the following part is chiefly made up. The
combination is expressed in Tristan's word, _"Todeswonne-Grauen,"_
"the awful joy of death." The culminating point is reached at the
strongly alliterative words, _"Weh' nun wächst bleich und bang mir
des Tages wilder Drang,"_ when for the moment there is quite a
maze of real parts in wood-wind and strings. Immediately following
is a very curious passage, nothing else than a succession of
augmented chords in an upward chromatic scale, seemingly
illustrating the words _"grell und täuschend sein Gestirn weckt zu
Trug und Wahn mein Hirn."_ For a moment Kurwenal seems overawed
by the words and sufferings of his beloved master. His free bounding
spirits are gone, and he speaks like a broken man. But he soon
recovers his former mood as he tells of Isolde's expected arrival. The
news, scarcely comprehended at first, is the signal for an outburst of
joy on the part of Tristan expressed in a new motive, No. 17, p.
193'4. His joy is so violent that it brings on a return of delirious
raving. He seems to see the ship, the sails filling to the wind, the
colours flying, but at that moment the sad strains of the shepherd's
song tell him that the ship has not yet appeared. He knows the tune,
which once bewailed his father's death and his mother's fate when she
brought him forth and died. And now it tells of his own lot:
to long--and die; to die--and to long. No! Not
so! rather to long and long, dying to long, and _not_
to die of longing.
He cannot find the death for which he longs.
In the following soliloquy the plaintive melody is woven into the
orchestral accompaniment and taken by various instruments in turn. I
resume at the words _"Der Trank, der Trunk, der furchtbare
Trank"_ (p. 207'1), where the full orchestra accompanies with
brass and drums, the tempo being still rather slow.
The draught! the draught! the terrible draught!
How it raged from my heart to my head.... Nowhere,
nowhere may I rest. The night casts me back
on the day for ever to feed the sun's rays on my suffering....
The fearful draught which has consigned me
to this torment, I, I myself brewed it! Out of [my]
father's woe and [my] mother's anguish, out of tears
of love ever and aye, out of laughing and weeping,
joys and wounds, I have gathered its poisons. Thou
draught which I brewed, which flowed for me, which I
joyfully quaffed, accursed be thou, accursed he who
brewed thee.
He sinks once more into unconsciousness. This drink, this fearful
draught which has brought him into his present state, is the work of
his whole life, the outcome of all his former deeds. The despair which
he feels now as his end approaches is expressed in the motive No. 18,
in unison in the wood-wind. Both music and words of this soliloquy
offer great difficulties and need close study, with special attention
to the tempo.[44] It ends with the F sharp minor chord in the 6-4
position with full brass and drums; then sudden silence in the
orchestra as the voice sings the words _"furchtbarer Trank."_
[Footnote 44: This is the passage which perplexed the greatest of all
Wagner singers, Schnorr von Carolsfeld, so much that it hindered him
from taking the part of Tristan until light came to him from Wagner
himself. See the interesting account in Wagner's _Reminiscences of
Schnorr von Carolsfeld_ in his collected works, viii. 221.]
As he lies in a swoon the wood-wind in turns continue the malediction.
The tone then changes as Kurwenal stands beside him, uncertain whether
he is alive or dead. The wood softly sound the chord which we have so
often heard before, No. 12, in syncopated triplets, as in the great
duet in the second act (pp. 131 seq.). Above there floats a melody of
exquisite tenderness, first in the oboe, then in the clarinet,
continued later in a solo violin. A horn quartet then begins the soft
theme No. 13, Tristan's failing voice telling how he sees the vision
of Isolde floating towards him over the sea. It is as if the strains
of the garden scene were hovering in his dreams and calming his
troubled thoughts. As he reads in Kurwenal's looks that she is not yet
in sight, he once more threatens to become violent, when suddenly the
joyful tune, the signal of Isolde's approach, is heard.
SCENE II.--The catastrophe which now follows is one of the most
terrible ever conceived by a dramatist. Directly Kurwenal is away,
Tristan begins to toss in his bed; he seems almost to rise from the
dead. Strange, restless orchestration and 7-4 time seem to show that
something is pending. Several motives are hinted at, and at last there
breaks out in the lower strings and wood the motive No. 13 from the
second act, but now how changed! The tender, dreamy melody, now in
distorted 5-4 rhythm, appears like a dance of death, first in C major.
A short climax brings it in A major and again in C major with the
utmost fury and the force of the entire orchestra. It is as if the
very gates of hell had burst and every fiend were dancing around him,
shouting: "Live! live! and be for ever damned! false knight! perjured
lover!" He springs from his couch, tears the bandages from his body;
the blood streams from his wound; he staggers to the middle of the
stage as he hears Isolde's voice and sinks into her arms as she
enters. The love-motive is heard in the wood-wind like a long dying
breath as, breathing the word "Isolde," he expires. The orchestra dies
away; one chord is heard alone on the harp, and the violoncello
continues the love-motive as he breathes away his life.
Isolde is left alone with Kurwenal, who has followed her. The
soliloquy in which she laments the cruel destruction of the plan for
saving Tristan is profoundly touching, both in the words and in the
melody:
Art thou dead? Tarry but for one hour, one only
hour. Such anxious days longing she watched, to
watch but one more hour with thee. Will Tristan
beguile Isolde of the one last ever-short world-happiness
(No. 4). The wound? where? Let me heal
it, that, joyful and serene, we may share the night
together. Not of the wound--die not of the wound!
Let us both united close our eyes to the light of
heaven....
Sounds are heard without. Another ship has arrived, and with it Marke
in pursuit of the fugitive princess. Hastily the gates of the castle
are barricaded. Brangäne's voice is heard imploring them not to
resist. It is vain; Kurwenal leaves no time for parley, but rushes
upon them and is at once pierced through. He is just able to reach his
master's body and die at his side; when Marke has forced an entry he
finds nothing but death. Brangäne notices that Isolde is still living,
and they now explain. The secret of the love-potion has been told to
King Marke, and he has hurried up to renounce his intention of wedding
Isolde and to unite her to Tristan.[45]
[Footnote 45: Another proof, if any were needed, that he is not united
to her by any indissoluble tie.]
It needed but a few minutes' delay for all to have ended happily. Why
did not the poet take the opportunity offered and spare us the
harrowing scenes at the end? Why could he not have lowered the curtain
on the lovers united with Marke's full approval? Dramatically there
was no reason why he should not have done so, but poetically it was
impossible. The whole of the story is brought about by Tristan's guilt
which had to be expiated; it is not diminished by Marke's generosity.
Isolde now rises to bid the world her last farewell before she departs
with Tristan. The words of her swan-song have been described by an
English writer as "no more poetry than an auctioneer's catalogue."[46]
Of that I must leave my readers to form their own judgment; they must,
of course, be read with their context in the drama. She is speaking in
a trance, with ecstatic visions before her eyes. The voice melody is
mostly built upon the song of union in death in the second act (No.
14), passing into the exultant motive which occurs in the great
love-duet (No. 15). The orchestral accompaniment, beginning quietly,
gradually swells into a torrent of music quite unrivalled among
Wagner's great finales. The end of _Götterdämmerung_ is
impressive because of the wonderful gathering together of the musical
motives of Siegfried's life, but as a musical composition it cannot
compare with the end of Tristan. As it approaches the end the
love-motive absorbs the whole orchestra, passing into No. 10 from the
prelude of the second act, rising higher and higher. The wonderful
euphony of tone, the harmony and peacefulness which pervade the
surging mass of instruments are due to the consummate art of the
instrumentation, and at last as the music seems to leave this earth in
its heavenward flight we feel borne away upon its wings. Isolde does
not die; she is carried upwards on the pinions of love, dissolved in
the ocean of endless melody.
[Footnote 46: A comparison which, by the way, seems a little severe
against auctioneers, if, as I presume, the objection is to the want of
clearness of the language!]
Her finish has given occasion to the witticism that the most beautiful
thing in the work is the last note. To this I see no reason to demur;
it contains nothing more entrancing than the rise to the fifth of the
chord at her final cadence
[Music: höch - - - ste Lust.]
Once more the love-motive is softly breathed in the oboi and the whole
closes on the chord of B major three times repeated by the orchestra.
CHAPTER XIV
CONCLUSION
Wagner always looked upon himself as one who had broken a new path in
art and done some of the first rough work, not as having completed the
road. Those who seek to continue his work must have the same goal
before their eyes as he had. It is the fate of a great man who more
than others longs for human fellowship and love, to live alone and,
after death, to overwhelm his contemporaries and successors; he
occupies a space which leaves no room for others. In the thirty years
which have elapsed since Wagner died, many great composers have come
to the front, all of whom without exception show in their external
physiognomy the impress of his personality. How many have inherited
his spirit? How many have been actuated by his sincerity, his fearless
resolve to follow his inspiration from on high at every cost,
regardless of all personal advantage? Future ages alone can answer
this question. The German nation is at the present day passing through
a severe trial of its inner strength. The true _Sturm und Drang_
began for Germany in 1871, and is now at its height. Her mission is
indeed a noble one; it is to maintain the principles of law, good
government, and pure religion; her genius lies in sober conservatism
and high-minded monarchy; her heroes are Dürer, Luther, Frederic the
Great, vom Stein, Richard Wagner. It is scarcely surprising if, in
view of the history of Germany during the last hundred years, some of
her sons have become intoxicated and in their zeal for German ideals
threaten to destroy the very principles by which she has risen; if
while affecting to despise the southern nations for libertinism they
should themselves have cast off the bonds of self-restraint. All
Europe is infected with the taint of unbridled licence and
shamelessness, in every department of life, intellectual and
political. On the stage the public revels in cruelty for its own sake,
not in the service of justice; it prefers bombast to bravery, lechery
to love; "the basest metal makes the loudest din"; while those to whom
we look as our leaders for direction only pander to the common
vulgarity and grow rich thereon.
There is one ingredient of art mentioned by Aristotle, although it has
been little noticed by critics; his word for it is [Greek: aedusma],
"sweetening." The poet should never forget that art, however serious,
is intended for our pleasure; the hard edge of fate needs to be
tempered by a recognition of the reality and beauty of positive life.
The aim of the true poet is not to harrow the feelings with the mere
picture of suffering or wickedness. We have enough of these in actual
life without going to the theatre; the poet has to show them as
subservient to a higher order of beauty and righteousness, and will
try to mitigate the pain which they inflict. In the tragedies of the
greatest dramatists the sweetness is so conspicuous a feature that it
might almost be ranked as a third essential of tragedy, along with the
awaking of pity and terror. The purpose of art is to show the unity of
truth and beauty, and thus to enhance the power of both, not to
sacrifice either in favour of the other. It teaches the divine lesson
of nature--perfect fitness united with perfect loveliness.
One more word and I have finished. It is easy to hear too much of
Wagner, and I think there can be no question that his works are made
far too common in Germany. Wagner's characters are not those of
everyday life; they are on a higher and more ideal moral level than
ordinary men and women; they are semi-divine. Nor are his works for
everyday hearing, but only for high festivals when we can enjoy them
at our leisure with our minds prepared. For our daily bread we have
other composers as great as he, and more nutritious and wholesome for
continued diet--Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, and how many more of
the highest rank! Caviare and champagne are excellent things at a
feast, but we do not wish to live upon them.
Every cultured person should hold it a duty to visit the Bayreuth
festival at least once in his life. He need not have any musical
training; nothing more is needed than "a warm heart and open senses,"
and, let me add, sincerity of purpose. Those who go expecting perfect
performances and ideal surroundings will be disappointed. Immense care
is bestowed on the preparation of the performances, and the site and
building present incalculable advantages. On the whole the
performances are better than elsewhere, but, excepting in the
orchestra, there are many shortcomings, and the fashionable audience
from Paris, and other capitals of Europe and America, is far indeed
from what was contemplated by Wagner. All honour is due to Madame
Cosima Wagner, who has worked unflinchingly against immense
difficulties to maintain the honour of her husband's heritage. She is
not to blame if she has not fully achieved the impossible; If the tree
has partly withered, the fault is not with the gardener; it was too
vigorous, too noble, to flourish in the soil of human society.