Musical Structures in Wagnerian Opera

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Marshall Tuttle

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Qddo Studies in the History and Interpretation of Music Volume 65

The Edwin Mellen Press Lewiston*Queenston*Lampeter

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data \

Tuttle, Marshall. Musical structures in Wagnerian opera / Marshall Tuttle. p. cm. -- (Studies in history and interpretation of music ; v. 65) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7734-7642-3 1. Wagner, Richard, 1813-1883. Operas. 2. Operas-Analysis, appreciation. I. Title. II. Studies in the history and interpretation of music ; v. 65. MT100.W2T87 2000 782.T092-dc21

00-041821

This is volume 65 in the continuing series Studies in the Hisfory & Interpretation of Music Volume 65 ISBN 0-7734-7642-3 SHlM Series ISBN 0-88946-426-X

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Copyright © 2000 Marshall Tuttle All rights reserved. For information contact The Edwin Mellen Press Box 450 Lewiston, New York USA 14092-0450

The Edwin Mellen Press Box 67 Queenston, Ontario CANADA LOS ILO

The Edwin Mellen Press, Ltd. Lampeter, Ceredigion, Wales UNITED KINGDOM SA48 8LT Printed in the United States of America

V

TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF EXAMPLES

ix

PREFACE

xiii

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Purpose and Scope of the Present Work

1

1

CHAPTER 2 LATE WAGNERIAN HARMONIC GRAMMAR Introduction General Principles of Wagner’s Tonal System A. Basic Definitions B. Analytical Methods Roman Numeral Analysis Text Key Analysis Linear Harmonic Analysis Sequence of Tonics Wagner the Atonalist? The Conspiracy Scene in Götterdämmerung Fricka’s Lament The Final Tristan Chord Discussipn

34 35 35 36 44 46 47 52 53 55

CHAPTERS WAGNER AND MODULAHON IN TRISTAN Classical Precursors Act I, Scene v: Tristan Enters Isolde’s Transfiguration The Prelude Conclusion

57 57 58 78 88 97

CHAPTER 4 INTERLUDE Tonal Association and the Poetic Musical Period

105 105

CHAPTER 5 MAGIC IN THE RING Introduction The Magic in the Ring Tamhelm Magic Sleep Hagen’s Forgetfulness Potion Further Instances of Magic Conclusion

113 113 114 117 127 133 141 143

CHAPTER 6 A WAGNERIAN SCENA Introduction

145 145

13 13 19

21

VI

Amfoitas’ Scena as a Whole Tempo d’Attacca Prayer Harmonic Analysis Lewin’s Poetic and Tonal Substitutions Exhortation Abdication Stage Directions for Parsifal’s Entrance Healing Discussion CHAPTER 7 WOTAN’S DREAM OF SELF DESTRUCTION The Crack in Walhall’s Foundation Tonal Significance a) Wotan and B), Minor b) Wotan and Bj, Major c) The Offending Note; D Poetic Content: the Keys to the Kingdom A|, Major Di, Major Gj, Major F Major/Minor Other Keys in Relation to Wotan Plot Developments and Archetypal Significance Conclusion CHAPTER 8 MOnVIC TRANSFORMATIONS Introduction Brünnhilde’s Battle Cry Alberich’s Curse on the Ring Wanderer Motive Renunciation of Love Putting It All Together: Brünnhilde’s Final Entrance in Götterdämmerung III,iii The Order of Composition CHAPTER 9 KEY RELATIONSHIPS AND TONAL ASSOCIATION Introduction Key Relationships Parallel Major and Minor Minor Second Major Second Minor Thirds Major Thirds Dominant Subdominant Tritone Associations

146 149 160 160 172 175 178 190 191 199 207 207 218 218 228 230 236 236 238 238 239 240 242 247 251 251 253 260 269 278 294 297 301 301 302 302 302 304 304 305 306 307 308 310

vii

Et

Bt

F C G D A E

B/q,

F#/Gt C#/Dt At Discussion Conclusion

311 311 311 312 312 312 312 312 313 313 313 313 313 318

CHAPTER 10 SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS Wagner’s Compositional Technique

323 323

APPENDIX ON mTERPRETATION OF THE RING Introduction Interpretation in Defiance of the Score Interpretation of the Ring with the Score

331 331 331 335

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

341

SELECTED INDEX

351

IX

LIST OF EXAMPLES

Example 1-1

Example 2 from 77ie Mew Grove Wagner.

5

Example 2-1

The keys available to the tonality of C major/minor.

23

Example 2-2

Measures 324-331 of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, First Movement.

25

Example 2-3

Definition of key without reference to the tonic.

28

Example 2-4

Functional chords available from the key of C major/minor.

29

Example 2-5

Mime’s narration of Siegftied’s birth.

31

Example 2-6

Sample analytical diagram for linear harmonic analysis.

38

Example 2-7

The first and last appearances of the Fate motive in Walküre.

39

Example 2-8

Harmonic analyses of two versions of the Fate motive in Walküre.

40

Example 2-9

Linear harmonic analysis of Mime’s narration of Siegfried’s birth.

43

Example 2-10 Tonic sequence analysis of Mime’s narration of Siegfried’s birth.

45

Example 2-11 Gó'ííerdammerMng n,iv, mm. 1376-1388.

49

Example 2-12 An excerpt from Fricka’s Lament, Walküre II,ii, mm. 314-320.

51

Example 2-13 Linear Harmonic Analysis of an excerpt from Fricka’s Lament, Walküre II,ii, mm. 314-320.

52

Example 3-1

The beginning of Act I scene v of Tristan.

59

Example 3-2

The keys transited in the opening of Tristan I,v.

63

Example 3-3

The first twelve measures of Isolde’s Transfiguration.

79

Example 3-4

Linear harmonic analysis of the opening 12 measures of Isolde’s Transfiguration.

81

Example 3-5

The sequence of tonics in Isolde’s Transfiguration, mm. 12-79.

83

Example 3-6

Reduction of mm. 55-61 of Isolde’s Transfiguration.

85

X

Example 3-7 Various occurrences of the half-diminished seventh sonority.

89

Example 3-8 Linear harmonic analysis of measures 83-94 of the Tristan 90 prelude. Example 3-9 The opening measures of Act I scene I of Tristan.

93

Example 3-10 The sequence of keys and tonalities in the Tristan prelude and opening to act I.

96

Example 3-11 Two excerpts from the Tristan prelude.

99

Example 3-12 Five appearances of the Tristan Chord in different keys.

101

Example 5-1 The Renunciation of Love motive and the Ring motive.

116

Example 5-2 The Tarnhelm motive in its first appearance in R/ieingoW, 120 scene iii, measures 1930-1940. Example 5-3 The first full appearance of the Tamhelm theme.

121

Example 5-4

Linear Harmonic analysis of the Tamhelm Theme.

123

Example 5-5

Wotan kisses Brünnhilde to sleep.

128

Example 5-6

Linear harmonic analysis of Example 5-5.

129

Example 5-7

The first two appearances of the motive associated with Hagen’s potion.

135

Example 5-8 Siegfiied drinks the potion twice.

138

Example 6-1 Amfortas’ opening recitative, Parsifal HI mm. 922-932.

150

Example 6-2 Amfortas’Prayer ftomPam/ai IQ, 933-963.

154

Example 6-3 The sequence of tonics in Amfortas’ Prayer from Parsifal HI.

161

Example 6-4 Key derivation of the chords in nun. 947-953 of Amfortas 162 Prayer. Example 6-5 Harmonic reduction of the Knight’s exhortation of Amfortas, mm. 993-1000 of Parsifal HI.

176

Example 6-6 Amfortas’ abdication aria, mm. 1000-1030 of Parsifal HI.

179

Example 6-7 The sequence of tonics in Amfortas’ abdication aria.

184

XI

Example 6-8 The developing sequence in mm. 1001-1004.

185

Example 6-9 Parsifal’s entrance, healing of Amfortas and fanfare mm. 1029-1062.

192

Example 7-1 Reduction of the orchestral prelude to scene ii of Rheingold.

208

Example 7-2 Linear harmonic analysis of Example 7-1.

209

Example 7-3 Tonal architecture of the Walhall theme.

211

Example 7-4 Beethoven, String Quartet, op. 127, second movement, (mm. 59-62).

214

Example 7-5 Wotan asserts Bt minor, Rheingold iv, mm. 2934-2938.

220

Example 7-6 Wotan exchanges Alberich’s B], minor for Bt augmented 223 by modulating to D and F#by means of augmented triads. Example 7-7

Wotan refuses to be bound in B[, minor.

224

Example 7-8

Consequences of Wotan’s love for D.

232

Example 7-9

The divergence of Wotan and Alberich amplified from the 246 ambiguity of key signature.

Example 8-1

Brünnhilde’s Battle Cry from Walküre B.

252

Example 8-2

The opening sequence of the Fate motive, Walküre I,iv.

254

Example 8-3

Examples of Brünnhilde’s augmented triad at higher levels. 255

Example 8-4

An excerpt from Brünnhilde’s final aria.

257

Example 8-5

A tonality-key-chord analysis of Example 8-4.

258

Example 8-6

Excerpts from Alberich’s curse aria.

261

Example 8-7

Alberich’s curse on the ring.

262

Example 8-8

Hagen murders Siegfried.

266

Example 8-9

Three versions of the Wanderer motive.

270

Example 8-10 Linear harmonic analyses of Examples 8-9 a-c respectively. 273 Example 8-11 The World Inheritance motive.

276

Example 8-12 Two variants on the Wanderer motive.

277

xii

Example 8-13 Siegmund sings the Renunciation of Love motive.

279

Example 8-14 Tonic sequence analysis of Siegmund’s version of the Renunciation of Love motive.

281

Example 8-15 Brünnhilde sings the Renunciation of Love motive.

286

Example 8-16 Gunther’s murder and Brünnhilde’s final-entrance in Götterdämmerung El (mm. 1144 -1185).

289

Example A-1 Tonal mechanics of Brünnhilde’s leap into the fire.

333

xiii

PREFACE

Fresh air! Well, most of Wagner's operas are not famous for it. Much of the time we find ourselves in dark forests, near misty castles - or even under water. And the souls of Wagner's characters are rarely free of befogged innpr conflicts. So it is no surprise that Wagner has gone to great pains to give us convincing musical illustrations of these murky inner and outer landscapes. Perhaps the most famous aspect of Wagner's technique is his frequent use of harmonic ambiguity. The prime example of this is the first chord in "Tristan und Isolde." We come to learn that any of its four notes may or may not be part of the 'real' chord.- Ambiguity! - Will she or won't she? - Several hours are spent trying to resolve these psychological and tonal questions. Many, many volumes have been written on Wagner's oeuvre, but rather few have dared to investigate really why the music sounds the way it does. (And, alas, many who have dared have come up with only muddled and contradictory results.) Some of the scholarship in this field is quite as foggy as Wagner's landscapes. Professor Tuttle's treatise has brought much fresh air to this scene. He analyzes the music in terms of what is really there - notes. He points out that there is no mystery in the fact that the mysterious effect of some harmonies and progressions is specifically caused by the ambiguities of the notes in combination. However, the larger context of the music always limits the scope of these ambiguities and, for the experienced listener, makes clear the music's relationship to the ongoing drama. Wagner has given Professor Tuttle some help in all of this by stating, "the kingdom of harmonic families ... demands ... before all a strict observance of the house laws of the affinity of the family once chosen." It is interesting to note that Stravinsky (a sometime Wagner hater) should have stated very similar views about "house laws" in his 1939 lectures at Harvard.* "My freedom thus consists in my moving about within the narrow frame that I have assigned myself for each of my undertakings. I shall go even farther: my freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action ... The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit." ■•The Poetics of Music, Vintage Books, New York, 1956. p.68

XIV

Stravinsky then goes on to quote Baudelaire (a Wagner lover), "It is evident that rhetorics and prosodies are not arbitrarily invented tyrannies, but a collection of rules demanded by the very organization of die spiritual being, and never have prosodies and rhetorics kept originality from fully manifesting itself. The contrary, that is to say, that they have aided the flowering of originality, would be infinitely more true." For composers of any time, the larger "house laws" are simply based on the sum total of their musical experience. (Did Mozart ever wake up in the morning and have to face the decision, "should I write a 12-tone piece today?") Wagner certainly built a tight house for his laws and thereby aUowed himself great freedom of expression. In order to escape chaos, the house laws must present a clear reference system which defines and limits the possible answers to ambiguous questions. By maintaining a constant awareness of Wagner's view of the "laws," Professor Tuttle presents convincing analyses of many of the composer’s most original passages. He makes it clear that the highly charged emotional content of the music is produced by the notes themselves and their tonal relationships in regard to the laws of the time. The very technical analysis presented in no way undermines the emotional aspect of the music - rather it should enhance what Baudelaire said was the "rather odd emotion, which could only be described as the pride and the pleasure of comprehension..." Leland Snnith Professor of Music Emeritus Stanford University February 2000

XV

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I am indebted to Ms. Toni Kram for reading, editing and rereading this manuscript several times. I am grateful to Professor Leland Smith for reading all of this manuscript and making helpful comments and suggestions.

I

thank

Professor Nicholas Baragwanath, Ms. Beverly Hairston and Mr. Jonathon Petty for reading parts of the work and for helpful discussions and interesting suggestions concerning topics to explore in this work, and Ms. Lorraine Masten for the cover artwork.

1

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Purpose and Scope of the Present Work

Richard Wagner is arguably the most influential composer of all time. His influence extended far beyond the field of his compositions into literature, drama, politics, philosophy, perhaps even into theology.' And yet, it is also arguable that none of these influences ivould exist if it were not for his music. Wagner’s influence on history probably proceeds in part from the facts that he was both powerfully effective and not understood. Consider Baudelaire’s response^ expressed in a letter to the composer after attending a concert of his music: I am indebted to you for the greatest musical pleasure I’ve ever experienced... What I felt was beyond description.... At first it seemed to me that I knew this music already.... Then the element that struck me above all was the grandeur of your music. It represents the heights, and it drives the listener on to the heights. In all your works. I’ve found the solemnity of Nature’s great sounds, her great aspects, and the solemnity, too, of the great human passions. One instantly feels swept up and subjugated.. One of the strangest pieces, one of those that aroused in me a new musical emotion is that designed to depict religious ecstasy...... I felt the majesty of a life greater than the one we lead. And another thing, too: in hearing it, I frequently experienced a rather odd emotion, which could be described as the pride and the pleasure of comprehension, of allowing myself to be penetrated and invaded - a truly sensual pleasure, recalling that of floating through the air or rolling on the sea.

TTte Wagner Compendium, Barry Millington, ed.. New York: Schirmer Books, 1992. pp. 380treats the reception history of several aspects of Wagner’s operas. Numerous other references ^ listed in the Bibliography. Cited in Musica Ficta (Figures of Wagner), Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Stanford: Stanford wversity Press, 1994. pp. 1-2. Baudelaire admitted to not knowing or understanding music in the same letter.

2

The poet expresses very eloquently a response that was most certainly not unique to him.^ Forges makes a similar observation in his record of the rehearsals for the first Ring. Commenting on the Tamhelm motive he writes"* In those twilit harmonies one felt the presence of a mysterious spiritworld; it was as though for a moment the eternal silence of the very basis of existence was beginning to resound of its own volition... Though discussion continues among critics, performers, and amateurs alike, concerning the significance of his characters, their activities, and their relationships to events in Wagner’s mind and/or the real world, one cannot help but wonder how seriously his ‘copious writings would be taken if we did not have the direct experience of his music. Yet, in spite of all that has been written about Wagner, his music has resisted analysis beyond description, and the harmonic and tonal structural devices he applied to his music have not heretofore been described. Wagner speaks of compositional techniques without specifically mentioning them. For example, ^ ....whoever till now has trained himself by listening to our newest Romantic-classical instrumental-music, and wants to try his skill with the dramatic genre, I would above all advise him not to aim at harmonic and instrumental Effects, but to await sufficient cause for any effect of the kind, as otherwise they will not come off....I have never yet made the acquaintance of a young composer who did not think to gain my sanction for 'audacities' before all things. On the other hand it has been a real surprise to me, that the restraint I have striven for with increasing vigilance in the modulation and instrumenting of my works has not met the smallest notice....! should have to make it their [e.g., young music students'] ^Consider the response of Mr. Ray Symonds expressed in the [Richard Wagner] mailing list, at [email protected], Digest Number 106, 6 November 1999. “His music seems like a towering mountain of human energy, like a tidal wave that sweeps the listener before it. I guess I just like the opportunity to bask in that grandeur, it makes life that much more colorful. Mr. Symonds is not a musician and admits to being a self-taught opera lover. ^ Wagner Rehearsing the Ring^ H. Forges (R. L. Jacobs, trans.) Cambridge, London, New York, New Rochelle, Melbourne, Sydney: Cambridge University Press, 1983 ^ Music Applied to the Drama, Richard Wagner, (Ashton Ellis, trans.) Lincoln and London, University of Nebraska Press, pp. 184,190f.

3

foremost rule, never to quit a key so long as what they have to say, can still be said therein. Cosima, in her diary entry for 4 April 1879 quotes Wagner as saying:® You do not even notice how I keep all my melodies in a certain style, so that it all looks the same but is in fact different. Just to string one melody to another, splish-splash - there’s no art in that. which would seem to indicate that Wagner did not consider a mere sequence of leitmotives to be art in and of itself. In conversation with Cosima (5 August 1881) he openly disparaged the labeling of motives’ I play excerpts from Götterdämmerung, arranged for piano duet..Unfortunately in this edition there are a lot of markings such as ‘wanderlust motive’, ‘disaster motive’, etc. R. says, ‘And perhaps people will think all this nonsense is done at my request’. One of the most tantalizing references to compositional technique martp. by Wagner to Cosima during the composition of Götterdämmerung is transcribed in the diary entry of 20 June, 1871:® R. is girding himself for composition; his first act both pleases and displeases him: ‘Shall I continue like this?’ The scene between Waltraute and Brünnhilde he finds ‘utterly incomprehensible’, so completely did he forget it. He says ‘I shall be uneasy if I did not know that everything I do passes through a very narrow door; I write nothing which is not entirely clear to me...’ The present work is a treatise on Wagner’s compositional techniques: specifically on his harmonic and tonal structures as opposed to his method of niotivic development. The focus will be on Der Ring, Tristan und Isolde and Parsifal. Wagner’s earlier operas and Die Meistersinger present no particular

Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, An Abridgement (G. Skelton ed., M. Gregor-Dellin and D. Mack, ^ans.) New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997, p. 349, April 4, 1879. ^onologically, this appears to refer to Amfortas’ music in the third act of Parsifal. The excerpt f’ t 1 be analyzed in Chapter 6 below, and an interpretation offered for Wagner’s meaning. ^Ibid., p.435. P>id., p. 105.

4

problem to the analyst. By the end of the present study at least some aspects of that “very narrow door” will have been clarified. There is no current consensus on Wagner’s harmonic structures in the six works under consideration here. Whittall holds that® Wagner, it might be argued with some force,* did not have a musical language at all, in that only very rarely did he compose with no extra musical concepts in mind. Whittall’s argument would seeni to imply that musical structure is entirely subordinated to the drama, and that an understanding of the libretto itself would be sufficient to analyze the music.

Whittall’s statement directly contradicts

Wagner’s own views of the importance of music in projecting his poetic aim cited below and discussed further in Chapter 4. Millington argues the same point from the obverse position: in acknowledging Wagner’s statement that understanding of the music would proceed from following the stage directions, Millington goes on to remark that we can then improve our understanding of the music by altering the staging to give the music new meaning.*® In Chapter 6 below it will be shown that stage directions are sometimes the result of extended harmonic and tonal development, and their alteration renders the music meaningless in its relation to the drama. The New Grove article on Wagner holds that ** ...harmony has always been acknowledged as the most influential innovation of the Tristan style.... But what has not received sufficient recognition is that analysis of harmony is meaningless except in relation to melodic writing, counterpoint and instrumentation. In reference to a short two measure excerpt from the opening of Tristan I:v, the Grove authors state‘s

* The Wagner Compendium, Millington, ed., p. 248.

'^’Invisible Theatre': The Ideal Wagner Staging?, paper delivered at the International Wagner Symposium, Wagner at the Millennium, The University of Adelaide, South Australia, 26 November, 1998. " J. Deathridge and C. Dalhaus, The New Grove Wagner, New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1984. p. 155. '^Ibidp. 156.

5

Considered as an abstract scheme, the sequence of chords in ex. 2 is simply incomprehensible. Their ex. 2 (Example 1-1) is analyzed in situ in Chapter 3,

demonstrating

Wagner’s techniques for structuring sequences of chords which have previously resisted analysis. In addition, it will be demonstrated that Wagner’s methods are logically opaque to the analytical tools which have been applied to themincluding Schenkerian reduction and Kurth’s altered harmonies.

view.

Dahlhaus discusses the same two measures from a purely motivic point of While acknowledging that there is never any question of Wagner

abandoning the principle of tonality, he nevertheless argues against the ability of the two chords in isolation to define a tonality:’^ The harmony is not self-justifying (on paper, in the abstract, the sequence of chords would be meaningless) but grows out of the relationship between the Fate motive, as the lower part, and a chromatic counterpoint, which is to some degree part of the motive, so that one is driven to .speak paradoxically of a ‘polyphonic motive’.

Richard Wagner’s Music Dramas, (M. Whittall, trans.) Cambridge, London, New York, J^Iboume: Cambridge University Press, 1979. p. 64. From a logical point of view contentions of Uahihaus and Deathridge that any juxtaposition of two chords can ‘point the way that was to lead ^entually to the dissolution of tonality’ has to be seriously questioned. Unmediated modulations occur throughout the tonal era, and sequences of two chords which are ‘simply incomprehensible’ w which ‘on paper, in the abstract,... would be meaningless’ can be found in Bach as well as in "agner and every great composer in between.

6

But the fact that the chordal association is not self-sufficient but partly, even primarily, founded in the motives means that the tradition of tonality, of tonal harmony, is, if not suspended at least endangered in Tristan. For tonality, the ruling principle in music from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth, is nothing other than a self-justifying system of chordal relationships, independent of melodic or contrapuntal processes.... Yet the harmonies of Tristan point the way that was to lead eventually to the dissolution of tonality, the emancipation of melody and counterpoint from preformed chordal associations. In Chapter 3, the tonal logic of the passage in question, and the selfjustifying nature of the tonality of Tristan will be demonstrated. The relation between motive and modulation is demonstrated.

The significance of that

relation as a specific expression of the drama of Tristan is discussed. That an understanding of musical structure in Wagner’s operas is necessary is evident from Wagner’s own statements. In a letter to August Rockel of 25 January 1854, Wagner responds to Röckel’s question: “Why, since the Rhinegold is restored to the Rhine, do the gods still perish?” with the following thoughts'^ I believe that, at a good performance, the most simple person will be quite satisfied on this point. Certainly the gods’ downfall does not arise out of the dramatic counterpoints. These could be turned, twisted and interpreted in any way - it would only need a juristic politician to take on the job; no, the necessity of this downfall springs from our innermost feeling, as it does with Wotan.... I have now come to realize again how much there is, owing to the whole nature of my poetic aim, that only becomes clear through the music. These two quotes taken together suggest very strongly that answers to questions of drama unexplained in the libretto are to be found in the music. Juristic turning, twisting and interpreting of the text will not lead to a proper understanding of the composer’s intent.

These two excerpts are quoted in Cooke, D. / Saw the World End. London, New York, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1979. p. 2.

7

Cooke follows these quotes with the question'^’*® To be absolutely clear how baffled we have been by The Ring, let us consider a single one of the questions. When Siegmund, in Act I of The Valkyrie, grasps the sword to pull it from the tree, and invokes ‘Holiest love’s deepest need’, why does he sing the theme associated with the renunciation of love by Alberich in The Rhinegold'i Indeed, this question is echoed among experts and amateurs alike. Cicora refers to this same passage as an example of musical irony.This passage will be analyzed in its tonal and harmonic context in Chapter 8 to demonstrate that no irony whatsoever is involved here once the harmonic and tonal structures and the transformations they work on the motivic material are understood. The apparent contradiction between dramatic expression and motivic significance turns out not to be with the music itself which even at its first rehearsals was very effective.*® “ Ibid pp. 2-3. Cooke presents an excellent and thorough analysis of Wagner’s adaptation of the mythic sources, but due to his musical analytical methods he collapses into the textual interpreting that Wagner warned against. Though this motive is popularly referred to as “Renunciation of Love” Wagner referred to it as Liebesfluch” in his sketches for the postlude to Rheingold I. (See Wagner's Das Rheingold, W. Darcy, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. p. 127.) Since the supposed conflict comes from Siegmnnd singing a motive associated with the renunciation of love when he is in fact making excellent progress towards confirming his and Sieglinde’s love, the entire question may be the result of misnaming the motive. In Chapter 8 I will argue that the answer to this and other questions concerning this motive may be found in viewing how the motive is handled in its developmental context. In Cicora, M. A. Mythology as Metaphor: Romantic Irony, Critical Theory and Wagner's mg. p. 22. Cicora attempts to build a deconstructionist interpretation of the Ring based on ^ary analytical theory. While her interpretation is partially correct in describing the Ring as a onstruction of myth, she errs in ascribing this to use of irony and self-reference. Counterto her arguments would include Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, the Oresteia of Aeschylus a» Orestes of Euripides. In the Passion we have an approach to the source story of the ^rnmuan faith with irony, self-reference and all the materials Cicora uses to deconstmct the Ring ^^^no collapse of the church whatsoever. Aeschylus’ Oresteia is a historical drama about a myth ng to the replacement of vengeance by jusüce in the city state of Athens, emphasizing the ^^^^cal function of myth which Cicora claims is fatal to the structure of the Ring. Euripides’ how ^und is about as ironic a play as possible and calls significantly into question ¡ '^6 can assume universal belief in mythology among the ancient Greeks. A different "^^etation of the deconstruction of myth in the Ring will be offered in Appendix I suggesting it 1^ "’®8ner’s compositional intention, not a result of his approach. j^ges, H. Wagner Rehearsing the 'Ring'. Cambridge, London, New York, New Rochelle, t®marfc^"*’ Cambridge University Press, (Robert L. Jacobs, trans.) p. 51. It is further ed that “There should be a slight ritardando in the two bars before the grandiose entry of the

8

At the close of the act the elemental power of passion together with a tremendous heroic energy carried all before them like a whirlwind. The excerpt perfectly fulfilled Wagner’s vision of drama as a means of communication as cited by Cooke. At a performance of a dramatic work of art, nothing should remain for the synthesizing intellect to search for; everything presented in it should be so conclusive as to set our feeling at rest about it: for in this setting at rest of feeling, after it has been aroused to the highest pitch in the act of sympathetic response, resides that very repose which leads us towards an instinctive understanding of life. In drama, we must become knowers through/ee/ing. The unquestionable success of this passage, in a manner consistent with Wagner’s stated aesthetics, informs us that whatever questions it raises are not the fault of the composition, but of the analytical techniques applied to it. An analysis should strive to explain how an effect is achieved with the materials utilized, if it cannot do so the analytical tools are inappropriate for the task at hand. In the case of analyzing Wagner’s late music dramas, it is not a problem of doing a better job with the tools at hand: but rather that the tools that have been applied simply are incapable of answering such questions as these posed by Mr. Cooke and so many others. The problem is rather an artifact of a one-dimensional approach linking motive to significance, without considering the effect of the tonal structures on the evolution of motivic meaning.

Sword motive in C major as Siegmund pulls the sword out of the tree.” A reason for this ritardando will be suggested on purely musical grounds in Chapter 8. ” Cooke., ibid p. 1. The original is from Opera and Drama. I have cited this from Cooke to make the subsequent point. Placing his question in regard to Siegmund in apposition to this statement quoted on the previous page demonstrates the state of Wagnerian analysis. Though he acknowledges (p. 3) “Indeed, many people no doubt follow this course in the theatre, being so absorbed in the musico-dramatic excitement at this point of the work that they fail to notice the identity of the actual theme altogether (which they have not heard since the previous evening, anyway); and they would seem to be reacting as Wagner intended them to, since their feeling is eventually set at rest, and they experience no need to search for anything with their intellects. “ Cooke’s explanation of this conundrum delves into the juristic rationalizations which Wagner warned against as cited above, and he apparently fails to see the contradictions in the approach, or even in the existence of the problem as stemming from analysis rather than from the composition.

9

With or without music, it must be acknowledged that there is a significant difference between drama and expression. Though motives may provide a musical snapshot of an instant in Wagner’s music-dramas, they are not inherently dramatic, only expressive. Drama emerges only when their relationships to the harmonic and tonal forces around them are considered. Without an understanding of these deeper musical structures and the specific manner in which they push and pull on the surface level motives, there can be no answer to such questions as why Siegmund sings the so-called “Renunciation of Love” motive. Without reference to the score, literary analyses can proceed very far afield. In his study of literary form in relation to romantic opera Conrad comes to the following conclusion about the end of Götterdämmerung-}^ The orchestra asserts the redemptive power of love, but there is no one left for it to redeem. His conclusion errs on two major points. Wagner referred to the orchestral motive that closes the Ring as a theme of praise of Brünnhilde,and ultimately as a hymn of praise to all heroes. The popular reference to this motive as ‘Redemption of Love’ is not Wagner’s, and is a misinterpretation of the meaning of the close of the cycle. More importantly, 33 measures before the end of Götterdämmerung, the stage directions in the score explicitly state Aus den Trümmern der zusammengestürtzten Halle sehen die Männer und Frauen, in höchster Ergriffenheit, dem wachsenden Feuerscheine am Himmel zu.

Romantic Opera and Literary Form, Peter Conrad, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1977 p. 20. This is only one of many false assertions not limited to Wagijer. For example, in supporting his main thesis that Music-drama is an inappropriate pairing of concepts and that opera is more naturally related to the novel, he writes “Drama is limited to the exterior life of action... The novel, in contrast, can explore the interior life of motive and desire...” (P- 20). This comparison finds numerous contradictions in early Greek tragedy: the Seven Against Thebes of Aeschylus which consists almost entirely of descriptions, the Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus in which the protagonist is immoble during the entire play after having been silently ■'siled to the rock in the first scene, the Ajax of Sophocles in which the protagonist’s soliloquies ®te anything but active, and the entire dramatic convention of Greek theater to have violent action place offstage. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, An Abridgment, p. 144, July 23, 1872.

10

[From the ruins of the fallen hall, the men and women, in the greatest agitation look on the growing fire-light in the heavens.] On what basis can it possibly be stated that there is no one left to redeem?^^

If

some validity is to be claimed for literary analysis per se in relation to Wagner’s operas, how can this be accomplished without reading the stage directions? The present work treats only the scores as they are published, on the assumption that this is the interface between Wagner and the world which needs explication. Very few references will be made to compositional sketches, literary sources, or to any interpretations which are not supported by musical relationships. Analyses will treat various elements of the music dramas including excerpts from Tristan, the role of Wotan, and his tonal relation to Alberich, the tonalization of magic in the Ring, Amfortas’ final scene in Act HI of Parsifal, and transformations of various motives including the curse on the ring, Bruimhilde’s Battle Cry, the “Renunciation of Love” motive, and the “Wanderer” chords. Once the excerpts have been submitted to thorough harmonic and tonal analyses, the results will suggest specific interpretations of some of the more difficult issues which have emerged in the literature, as well as confirm the significance of specific stage directions in their relations to tonal structure. A single compositional technique will be demonstrated which permeates all of the operas under consideration. The derivation of this technique, as an extension of earlier methods in compositions which were well known to Wagner, will be clearly shown. The role of associative tonality in determining musical structure will be clarified. The elusive ‘poetic musical period’ will be discussed and demonstrated to be in use as late as Parsifal. Musical analysis in this book will be carried out according to a principle of tonality suggested by Wagner in his own writings.^^ At the same time, a single analytical technique will be articulated which spans the entire repertoire under consideration, correlates with stage directions, correlates with Wagner’s directions at the first rehearsals for the Ring, suggests interpretive significance of the works themselves, and explains their effects according to relationships established to an

“ An interpretation of the significance of these issues is suggested in the Appendix to this book. “ The principle is submitted as a hypothesis in Chapter 2. In Chapter 8, evidence is given based on poetic and musical connections in the scores which confirms the hypothesis.

11

easily definable norm which evolved from musical practice prior to Wagner’s time.^^-^^

Since this work is based on musical analyses of tonal structure, only passing reference will be made to the many books which attempt to interpret the works without musical justification, or only on the basis of leitmotives and their recurrences. The results of this work are so divergent from other approaches that in many cases little can come of the comparison. Meta-theories of interpretation which have not been based on musical structure will be called implicitly into question, since much of the information supplied by the research in this book has not been considered in those approaches. The musical examples are prepared to present tonal and harmonic relationships as completely as possible. Elements of the score which do not necessarily effect harmonic function, such as octave doublings, repeated accompanimental notes, dynamics and slurs are often omitted.

13

CHAPTER 2 LATE WAGNERIAN HARMONIC GRAMMAR Introduction

Current understanding of Wagner's late harmonic practice is clouded by a number of contending and often contradictory approaches. A review of the literature shows an evident failure to account for significant aspects of Wagner's tonal practice. ,Fqr example, in his analysis of the Nom-scene from Götterdämmerung, Patrick McCreless notes that the keys Ej, minor and B minor ...have associative connections that go back to Das Rheingold: Et minor echoes the E), major of the Rheingold 'Vorspiel' and the undisturbed state of the world, while B minor is linked to Alberich's Curse and to hiS kingdom. C major is ...a key suggested by its frequent connection with Wotan's vision of world redemption through Siegfiried's sword. Later McCreless states that E flat, C, and E are all associative keys in the Ring. But what about F, F#, and G?.... these keys do not have literal referential connections.^® The assignment by McCreless of associative implications to some keys but not to others forces the claim that at some point Wagner ...abandons the associative tonal references....and instead builds on an abstract tonal relationship there prefigured....before disintegrating into a linear-chromatic maze.^’ "Schenker and the Noms," Chapter 11 of Analyzing Opera: Verdi and Wagner, Abbate, Carolyn ^ Roger Parker, eds. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989. pp. 281 283, and 284. Ibid, p. 284.

14

A number of logical questions are left hanging by this approach, the most obvious being when, why and how keys are defined as being associative. This last quote suggests that McCreless' methods are unable to disentangle that maze. In the end he remarks: What, now, does such a tonal plan have to do Avith Schenker? Not much, we are forced to answer; Schenker would certainly have had notWng to do with it. Since Schenker’s sine qua non for a coherent tonal piece ^is the prolongation of a tonic triad, the Noms’ Scene falls at the first fence. Even in coming to this evaluation, his analysis errs on some major points. In observing the opening key signature as the opening key, he misses the fact that the entire scene does have tonal closure, starting in Q major and ending in B minor. He stated: In our analysis of the Noms’ Scene, Example 11.1 represents the tonal stmcture of the scene in chronological time: the large-scale progression is from El, minor toward B minor; the other keys must occur in a fixed progression in order to make tonal sense. Though the opening two chords, Ej, minor and Q, major are possible in a number of keys, the next two chords, E[, minor and Dj, minor, clearly define Q, major as the key. The key of Ej, minor does not appear until measure 21 in an excerpt of 303 measures. This is a relatively long period of tonal stability, and there is a modulation to a third key before arriving at the key of Ej, minor. In comparison with works of the classical period, Wagner’s 19 measures in the initial key are more stable than many standard sonata pieces which would often modulate away from the initial tonality much more quickly. Beethoven’s F minor piano sonata op. 2 no. 1 for example spends only the first 8 out of 152 measures in the initial key. Though McCreless’ final evaluation of the piece declares its coherence,^ his analysis cannot specify how that coherence is achieved.

" Ibid, p. 285 “ According to McCreless, this half-associative, half-abstract, disintegration-prone structure "achieves an impressive synthesis, both as abstract music and as a tonal structure with associauve connections” (Ibid, p. 284).

15

A similar issue is evident in Robert Bailey, tvho cites associative tonality as important, but confined to only seven fixed tonal associations.^' Thus the F sharp minor tonality of the Todesverkündigung scene (Walküre II,iv) is chosen ...undoubtedly because it is equidistant from the D minor framing the first two acts of the opera and the B[, minor of the contrasting episode within the scene itself.^^ On the other hand, Bj, was ...already determined by the B flat of the secondary episode in the latter part of Act I, which includes the so-called Spring Song.” D minor, not seen as an associative key, is derived from an "expressive shift of tonality" from Wotan's D flat major, which is an associative key.^“* Thus-Bailey believes that sometimes Wagner chooses keys simply because they are associative; sometimes because they have a some special kind of geometric proportion to other keys, some of which are associative and some not; and sometimes because, while not themselves associative, they either evoke memories of or represent expressive shifts of associative keys. How an expressive shift of a key is defined is never explained, nor is it explained how such a key can be expressive once shifted. The surface level of Wagnerian harmony frequently reaches such a level of complexity that a number of analysts have found it necessary to resort to the assumption that standard harmonic analysis is incapable of describing it. Thus the

31 „

The Structure of the Ring and its Evolution,” in Nineteenth Century Music, Voi. I, No. 1, July 1977. The specified associations are: Siegfried's Horn (F major), Valkyries (B minor), Nibelungs minor). Curse (B minor), Tarnhelm (B minor), Valhalla (Di major) and Sword (C major). Below I argue that some of his assignments are in error, and discuss the tonal processes that point ptecisely to the keys of D minor. F# minor, which he references here as being derived by aodefined expressive shifts and geometrical relationships with other keys. Though F sharp minor is equidistant from B flat minor and D minor, so also is C minor. If 86ometric thinking is behind the choice of the key, why Wagner should have chosen the one over Öls other is not discussed. It will be shown in Chapters 7 that the key of D minor was determined ^ music in the opening of Rheingold ii.. ibid, pp. 55f. In Chapter 7 it will be shown that this Bt, as well as all the other keys referred to ™ this paragraph, are determined by the Walhall music in the opening scene of Rheingoid. In Chapters 7 these keys are discussed in their relationships to Wotan’s and Siegmund’s roles.

16

harmonic system is claimed to rely on various mie violations of common practice harmonic syntax. For instance, Anthony Newcomb asserts that ...dramatic idea cannot be communicated in music without speaking through the traditional musical forms and procedures known to the composer and his audience.^^ Nevertheless, Newcomb also claims that ...the tight, limited grammatical mies of chord connections, conventionally represented by the Roman numerals or letter designations that we assign to individual chords, are sometimes so far loosened as to lose much of their binding force.^® This makes it possible for him to assert that the principal tonal contrast in the Erda-Wotan scene [Siegfried, HI, i] is ...between functionally centered, stable tonality on the one hand, and non functional, unstable tonality on the other.^^ But if dramatic idea cannot be communicated in music without speaking through the traditional musical forms and procedures known to the composer and his audience, then nonfunctional tonality, being foreign to the ears of Wagners audiences, can hardly be an expressive principle and can only be heard as incoherent. This has clearly not been the case. In Chapter 8 below an alternative analysis of the prelude of Siegfried IH is offered.

This demonstrates that

functional tonality is present in the specific examples he discusses, and shows how it precisely prefigures the major harmonic and dramatic turning point in the scene under consideration. In so doing, it will also be shown that the drama of Wagner’s music is entirely absent once the assumption of functionality is dismissed.

’’ "The Birth of Music out of the Spirit of Drama.", Nineteenth Century Music, Voi. H, No. 1 (Summer, 1981), p. 38. ^Ibid,f.A9. ’’ Ibid, p. 59f.

17

William Kinderman claims that the music of Briinnhilde's Awakening Siegfried, Ill.iii exploits the ...technique of pairing two tonalities and using the tension thus created for dramatic effect....the music for Siegfried's awakening of Briinnhilde....is based on such a pairing of tonalities, in this case E and While his 'work is not without insight, his methods are unacceptably vague. For instance, to demonstrate tonal pairing as a concept distinguishable from ordinary modulation, Kinderman graphs the "tonal and dramatic framework" of Siegfried, in,iii, a period of 52 pages in the Schirmer vocal score, in terms of only two tonalities, E and C.

He declares all other modulations to be passing tonal

digressions (and thus non-structural) with no specific reason for such an assignment. This tonal and dramatic framework omits in entirety thirty pages of the scene (^p. 303-332 of the Kalmus score) which feature lengthy passages in a number of keys. The tonal stmcture of this scene will be discussed in Chapter 8 below. Such approximate methods make it difficult to assess the validity of any of Kinderman's specific conclusions.^® Kinderman's citation of the theory of tonal pairing as his analytical stance prior to performing analysis, and his excision of thirty pages of score in the service of his charts, results in a clear instance of circular reasoning; use of a theory to generate the data that proves the thèory.‘'° The theory of the double-tonic complex is alluded to by Robert Bailey and picked up by Christopher Lewis, who says that in the Tristan prelude ..’.the background progression is reflected in the musical texture right from the opening measures, which imply the two tonics both successively and

Kinderman, William.

"Dramatic Recapitulation in Wagner’s Götterdämmerung." Nineteenth

Century Music, Voi. IV, No. 2 (Fall, 1980), p. 102. Ibid, Figure 1, p. 104. Newcomb also recognizes the danger of such approximations: meaningful analysis must give careful attention to the crucial matter of how the keys in question are connected: whether tonal syntax is maintained in the interim, how tonal contrasts are introduced and how tonal returns are effected in the passage in question - in short how tonal moves happen in the music." Ibid. "Birth of Music," p. 51.

18

simultaneously. An analysis that reduces one of the implied tonics to the role of a decorative element will misrepresent the background duality. Double-tonic complexes are unnecessary, however, to account for progressions easily subsumed into common harmonic practice. Tristan begins with three sequential phrases leading respectively to dominant chords of A, C, and E. In other words, the A minor tonic chord is arpeggiated as a series of implied keys which, taken as a whole, clearly project A minor as a background tonality. Sequences by thirds can in no way be viewed as revolutionary at the time of composition of Tristanf'^'^ An alternative analysis of the larger tonal structure of the Tristan prelude will be offered in Chapter 3. Again, why Lewis assumes that the first two sequential iterations define a double-tonic complex, while the third iteration on the dominant is irrelevant, is unexplained. The orthodox modulation from A minor to its relative major C can hardly be viewed as a tonally exceptional event.'*^ David Lewin, in his analysis of Amfortas' Prayer from Parsifal, invokes the concept of key substitutions as justification for reassigning entire passages from key to key, with no attention to the tonal syntax of the passages involved. ■" "Mirrors and Metaphors: Reflections on Schönberg and Nineteenth-Century Tormlity." In Nineteenth Century Music. Voi. XI. No. I, Summer. 1987. See also Richmd Wagner: Mude and Transfiguration fi-om Tristan and Isolde, Norton Critical Score, ed. Robert Bailey, New York, 1985, pp. 113-46. , .u . 11 c Leland Smith's rigorous linear-harmonic analysis of this Prelude demonstrates that all of its complexities may be adequately described without recourse to other than co^on-pracUce procedures. See, e.g.. Handbook ofHarmonic Analysis, San Andreas Press, Palo Alto. pp. 179ff. For example., Beethoven composes a sequence by thirds in the exposition of his piano sonata ° McCreless’ assertion that Schenker’s sine qua non is the arpeggiation of the tonic triad would seem to indicate the opening of the Tristan prelude as an extremely lucid ex^ple Schenkenan analysts seems to miss the harmonic implications of half cadences however, and yield results which miss the key implications. The problem seems to come at the point where key is defin^ed but no confirmed. Since Schenkerian analysis focuses on notes and counterpoint, it has no techniques for explicating the tonal mechanics behind the counterpoint. See “The Tristan Prelude , William J. Mitchell in The Music Forum 1,1967 p. 162 for an example. Lewis further defines his "double-tonic complex" as a "rule violation' of a common Poetice syntactic dictum that "a given event have only one meaning at any given level. If ngorously applied, such a dictum, nowhere referenced, would prohibit the existence of pivot chords, and would violate the tonal mechanics of the Italian cavatina which was often characterized by a lack of tonal closure from baroque times. , c „c «« Lewin, David. "Amfortas' Prayer to Timrel and the Role of D in ^ the Drama and the Enharmonic CVB." Nineteenth Century Music, Voi. VH, No. 3 (3 April 1984).

19

On one occasion he assigns a key of D sharp minor to a single chord with no evidence of D sharp minor tonal progressions around it. Harmonic analysis shows the passage to be generated by a B major/minor background tonality.“’ T.at>-r he j

analyzes a sequence through the keys of F sharp and G sharp minors (in fact sequentially derived through E major) as the effect of his fictive substitute key of

t

D sharp minor upon the tonic D minor. A complete analysis of this scene is

,

offered in Chapter 6.

^ j

The picture of Wagnerian analysis which emerges from this review is one of chaos. No author has proposed an analytical method which can be transferred

Í

from one excerpt to another in a rigorous manner. Simple harmonic analysis has been ignored in favor of complicated special theories to explain short passages in isolation from each other. Circular reasoning is applied to justify the theories. Thus, ad hoc explanations abound without any thoroughgoing understanding of Wagner's compositional practice as a whole. Analysts do not produce self-consistent analyses nor do they agree with one another on how to proceed. It is my intention to demonstrate the clear and elegant compositional techniques Wagner employed in creating his music dramas. This research rests on one assumption: tonal practice is conservative in Wagner and orthodox harmonic syntax is rigidly and consistently applied.“* No analytical result is predetermined

,

or preferred. One method of analysis will be applicable to all of Wagner's music and will demonstrate the precise connection between music and drama. In all instances it shall demonstrate that Wagner's techniques accord precisely with his own explanatory writings about his compositional practice. t

General Principles of Wagner's Tonal System

I

Before analyzing the syntax of Wagner's harmony, it is necessary to establish what procedures he observes and their functions within his composite *^Ibid, p. 337. Orthodox harmonic syntax is equivalent to specification that the definition of keys and the techniques of modulation, resolution of dissonance, and voice leading do not depart from the practices of the classical period as set forth in the works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and their contemporaries. Every element of Wagner’s harmonic style can be found in earlier works.

i

20

musico-dramaüc art. With respect to the governing principle of key relationships, Wagner writes; ....these laws of harmonic sequence, based on the nature of Affinity, — just as those harmonic columns, the chords, were formed by the affinity of tone-stuffs, — unite themselves into one standmd, which sets up salutary bounds around the giant playground of capricious possibilities. They allow the most varied choice from amid the kingdom of harmonic families, and extend the possibility of union by elective-affinity....with the members of neighbouring families....they demand, however, before all á strict observance of the house-laws of affinity of the family once chosen, and a faithful tarrying with it. for sake of a happy end. This quote suggests two characteristics of modulation in Wagner’s technique: 1. Modulation may proceed from any key to any other key at any time. 2. Once in a key, it is necessary to stay stricüy within that key. The first of these is no surprise, since far ranging modulation seems to be the norm in Wagner, and indeed can be found in Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. The second characteristic, that of obeying strictly the house-laws of a key once chosen, is another matter, and is largely at odds with the analytical approaches that have been taken towards Wagner’s music. If we taV(> Wagner’s words seriously, we find ourselves in a situation very different from that put forward in recent published analyses of his harmony. Specifically, while he is often pointed to as an innovator, Wagner's innovations are too often characterized as departures from common practice harmonic procedures. Yet the composer's writings consistently assert a conservative approach to tonal practice. Wagner states that integrity of key is central to his compositional technique. In technical terms, the somewhat metaphorical term "house laws" of key will be identified with the harmonic syntactical procedures by which tones are defined as either within a key or outside of it. Without "strict observance of the house-laws," key cannot be defined with sufficient precision to carry the dramatic The Art-Work of the Future, (Ashton Ellis, trans.) Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press. 1993 p. 117.

21

nKaning it was Wagner's purpose to convey. Wagner's true harmonic innovations are only made possible by his scrupulous conservatism of tonal syntax. A.

Basic Defínitíons

We begin with the assumption that all of Wagner's music is tonal. Though atonal analyses have been attempted of various portions of his work,^° there has as yet been no atonal approach which is capable of accounting for his practice over the corpus of the late works. Again, since atonality falls well outside syntactic intelligibility as Wagner understood it, and is besides proscribed in his writings, it is unsurprising that strict analysis demonstrates Wagner's music to be consistently tonal. Throughout this book, specific passages which have been labeled atonal in the literature will be discussed, and their functionality will be demonstrated. The assumption of tonality implies a hierarchy of tonal relationships in tonal space. Each element of pitch can be subsumed within the next higher level, and all of these relate to one another in specifically controlled fashion. hierarchy is as follows in descending order;

The

Key Signature Tonality Key Chord Chord Tone Non-Chord Tone Non-Scale Tone Key Signature is defined as the number of sharps or flats given at the beginning of a section of music. In analyses of Wagner its significance has often been felt to be obscure. It is often inaudible, but not without significance. In the context of associative tonality, a key signature will be a symbol of the context 'vithin which the tonal action takes place, and may even suggest interpretive approaches to the music contained within it. (The specific example of Wagner’s

50 p

T,

•

•

_ “-g-, Benjamin Boretz attempts to view the Tristan Prelude as an early example of an exact mterval size-type of atonality (Boretz, Benjamin A. Meta-Variations: Studies in the Foundations of Musical Thought. Dissertation, 1970). Disregarding the anachronistic nature of his approach, it CBrtainly cannot be extended to an analysis of the opera as a whole.

22

directions for performance of Briinnhilde’s version of the Renunciation of Love motive will be given in Chapter 8 below). Key signature is inherently ambiguous, referring to both relative major and minor. Furthermore, major and minor behave differently in terms of how keys are defined in relation to key signature. In major keys, a top-down definition of tonality is propagated. The signature defines the tonality of the piece from which keys are drawn. Chords are defined by scales, and notes behave accordingly. Minor keys result from more of a bottom-up definition of tonality. In order for a key signature to be interpreted as minor, notes outside the key signature have to appear which force changes in the harmonic action. The key signature is then interpreted in terms of the resulting minor key. In Chapter 7 an example is discussed in which Wagner generates dramatic tension out of that ambiguity. Tonality is defined for the purposes of this book as a key, not necessarily expressed, that is generated by the surface activity of keys that are expressed. Tonality relates to keys as a tonal orienting factor. In Beethoven’s Waldstein sonata, for example, the opening chord progressions never unambiguously define the key of C major, though all the keys that are defined are closely related to C and derive from it. Rosen touches on the issue of the Waldstein stating in a single paragraph^' Part of the energy comes from the immediate recourse to modulation in the second measure. There is not the slightest obscurity about key and the effect has nothing to do with Haydn’s ‘false’ starts.... In spite of the fact that there is no tonal ambiguity, it takes the entire first thirteen measures of the Waldstein Sonata to define the key of C major. The answer to this rather obvious contradiction is that there are two different levels of tonal behavior defined in this piece. There is great obscurity about key: the opening chord progressions are IV-V-I in G major, followed by IV-V-I in F major.

Both these progressions conflict with the assumption that the opening

note or chord will be the key of the piece (even if that assumption happens to be correct here.) On the other hand, the juxtaposition of the keys of G major and F major implies derivation from only two possible keys: C major or A minor. The ’’ The Classical Style, Charles Rosen. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1972. p. 398-399.

23

introduction of F minor in m. 8 forces elimination of A minor as a possible source for the harmonic action of the piece. The tonality of C major is logically determined at that point, and confirmed by the cadence in measure 13. The use of tonality to organize the flow of surface keys parallels the use of keys to organize the flow of surface chords, and this defines the hierarchical series, tonality-key-chord. The concept was not new to Beethoven. The idea of a piece being composed by visiting all the closely related keys of the principal key of the piece is articulated in the early eighteenth centuiy.^^ It is essential in Wagnerian apalysis to treat this as a separate level of the tonal hierarchy, hence the label of “tonality”. Example 2-1 lists the keys accessible from the tonality of C major using modal mixture to access keys related to the parallel minor.^^ The keys available to a tonality are almost identical to the chords available to a key. Diminished and augmented chords are excluded since they cannot be the source of keys. It is unportantito note that there is a difference between m and iii, the first specifying Et major and the second E minor. E major would be not be directly accessible to the tonality of C major as a key. It is therefore important to define precisely the major minor axis in order not to violate the house laws of key. Example 2-1. I ii iii

rv

V vi

C major d minor e minor F major G major a minor

i N m iv V

VI

vn

c minor Neapolitan Et major f minor g minor At major Bt major

Example 2-1. The keys available to the tonality of C major/minor. While tonality organizes keys in a manner analogous to the way key organizes chords, there are in practice some significant differences between the two organizing concepts. For example, in order to change the mode of a key Ctojjc Music, Leonard G. Ratner, New York: Schirmer Books, 1980. pp. 48-51. This material jj'll be discussed in more detail in Chapter 4 below ibid. Chapter 4.

24

from major to minor, one need merely change two chords. The progression IV-VI can be replaced by the progression iv-V-i and the transformation is complete. All the required notes will have been changed to notes of the harmonic minor scale. To change a tonality from major to minor requires much more effort. Since what has to be changed are keys. It is not enough: ta change a few chords, since any major tonality has included its parallel minor key since the mid 18th century. In order to accomplish modal shift of a tonality, it is necessary to change TIT, iv, V, VI and VII to hi, IV, V, vi and ii respectively.^“* Chord progressions will be required which uniquely define each of the new keys in order for the higher order structure to emerge. Unlike the situation with chords, which occur in a limited number of progressions, the order of modulation for exchange of keys within tonalities is not prescribed. Local modulations may be quite dramatic as the keys are reshuffled between major and minor tonalities. (For example, in moving from the tonality of C minor to C major, the sequence of keys might easily include modulation from Ej, major to A minor.) Example 2-2 shows an excerpt from the second theme in the recapitulation to the first movement of Beethoven’s fifth symphony (mm. 324-331). In the exposition the second theme had appeared in the context of Ei, major. In the recapitulation it appears in C major. Beethoven was not content merely to present the melodic material in the key of the parallel major. He actually transforms the mode of the tonality to C major by means of implied exchange of the keys of iv and

V

of C minor for IV and V of C major. The exchange is accomplished by

means of vii"? -1 progressions in the keys of F and

The effect is then one of

structural transformation rather than of simple modal borrowing. Techniques like this lead to the spectacular final movement which becomes more than an emphatic expanded piccardian third, but rather functions as the logical and necessary outcome of structural transformations throughout the course of the first three movements. We will see similar effects in Wagner. In C major that would require discarding E|, major, f minor, g minor. At major and B|, major respectively, and substituting for them e minor, F major, G major, a minor and d minor. “ Though diminished seventh chords are allowed in both modes routinely, this particular instance emphasizes the minor-major transformation by means of motivic activity over the diminished seventh chords, and melodic emphasis of the diminished fourth between the major third and minor sixth degrees.

25

Example 2-2

‘4 JiÀi

1.

pN=id J 1 '4------M-----T-

P [> 4

,J J 1li f

t

Ì

------1 7- ---- d--------1 J

psi:, L

_=F

JÉ_________

P'

1

Example 2-2. Measures 323-330 of Beethoven's fifth symphony, first movement. Implied modal shifts from the keys of F minor to F major and G minor to G major strengthen the tonality of C major. Tonality as a distinct tonal level contains a wide variety of resources. If each tonality generates 13 keys, each of those keys can generate chord progressions of its own. Thus, changing from one tonality to another can be accomplished in a relatively seamless manner: there are no two tonalities that do not have a large number of chords in common. On the other hand, defining a tonality becomes quite difficult. In a manner analogous to defining the tritone as fourth and seventh scale degrees, it is necessary to juxtapose keys that uniquely fiefine a single source. Such modulations as V-iv and i - iii accomplish this quite efficiently. Tonality is an important structural resource in Wagner's style. We shall often find a key operating as a background tonality which never appears in the foreground, but which nevertheless acts as a significant element in the total musico-dramatic structure. In other instances, Wagner will use non-scalar configurations as the organizational material for keys in a sequence of

26 modulations. The concept of tonality is a powerful analytical tool and rigorously unifies large portions of music which seem to have no tonal center.^® Modal mixture is generally complete in the works of Wagner. Wagner’s use of this mixture is not random however, and we find in the Ring an intentional split along the major/ntinor axis separating Wotan and Alberich, as will be discussed in Chapter 7. There are many examples of this-type of mixture where a synthetic “minor” tonality will be inferred from a sequence of keys borrowed from i, ii, iii, iv, V, and vi, while a synthetic “major” tonality will be inferred from

successions of keys borrowed from I, N, IH, IV, V, VI, VII. Keys outside these tonal orbits are in violation of the house laws and often do not lead to a happy ending. At the very least, they demand some corrective tonal action to restore the music to its natural state. A specific example would be the C major of Rheingold i.

The key of C major, which appears with the

appearance of the gold, is outside the salutary bounds of Et major. The offending note (E natural) is rectified at the end of the scene through the theft of the gold while simultaneously returning the Rhine to its C minor darkness. This will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 5. Key is an ordering system based on a scale. Harmonically it is the sum total of chord progressions which may be described in terms of a given scale, and is also the organizing factor which rationalizes their activity with respect to its tonic triad. For example, a G major chord will behave veiy differently in the keys of C major (resolving to C major), B minor (resolving to F# major) and A minor (resolving to E major). Progressions usually gravitate towards the tonic triad of the scale, though it may never be achieved. Chord progressions may define a scale without actually sounding the tonic note or triad. Consider the progression

In Abbate’s analysis of the Tagesgespräch from Tristan, Act II, she remarks on Tristan’s modulations through the keys of B, E, A, D and G, and of Isolde’s move to E major and Tristan s response in A|,. She does not mention modes. “Wagner, ‘On Modulation’, and Tristan’, in Cambridge Opera Journal, I, 1, 33-58 The concept of tonality when applied to this succession of keys demonstrates that Tristan’s speech is based on an E minor tonality, modulating to its related keys, and Isolde’s move to E major shifts the tonality and allows Tristan access to the key of iii of E enharmonically spelled as Ai,. Thus the tonality of the Tagesgespräch is E minor-E major, and the relation to the discussion of the Torch and Daylight which separate the two lovers is seen to be related to Brünnhilde’s magic fire. Tonality is a rigorous concept and is not open to speculation, it is a result of the relations between chords and keys, and this result is therefore objective. No appeals need to be made to subjective aspects of perception.

ii-V in any key with the overlying melodic figure as shown in C major in Example 2-3a. Here the key is clearly defined without recourse to tonic note or triad.^^ In standard tonal practice, the failure of the tonic to appear might be heard to frustrate an expected resolution, but the key will have been precisely defined. In Wagnerian harmony keys are always defined but often not achieved.

Thus

references to a key may sometimes be obscure, yet remain analyzable and significant. Example 2-3b shows a similar harmonic progression to Example 2-3a used by Wagner to specific expressive intent. The example is taken from Rheingold i, mm. 409-412. The keys of E[, minor and Dt minor are rigorously defined by their ii*7-V7 progressions. The keys define either iii and ii of Q, major or v and iv of A),

S;? minor. The resolution to the note Q, over a V9 chord of Ej, resolves the question of the tonality of Alberich s lament, and at the same time demonstrates its impotence. The note, along with Alberich’s emotional pain, is virtually thrown away by the orchestra, which represents his tonality as a mere pizzicato above a

f sustained chord.

” Bailey remarks that in Wagner the dominant is often identified with the tonic in his analyses of ristan, in his essay the Norton Analytical Score of the Prelude and Transfiguration from Tristan and Isolde. Norton, 1985. The dominant, being sufficient to define the key when preceded by an appropriate chord of the pre-dominant variety (ii, IV. etc....) is not identified with the tonic but Wwely serves to define the key, from which point further modulation may proceed. This is not a ait peculiar to Wagner, as the logic of the progression in Example 2-3a shows. Once the »sumption of tonality is made, the key must be C major for the progression in the absence of any contravening evidence. It is at this point that Schenkerian analysis breaks down, being unable to eliKidate the distinction between a defined key lacking a tonic chord and the linear elements on the surface of the music. The usage of harmony to define key without reference to the tonic chord is ^t neÄi to Wagner and may be found in Bach Chorales, see for examples his various settings of •he Passion chorale “Herzlich thut mich verlangen”. °

28 Example 2-3

Example 2-3. Definition of key without reference to the tonic, a. The key of C is defined without reference to its tonic, b Wagner uses a similar principal to define the keys of Ej, and Dj,, and the tonality of Q. The tonality of Q is dissolved as m inconsequential pizzicato minor ninth over the V chord of E|, major. Rheingold, i, mm. 410-412. The Chord is a stmcture built on thirds within a given scale. There is no other way to generate functional chords. The vocabulary of chords available to a tonic from parallel major and minor, including the augmented sixth, diminished seventh and Neapolitan chords,^* are listed below in Example 2-4. Functional

5* Though not derived from scale tones, these chords are included here. ^ below in the discussion of non-scale tones, and their inclusion m the tonal palette lon„ predates Wagner’s compositions.

29 chords which are outside the boundaries defined by those listed must be considered to violate the nature of the key and therefore force modulation, whether confirmed by cadences or not.^’

The table lists chords which are

routinely observed in common practice pieces in the standard repertoire.

Example 2-4 I ii

c major d minor

ill

e minor

IV

F major

V

G major

V

vi

a minor

V VI

vii”

b diminished

‘tí

1

ii” ii

m m-" iv IV

Vi”

vn

vii”

c minor d diminished d minor El, major Et augmented f minor F major g minor Gmajor At major a diminished Bt major b diminished

N(iJI) Neapolitan acceptable in both major or minor A6: Augmented sixths of any variety in major or minor Diminished seventh chords in both major and minor Other seventh, ninth and eleventh chords as accessible from scale degrees Example 2-4. Functional chords available from the key of C major/minor. Note is defined in the standard manner. In the case of transposing instruments we will be considering the sounding pitch. There are three levels of freedom for notes in tonal music.

59 The functional nature of harmonic analysis means that added notes such as 7ths and 9ths, and inversions, do not require notation unless they change the harmonic function of the chord. The diminished seventh chord, which can be harmonically ambiguous, is strictly notated when such notation is essential to describe its harmonic function. Second inversion chords will be notated as •hey actually behave. For example, a cadential I«4 is often considered to be a V substitute (Vs), while a passing 154 is considered to be a I chord.

30 Chord Tones are single notes which belong to the prevailing chord of the moment. They are free to move to any other note in the chromatic scale. Non-Chord Tones are single notes which do not belong to the prevailing chord of the moment. Their position in the tonal hierarchy requires of them an immediate resolution according to the rules of common practice. Non-Scale Tones are chromatic notes which are not ¡ârt of the prevailing key. Given the diatonic scale origin of Wagner's keys, no non-scale tone may be considered as belonging to a given key unless it resolves according to the following procedures: 1) The chromatic appoggiatura/neighbor tone: any scale tone niay be immediately preceded by a non-scale note one half step below it. 2) Chromatic scales between scale tones are allowed in either direction at any time. 3) Modal borrowing from parallel major or minor modes is always allowed. 4) Neapolitan and augmented sixth chords allow introduction of the lowered 2nd and raised 4th scale degrees respectively. Wagner adhered rigidly to these mies. Non-scale tones may often generate chords outside a key.®’ So long as the non-scale tones resolve according to the procedures above there is no modulation, though there may be profound significance. Secondary dominants, however, are specifically excluded from this list since they imply a new local tonic by definition. This definition will be shown later to be justified by discussions in Chapter 4 and Chapter 8.

“ This was a commoii tonal practice even in Mozart's time. For an example, see the opening of the A major trio of genies in The Magic Flute^ Act H. An example of an ersatz "chord" from outside a given key may be seen in Mozarts Concerto m A Major, K.488, 2nd movement, measure 6. In this measure the sounded chord of a minor is followed’by the tonic chord of m minor, a progression impossible in the latter key . The h^f-step resolution of b# (the "c" of the a minor chord) to c# in the » minor chord explains the b# as a non-scale tone and labels the A minor chord as foreign to the prevailing environment

31

32

982

ein Kind

hiit- en

=M= r~r^ij«r J71J•t 9=«|^ :-j] ' It * r Ip^ -■-=[ ....

—

Ö

a

5

trug sie im schoos - se;

trau-rig ge-bar

sie's

a

hier;

Ì rw

r~T

J-—

l?0-

t« wand sich hin

m

I

und her.

ich

half so

gut

ich könnt':

f

^ JTJ l s:

J

iJ

34

Example 2-5. Mime’s narration of Siegfried’s birth. Siegfried I,i, nim. 970-1005.

B.

Analytical Methods

Since there are seven different methods for projecting pitch in the tonal hierarchy, and since modulation is often cued to textual, visual or dramatic cues, no one method can demonstrate all possible compositional relationships. Several different methods will be used to examine tonal and harmonic structures in their relation to text and drama. To demonstrate the value and limitation of several different methods of harmonic analysis. Mime’s narration of Siegfried s birth

{Siegfried I,i, mm. 970-1005) will be examined. example 2-5.

A reduction is presented in

35 Roman Numeral Analysis In situations where determining harmonic function in terms of a local key is necessary, standard key-chord analysis by means of Roman numerals will be applied. This will be strictly limited to chords within keys as defined above, with no status granted to chords resulting from non-scale tones.

Their lack of

functionality in the tonal hierarchy is their dramatic point, and they are subjugated to the demands of the upper levels of the hierarchy. Every note in a piece has a function, even if that function is ‘non functional’.

Non-scale tones as defined above are acceptable so long as they

resolve appropriately. Any chords derived from non-scale tones will be assigned no function. Such notations as |,vi (a minor chord based on the minor sixth of a keyj are impossible to build in terms of scale degrees in thirds and will not be assigned. It must be emphasized that non-scale notes must resolve immediately and will always be directly associated with a functional note and chord in some way. A Roman numeral analysis of mm. 987-990 yields the result 987 et: iA -V7 -1 - ii'’, -V7 -1 // dt:

990 -V7 -1 ii^ -V7 -1

This progression is recognizable as the same progression Alberich used in

Rheingold i, cited above in example 2-3b. Text Key Analysis Wagner, as is well known, wrote of modulation in relation to poetic intent. In passages where explication of key relationships within an extended textual excerpt is required, the text will be transcribed with the appropriate tonics noted where they occur in the text. If necessary, Roman numeral chord symbols will be placed at their occurrence within the text to clarify unusual progressions within a key. This type of diagram implies no lessening of rigor in the analytical approach ■ every note of the excerpt will have been considered, and no approximations will have been made. This type of diagram is adopted purely for reasons of clarity in presenting the results.

36 Considering the same four measures as above we get ei,;

,

sie 1 wand sich hin und her I ich half so gut ich könnt’ I gross war die

from which it is clear that not only is the harmonic progression and the key sequence identical to Alberich’s lament in example 2-3b, but the imagery is as well. Sieglinde and Alberich experience their respective distresses in the same progression and the same keys (though not in the same tonalities as we shall see.)

T .inear Harmonic Analysis The method of linear harmonic analysis in this paper is derived from that of Leland Smith,“ with one modification. Though Smith admits direct modulation to keys not closely related, we avoid this approach to be in accord with "strict observance of the house rules." Modulations will be considered as proceeding through networks of closely related keys, which are defined as only those keys whose tonic triads are members of the originating major or natural minor scale, including the Neapolitan. More distantly related modulations -- to keys that might be notated as #iv or i,vii for example - routinely appear between keys and are in no way interdicted. However, such modulations are indirect and thus usually require the presence of a mediating background key to explain them.

Unexplained distant modulations

often lead to dramatic catastrophes, as will be discussed in Chapter 5 in relation to Alberich and the Tarnhelm.

The assignment of inappropriate relationships

between keys is an error that can cause the collapse of the middle ground structure of the tonal hierarchy, and with it a loss of tonal reference and concomitant dissolution of the associative process between music and drama. Though this analytical process can become quite complicated, it is essential to demonstrate Wagner's technique of creating tonal coherence. In the process of closely analyzing the paths of modulation, tonalities routinely emerge in the background that are not directly expressed on the surface. This turns out to be one of Wagner’s most important structural devices. In the process of relating keys to one another without paying attention to the path of modulation, the

“ Smith, k Handbook of Harmonic Analysis.

background levels of tonal reference disappear and analysis can only reveal a linear chromatic maze.

Furthermore, if it is the case that fixed poetic key

referents exist in Wagner, then it becomes impossible to define them if strict control of tonal relations is not maintained.®^ The presence of non-chord or non-scale tones may result in chords foreign to a key.

Such ersatz chords will be omitted firom the anal5^ical diagram but

referenced in the analytical discussion. They are not necessarily less important in terms of dramatic weight - on the contrary, weakened tonal position will often make a dramatic statement. This only presents problems for Wagnerian analysis when surface events on the level of chord function are not properly assigned their appropriate position in the hierarchical harmonic structure.®^ Linear harmonic analysis is particularly appropriate for demonstrating relationships between chord, key and tonality. Example 2-6 is a sample linear harmonic analytical diagram

it presents

the tonal material on the levels of (a) Signature, (b) Tonality, (c) Key, and (d) Harmonic Function. A line separates the level of current harmonic function from the levels of hierarchical tonal reference. Numbered bar lines appear at level (e). A separate line (f) may be included for miscellaneous notes or reference to the libretto text and stage directions. Chords are notated in the standard Roman numeral manner, respecting the use of upper and lower case for major and minor respectively.

Other-

abbreviations include

For Ais reason, such claims as Lewin's (see footnote 47) that D sharp minor and D flat major are really "substitutes" for D minor, and Bailey's (“The Structure of the Ring and its Evolution”) that D minor is an "expressive shift" of D flat major, render the processes of linear harmonic syntax and poetic key association incoherent. If keys can be substituted up or down by a half step, any key stand for any other key at any time. At this point any key can be interpreted as any other key,

à

With no p^icular logic for deciding when any tonal element is simply itself or when it is substitute" for something else. Under such conditions it becomes possible to define anything in ^actically any terms. It is also disconcerting that there is no mechanism for deciding when and w such substitutions are defined. Bald assertion cannot be considered to be an insiehtfiil ^alytical technique. j^is approach is orthogonal to the hierarchical structuring of contrapuntal analysis as defined by ^henker: we are considering harmonic relationships of chords to a tonic rather than notes in a scale. The reasons for this will become clear in later analyses.

38 1. Is, Vs, substitutes for the given harmonic functions, as in deceptive cadences. 2. The symbols °,

*, are used for diminished, half-diminished and augmented.

3. The symbol // is used to signify a sudden modulation without pivot.

Example 2-6 (a) Key Signature (b) CURRENT TONALITY (There will often be multiple levels of reference)

(c) CURRENT KEY ^ ¡ ¡

i

(d) HARMONIC FUNCTION (e) MEASURE NUMBERS (f)TEXT

Example 2-6. Sample analytical diagram for linear harmonic analysis. (a) Key Signature. This is considered to be Wagner's most abstract tonal symbol, being the only level of the hierarchy which does not necessarily represent a specific audible musical event. All music within a given key signature will be related to that signamre. (b) Current Tonality represents background keys which govern the behavior and relationships between the keys we hear. Such relationships may have several levels. In addition, the highest tonal level may assume an arbitrary relationship to the key signature. (c) Key. The imTnf-.f1iatp. local key which determines surface level chord progressions. Keys are always derived from tonalities through networks of closely related keys. (d) Harmonic Function. Each chord in a scale will be considered to be a distinct harmonic function which will be represented by the standard Roman numerals. In addition, the principal functions of Tome, Dominant, and Subdonunant may often be substituted by the standard procedures available in tonal music since the time of Bach. (e) Measure numbers as required. (f) Text or other comments as required.

39 In applying this technique to Wagner's works, special attention needs to be made to the interval of modulation and which possible background key that interval implies, and to non-scale tones and their behavior, irrespective of their actual duration. The Fate motive, first introduced in the opening two measures of Walküre n,iv is one of the more interesting motives in the Ring, and actually does include non-fiinctiqnal chords in some of its appearances. Two occurrences of the motive are shown in example 2-7. Example 2-7a shows the first occurrence of the motive in the opera in Walküre H,iv (mm. 1462-1463). Example 2-7b shows the last occurrence in the same opera, Walküre m, mm. 1723-1724 (8 measures before the end of the opera). The linear harmonic anlayses of these measures are shown in examples 2-8a and 2-8b respectively. Example 2-7 a.

Example 2-7. The first and last appearances of the Fate motive in

Walküre. a. First appearance. Act II Scene iv, measures 1462-1463. b. Final appearance. Act m Scene iii, measures 1723-1724.

40 Example 2-8

f#

E

i______

IV(A)--I

V I

iv

V

I V=I

Example 2-8. Harmonic analyses of two versions of the Fate motive in

Walküre

a. First appearance, Act II Scene iv, measures 1462-1463 b. Final appearance. Act HI Scene iii, measures 1723-1724 The first occurrence of the motive contains one of the clearest examples of a structure which sounds like a chord from a foreign key, but is not. The motive seems to be made up of the chord D minor resolving to a dominant seventh chord in F# minor, a progression not possible in any key.®^ At least one of the notes in the progression must be a non-chord tone. Examination shows that the third of the seeming D minor chord is not F natural but E sharp. Since chords must be built in thirds, “D minor” is not functionally a chord here at all, and the notes D and A are treated as non-chord tones. D minor forsakes its own house laws in favor of those of the Valkyrie's F sharp minor. Lorenz discusses the role of Siegmund as being in D minor.®® Siegmund appears in D minor and dies in D minor and spends much of his time trying to get to D major.

For example, Walküre I,i consists of two waves of modulation

through keys associated with shifting the tonality from D minor to D major.

1) D minor prelude and Siegmund’s entrance, (m 142) to A major (V of D major) as Sieglinde brings the mead drink (mm. 262) “ The ersatz D minor chord appears suddenly after a repeated iv-V progression in E minor, so that its initial appearance is already disorienting. Resolution to F#;V renders it non-functional. “ Das Geheimnis der Form bei Richard Wagner, Voi. I. Hans Schneider, Tutzmg, 1966. p. 281. Though Lorenz has been questioned on a number of issues, this assignment of key has some ment His methods are discussed in McLatchie, Stephen, Analyzing Wagner's Operas: Alfred Lorenz and German Nationalist Ideology, Rochester and Woodbridge. University of Rochester Press, 1998.

41 2) D minor as Siegmund attempts to leave, (m. 293) and D major for Siegmund’s decision to stay and the postlude to I,i (m. 365). He is held back from achieving D major by such tonal elements as his C major sword, which binds him to D minor Another example of Wagner’s creation of a composite “minor” tonality is shown in his sequence through the initial chords on d minor, e minor and f# minor of the Fate motive in the opening measures of Walküre n,iv. The resolution of the ersatz chords i, ii, and iii, of D into the keys of F#, Ai. and

(enharmonically

the 1,2 and 3 of F# major) makes several tonal statements simultaneously: 1. Ersatz chords are being trumped by keys. Siegmund’s D is subject to a higher level order. 2. Siegmund’s struggle to get to D major involves exchanging F for F#. This achievement is only possible through his acceptance of his F# minor fate. 3. The tonal relationship between his F# minor destiny and his C major sword does not bode well for his future dependence on his weapon’s efficacy. 4. From the god’s point of view, the key of Bi, major is an extreme excursion from the salutary bounds set up by the house laws of F# minor. Siegmund’s response to this tonal hubris is it’s tonal correction in his Bi, minor interlude ending with “Hella halte mich fest!” [Let Hella hold me!]. Powerless to determine its own destiny, Siegmund's tonic is demoted by the Fate motive from its status as key signature, tonality, and key to the level of a mere pair of diverging displaced notes.

Can there be a more eloquent musical

'demonstration of the power of fate?

Harmonic analysis demonstrates this by

excluding any mention of the ersatz D minor chord from the diagram. The chord IS meaningless in the prevailing tonal context. 2-8b.

The last occurrence of the Fate motive in Walküre is analyzed in Example Here the D minor chord is followed by an E major chord, forming a clear

iv-V progression in the key of A. The key signature at this point is E major, and die Fate motive can be seen as an intensification of a piagai cadence. Rather thap Though this particular V of Bt remains indeterminate in regards to mode, when Brunnhilde responds to this progression 48 measures into the scene she does so in the major.

42 a iv -1 chord progression, however, we get a iv -1 modulation. A standard chord progression has become a key progression. In terms of tonal association, the final progression of Walküre points to A major.

This is a key with consistent associations in Wagner’s output.

Lohengrin’s aria in A major, “In fernem Land, unnahbar euren schritten” [in a distant land, unapproachable by your footsteps] is certainly relevant to the image of Brunnhilde’s condition. Another example of A major occurs in the second act of Tristan und Isolde, where Tristan discourses on his inabihty to approach Isolde until the torch was extinguished. In Sieglinde’s aria “Du bist der Lenz [you are the spring] A major appears for the words “was im Busen ich barg

[what I

carried in my bosom]. Thus we see that in both instances, the expressive power of the motive derives not merely from its momentary signification or label, nor from the actual events or dialogue taking place on stage, but rather from its abihty to comment on and force evolution of the tonal background.

From Siegmund’s point of view in

Act n the motive is tonally destructive. From Brunnhilde’s point of view in Act in the motive is a promise for her future. In chapters 7 and 8 the motive will be discussed firom Wotan’s point of view, throwing an entirely different light on the derivation of the motive and its meaning. Having only partially examined two instances of one motive, it should become clear that motives are not arbitrary but derive their expressive significance from tonal and harmonic functions rather than from the popular labels that have become attached to them. Example 2-9 presents a linear harmonic analysis of Mime’s narrative of Siegfiied’s birth.

This is a problematic passage which cannot be completely

analyzed by the approaches suggested so far, and will require one more technique described below for complete clarification. The piece begins with a sequence moving halfway around the circle of fifths from C minor to F# major.

After that

point, the tonal path becomes more complicated. The principal problem has to do with the tonal path describing the modulation from F# to F in m. 984. This is an unmediated shift in the tonal background, even though the surface chords easily subsume into an F#: V - I = F: N - V -1 progression. When Wagner modulates to a key a half step below a local tonic, he generally uses a the path through V and iii, the dominant and the minor key on major 3. In this case, the pattem seems to hold, as the following sequence.

43 Example 2-9 C v(g) v(d) V (a)----------------V (e)------------. v(b)

i = ivivmvii”, ¡Vvini=viivi-i 970

i = iv IV I i = iv I V I - N i I V il

C v(g)-------------//#iv(f#)--------------------------------------------------------V (d)------------- // V (c#)---------------------------------------------------------V (a)-------------// iii (f)-------------------// ii (ei,)------------ // i (c#)------- .// V (e)------------- // v(b)------------- // V (F#) // Vlvi = iiV II = N VlrV V liV VlZ/ii", VyliA V7l//ii"7 V7lii*7 V7I 982 f

#iv (f#) -----------------V (c#)-----// iv (b)- i // v(g#)-//

VI (D) — // V (c#) - iv (b) —

N

// viiM-l// Vli = ivlVlilVI = IVIII-l//Vlis = vii“7lVli = iv ivll 991

Example 2-9. Linear harmonic analysis of Mime’s narration of Siegfried’s birth. Siegfried l,i, mm. 970-1004.

44 analyzed above as descending through the keys f-et-di., is most easily rationalized as a sequential descent through iii-ii-i of WC#, the dominant of F#.

The

subsequent modulations are relatively easy to follow. It is notable that the highest level of tonality changes to #iv, f# minor, halfway through the excerpt. As stated above, the highest level of tonality may assume any relation to the key signature. In this case, it is hm'directly derivable from C major. This issue will be clarified by the next analytical technique.

.Sequence of Tonics In some cases, the overall structure of a passage may remain unclear even after assigning key relationships between tonics in a linear harmonic analysis. In those instances, often the succession of tonics will outline some specific melodic or motivic pattern. An analytical reduction which shows the succession of tonics can sometimes provide a clue to the overall tonal organization of a scene. In the case of modulations within phrases, different rhythmic values may be used to show the relationship between tonics. Example 2-10 shows m analysis of the sequence of keys in Mime’s narration of Siegfried’s birth. Though this type of diagram may loosely resemble a Schenkerian graph, it is here emphasized that what are represented here are tonics, most of which do not explicitly occur in the score as chords. The first half of the excerpt presents no problem, since the tonics proceed through the circle of fifths moving from C to F#. As the diagram suggests, the subsequent tonics outline two simple cadential melodies in F#, 1-7-6-5-2-4-1, suggesting an authentic cadence in mm. 983-996, and [,6-5-4-1 suggesting a piagai cadence in mm. 997-1004. The emphasis of keys drawn from the B minor triad for the opening half cadences (D,B,F#) and the final phrases (D,Dt,B,F#)

are

reminiscences of the curse. The extended reference to F# minor for most of the excerpt, as an orienting factor for the melody produced by the sequence of keys, recalls Siegmund’s encounter with this same key in Walküre H,iv.

Sieglinde

meets her destiny in the same key. For this reason the highest level of tonality is “ A note on the mechanics of key assignment is helpful. The opening phrase is defined by a cadence on C minor ending Mime’s previous speech. The melody C-F#-D-^ unique^ minor. Di, minor (mm. 989-990) is defined by B«,, and by the resolution of Mime s Noth to H. At/G# minor (mm. 991-992) is defined by the diminished fourth Q,-G.

45 assigned the function of #iv once the key of F# is achieved. The overall shape of the piece is a modulation from C minor to F#/G|,, and there is no return to C. Example 2-10

970

983

971

984

987

974

989

976

991

993

977

994

997

979

1000 1002

1003

4 Example 2-10. Tonic sequence analysis of Mime’s narration of Siegfried’s birth. Siegfried’s birth in the key of D major earmarks that key as his, and prepares us for the end of the act when he finishes forging his sword in that key. ^The ultimate resolution of that D major into F# at the end of this narration, as part of the subsequent poignant piagai modulations, is the musical equivalent of his question: “So starb meine Mutter an mir?” [So my mother died because of me?]. Siegfried’s D is subordinated to the F# in which Sieglinde died. His status as an orphan is predetermined by fate. The analyses of Petty, assigning tonalities of C, Bi, minor and D major over ; the course of 29 measures, ® of Lorenz, assigning a tonality of D minor,™ and of McCreless which assign c-d-a-frf,^* are aU contraindicated by this analysis. The

® ..c ‘Sieglinde’s ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’”, Opera Journal, 1997. pp. 11-35. ,:33 ill

Lorenz, A., Das Geheimnis der Form bei Richard Wagner, Voi. I, Hans Schneider, Tiitzing. p.

'Wagner’s Siegfried Its Drama, History and Music, Patrick McCreless, UMI Research Press Ann Aor 1982. p. 116. He assigns the four keys c-d-a-f# in Table 2-8 and the key of C in Figure 2-9. /There is no evidence of the key of A in this narrative beyond one pivotal measure in a modulating .^quence (m. 976).

46 excerpt is structurally a modulation from C minor to F# major over the course of 36 measures. As example 2-10 demonstrates, the appearance of the key of F major is as a key of leading tone to F# minor, in a progression of tonics organized around the notes of the V chord of F#. The only two tonics which are granted the strength of complete cadences in the score are 'F# mm. 984, 996 and 1005 and D, mm 998-999. These two keys confirm the point of the narrative as Sieglinde’s death through Siegfried’s birth.

Every musical event is focused around the

expanded piagai resolution of B minor into F# through the agency of Siegfried’s D major birth. The key signature of the excerpt is C major, a key irrelevant to any of the material that occurs in this excerpt. Though the narrative begins immediately after a C minor cadence, the subsequent modulations through minor keys around the circle of fifths and the end of the piece in F# deny any relationship to C major. Its significance must be seen as entirely inaudible and associative rather than audible and structural. On the other hand, the melodic motion of C to F# in the first two measures outlines the tonal structure of the piece. The opening chord progressions then proceed from the implied minor chord of C to the chord of F# major (V of b) mm. 970 - 980. Harmonically, the piece moves through a circle of fifths progression from C minor up to F# minor. Structurally, the piece is a modulation from C to F# major, confirmed by both authentic and piagai modulations, as shown in the key sequence diagram. The first and last chords are cadences on C and Q, major. The tonal function of every note is accountable in this analysis, and the modulation may be interpreted as the psychological growth Siegfried experiences during the course of the narrative.

The evolution of a single melodic move to a chord

progression to a key sequence to a tonal stmcture is another aspect of Wagner’s technique, which will be seen repeatedly in the following chapters. WAGNER THE ATONALIST? A number of analysts have referred to Wagner’s atonality or non functional tonality in published literature. The survey below discusses some of these examples in the light of the analytical techniques we have suggested. It is unnecessary to abandon tonal logic or to seek esoteric ad hoc hypotheses to

47 explain any of these passages and demonstrate their functional coherence. In most cases, doing so breaks the objectively quantifiable connection between music and the drama. Three short excerpts will be discussed which have been described as atonal or unexplainable in the literature.

Their tonal coherence will be

demonstrated. The Conspiracy Scene in Götterdämmfi.runv We begin with an example from Götterdämmerung studied by Abbate.’^ She writes: The speech ends with strong cadential posturing toward B|, major, a typical Wagnerian mock-closing flourish, in which the actual statement of the tonic chord is avoided. Here the cadence is swallowed by an orchestral outburst that ends almost atonally, in wholly disorienting, chromatic parallel sixths that glide to a jarring halt on F#-C for the refrain This refrain is abandoned as abruptly as it was approached, as F#-C is opened up into octave D for Hagen’s speech. The first 13 measures of her Example 3.4 are presented in Example 2-11. Her Example 3.4 quotes directly from the Kalmus vocal score, beginning on page 211 third score first measure. Due to the fact that there are errors in that transcription, a more accurate arrangement from the full score is presented here.” The chromatic scales that Abbate refers to as being almost wholly disorienting are presumably those in measures 6-7 of the example. Without need to do a complete linear analysis, it can be seen that in measure 2 of the example we enter the tonality of Q, major through tonicization of its sixth degree. The pedal tone on F resolves up by half step to F# in measures 78. Thus the expected cadence to B], has been the object of a deceptive modulation. As with the last appearance of the Fate motive in Walküre analyzed above, we see

^ In Analyzing Opera: Verdi and Wagner, C. Abbate and R. Parker, eds. 92-124. Her example 3.4 on page 113 is under consideration here. The arpeggiated diminished seventh chords in the second and third measure of the example are not in the full score. In their place is a triplet figure D-Et-F-Q,. The difference between these two melodic figures is tonally significant. The arpeggiated diminished seventh chord emphativi-s Ei, as ™ key of resolution. The triplet figure in the score emphasizes Q, as the goal of melodic motion. The equivalence of melodic and tonal action found so often in Wagner is confirmed by the progressions in the second through eighth measures of the example, as the bass line resolves to F#.

48 a harmonic progression elevated to the status of a modulation by a process of recursive self-reference.

The last Fate motive in Walküre intensified a piagai

cadence by making the move iv of IV - I. Here, the deceptive cadence V-VI becomes rather a deceptive cadential modulation, V - i of vi of VI. The cadence that would have been on the chord of Q, is now a modulation to the tonal area of Q, by means of its own deceptive cadential modulation.

Xhe progressions in

measures 2 - 6 of the example emphasize the scale degrees of ei,, Q,, and at, before entering the chromatic slide. As we enter the chromatic descent in measure 6 of the example on the third beat, we approach it from a perfectly orthodox Q,: iie chord. The chromatic slide commences on the first inversion triad of At minor and falls to the first inversion triad of Et minor. At this point, however, the chromatic descent stops, and the E|, minor chord is followed t>y a Di, major chord, a standard vi-V harmonic progression in Q,. Chromatics tell us nothing about key so long as they begin and end on scald tones, wliich this sticcessibfa does. Since we entered the scale from a Q, ilMjor tbbality, afid we exit the chrolhatics with the most orthddox oí G¡, major proiressidils, and sirice the hrogiession aè a whole surrounding the chromatics outlines the rriost lucid of caderitial progressions, it does not follow that the pàssage is alhiost atonal or wholly disorienting, as Abbate regards it to be. The jarring halt on the F#-C tritone accomplishes in part exactly what we have been expecting for the six measures, at least as far as the bass line is concerned.

It is

the completion of an unambiguous vi-IV-ii-vi-V cadential progression in Q,. The F leading tone in the bass resolves up by half step to its tonic. What surprises is the C natural above the F#, and the constant reversal of the resolution we would have expected of that note to Dj, or C#.

When C finally resolves to C# five

measures later, it is treated as a leading tone to D major, and we are treated to another modulation down a major third. This second modulation is quite telling. It resolves to an open D octave in response to Brunnhilde’s question “Wer bietet mir nun das Schwert, mit dem ich die Bande zerschnitt?” [Who lends me now the sword with which I can break the bonds?]. The irony of this open D octave, to which a fifth but no third is added, is

49 clear when we consider Bailey’s observation of D major as a fixed tonal reference to Siegfried’s swordJ'* The D key/chord is empty, there is no sword there.

ÖMQr

Example 2-11

74

.“The Structure of the Ring and Its Evolution**

p. 53.

50 r-B----- k--------- br---------- ------------

\(\)------------------1 --------^------ ---------------1 ^ Wer b ie

u

------------------------------------1 J___ __J______ tet mir nun das Schwert,

Pj

y \

J

-

____ Î____ T_________ ^^

-f—^

____ --- __ ^_____________ __ _ 1 >--------------------------------------------------_________________________ O ^

-cm

•r

rf-----------.. —r -1-------------p____ are—e— ______ILL___L— ¿ ______ U__U— ich die E an - d e zer-s chnitt?

r-fi—t------------- --------------L-iP——s-----I'F---------'P 'j n 7 r Id) -^-------------- ---------\) _____

/N —----- n

r

nlit h

—^ » i ^

c em

-

-------------------

3------------------

'

T-------- Fr

V—

------------ 3?

•r

"j

^

r

. z*

Ë_____ a » "

----------• y------------- ------------" ^1ÎÆ____________ B.K-

LJCJUI

Example 2-11. Gôtterdâmmerung'il^\,ïsxm. 1376-1388. Hagen’s subsequent insinuation through his Et minor into this vacancy is all the more sinister for that reason, and it mirrors the resolution of D-E|, so carefully reiterated by the composer in measures 2-5 of Example 2-11. However that resolution, which first occurred between two notes within a key, is now elevated to the status of a modulation between two keys. The sequence of tonalities in this example; Bf, - G], - D is organized around the augmented triad, which characterizes much of Brünnhilde’s music. This will be discussed in greater depth in Chapter 8 below.

51 Example 2-12

52 Fricka’s Lament Newcomb makes the following statement about a passage from Fricka’s Lament in Walküre H, ii. The two three-measure phrases at the beginning of the section (augmented triads in half-step ascending sequence) are functionally anomalous.’^ Example 2-12 presents the music referenced here, measures 314-320 of act H. The opening B major third of measure 314 is approached by its own two measure dominant, and is the point at which the aria completes its modulation from minor tonic to its relative major. The harmonic analysis is presented in example 2-13. The diagram shows a perfectly orthodox usage of the augmented üT triad as a dominant substitute in a series of chromatic modulations returning step by step to the subdominant from the relative major. This specific usage of HT as a dominant substitute can be seen in Mozart and should be no surprise here. The sequence is certainly not functionally anomalous in any way, but follows the standard behaviors of the chords and keys in question. The half-step modulations serve dramatically to heighten the tension in preparation for Fricka’s final outburst, and are analogous to the half step modulations between the three verses of Tannhäuser’s song to Venus, in the first act of that opera. Example 2-13 g# = iv (c#)

ni(B)---------------------------vi-------------------N(c)vi--------------------- N(C#) I

vi = i 1 Vs (HT) -1 = Vs I I vi = i 1 Vs (üT) — I = Vs — I i ...... (320) (314)

Example 2-13. Linear harmonic analysis of an excerpt from Fricka’s Lament,

Walküre n,ii, measures 314-320.

” “The Birth of Music from the Spirit of Drama”, p. 55

53 The Final Tristan Chord In an article in Music Theory Online'^® on the Tristan Chord, the author Forte offers the opinion that no one has been able successfully to explain the final appearance of the Tristan chord in the fifth measure before the end of the opera. The passage is shown in example 3-12e. This version of the Tristan chord resolves to E minor as iv of B major. Since the chord does not exist in B major or E minor, it cannot be explained without referring to at least one of the notes as a non-scale tone. Examination of ►the tonal context indicates that the F natural in the lowest voice of the chord (which is sounded over a B pedal) is indeed passing chromatically between F# in the previous measure and E in the succeeding measure. The F natural would then be part of a chromatic scale, and not a functional chord note. The chord note for which it stands is the previous F#.

Chromatic scales between scale tones are

always acceptable tonal behavior. The G# of the last appearance of the Tristan chord resolves, as usual, upwards by half-step as a chromatic appoggiatura to A. The harmonic function of this chord is then simply a V7 of E minor. The Chord itself is not a substitute for that chord, but rather the result of simple chromatic procedures being carried out over the prevailing B major tonic chord from which it is approached. The chord, then, is another example of a piagai modulation in lieu of a piagai cadence, similar to the usage of the Fate motive at the end of

Walküre. Though all the mechanics listed above are correct and commonplace in tonal music, the chord is presented in such a manner as to strain those mechanics from an aural standpoint. The F natural in the bass is preceded by an F# in the preyious measure, but there is a dramatic change in orchestration on its appearance.

Five measures previous to this F, the cellos have been playing

pizzicato F# eighth notes on the downbeats with pizzicato eighths on the third beats in the 4th and 5th preceding measures. With the appearance of the Tristan chord, the cellos enter on a tremolo F natural. For the five preceding measures the second bassoon has been sustaining the same F#, which moves chromatically to F 'The Tristan Chord may ultimately resist a definitive analysis, however, in the context of the entire opera. For instance, no one, as far as I know, has offered an explanation of its final disposition, beginning with its appearance five bars before the end of the opera.” This item appeared in Music Theory Online in Voi. 1, no. 2 on March 1995. It was authored by Allen Forte, [email protected], with whose written permission it is reprinted here.

54 natural on the Tristan chord as an eighth note, and exits. At the same time the Bass Clarinet takes up the F. Thus the F# is for the most part separated from the F in terms of timbre. The factors of orchestration listed above (combined with other such devices on the other notes of the chord) serve to isolate the Tristan chord and give the impression that it enters from without, has a life of its own, has its own logic of resolution and does not belong to the local context. However, orchestration is no arbiter of tonal logic. The logic here is impeccable and precise. Indeed, were it not so, the dramatic function of the chord would be meaningless, since its nature as an expression of something outside the system is strongly dependent on there being a clearly defined inside and outside. The tragedy of the lovers is mirrored in the inability of this chord to achieve any kind of tonal stability. At every juncture some part of this chord must compromise in order for it to exist. In support of the above approach to analysis, the following exchange between Wagner and Cosima is cited^’ Then he finds a volume of Chopin’s preludes on the piano; having played the fourth (in E Minor) he remarks disapprovingly that an ambiguous chord has been interpolated at the end, as if to create a shock. I seek to excuse it by saying that this sketch is an attempt to reproduce something like a strange natural sound, but only long afterwards, when he is lying in bed, does he say, ‘A natural sound - that is very good, but it is precisely these which one must try to reconcile with our laws of harmony.’ Wagner’s complaint had nothing to do with the sound itself and everything to do with the manner in which it was handled. In the case of the final Tristan Chord, the answer to Forte’s question is the manner in which the chord is reconciled with the laws of harmony.

The fact that our experience of this chord may have a

numinous, otherworldly quality, deriving in large part from matters of orchestration and retrospective motivic reference, does not excuse the moment from its responsibility to obey the house laws of key. The Tristan chord itself is a tonal structure containing the thirds of F minor and B major - the opening and closing keys of the third act. In the next chapter further discussion will suggest that F is Tristan’s key and B is Isolde’s key. In Act ^ Cosima Wagner Diaries, an Abridgment, p. 373, 28 December 1879.

55 in, F minor is associated with Tristan’s unresolvable yearning and isolation/® The musical symbolism of this final appearance of the Tristan chord is that F minor is finally dissolved and taken up into the bosom of B major and ecstatically transfigured as all yearning ceases and complete fulfillment is offered to the two lovers in death.

Discussion It has become almost fashionable to denigrate harmonic analysis and generally discard it as something almost useless and naive.’® The research presented here suggests that valuable information about the large tonal stracture of Wagner’s Music Dramas can be uncovered from this approach. This does not imply that other structural elements are not at work, but it does strongly suggest that without an understanding of this aspect of Wagner’s compositional technique any analysis must be incomplete. On the other hand, Schenkerian technique turns out to be incapable of identifying keys that are defined in the standard manner, as in the opening of

Götterdämmerung. Large approximate analyses falsely declaring music to be atonal, without citing how or why, miss important structural and dramatic clues embedded in the musical development.®®

It is in the details that the larger

structures are bom. 9

To the observation that every instrument in the orchestra is playing in the final chord except the English horn, the answer is that the English horn has been the vehicle through which isolation was projected in F minor, as a solo instrument. Since that isolation was psychological, it has not been resolved by companionship. It has been annihilated and disappears completely fixjm the end of the opera. Mitchell, for example, in his essay “The Tristan Prelude Techniques and Structure” in The Music Forum, Volume I, Columbia University Press, 1967, p. 162 writes: “It is not the intention of this article to review these countless analyses. Suffice it to say that many of them are resoundingly vacuous, others have moments of revealing insights, and the vast majority are committed to the point of view that if all chords are properly labeled and the modulations tabulated, the result will be one Prelude analyzed.” This assertion does not deny the obvious fact that later atonal composers may have interpreted various tonal elements in Wagner’s works in ways significantly different than Wagner intended, and then used those interpretations to build their own methods. On the other hand, we may question the depth of understanding of at least one later composer’s interpretation of Wagner’s structural methods. The views of Schönberg will be discussed in the next chapter and shown to be at least partially in error.

56 These short analyses presented in this introductory chapter are sufficient to demonstrate that harmonic analysis uncovers structural relationships invisible to other methods, and explains tonal coherence where other approaches have failed. More extended examples will be discussed in detail in later chapters. In all cases, it will be shown that the same principles apply and Wagner’s harmonic technique is scrupulously conservative, while significance and depth of expression in his music arise from creation of motives out of deep tonal relationships.

57 CHAPTER 3 WAGNER AND MODULATION IN

TRISTAN

Classical Precursors Rosen, in his famous study of classical style, lists in the table of contents a section entitled “Correspondence of note, chord and modulation”.***

In the body

of the work he remarks in reference to Haydn’s G minor piano trio written around 1793: Most revealing of all in this central expansion is the elaboration of the initial subdominant harmony at the beginning of measure 11 of the theme into a full-scale modulation to the subdominant iff the sonata. Haydn does this simply by sitting on the fundamental note of the chord for two measures. No more delightful audible and visible proof could be offered that a modulation is only the expansion of a chord, its transference to a higher level of the structure. A few paragraphs later, he discusses Beethoven’s usage of this same technique of equating surface level motives with modulations:** This relation of modulation, chord and note appears with great simplicity on the first pages of Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata....The alternation of the keys of D flat major and C major is followed by the laconic motto of the single notes Di, - C in the left hand in measure 10, in which the appoggiatura which is the basis of the harmonic effect is presented thematically, its significance isolated and detached. The relation of individual note to modulation is further exemplified by the duration. The alternation of D flat major an C major takes almost four bars, the rhythmic motto based on the alternation of notes only two beats. The weight of harmonic significance is reflected in the length of the rhythmic units, and it would not be fanciful to consider the whole passage as an expression of the motto stated at its end.

The Classical Style Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven Charles Rosen. W.W. Norton, New York, 1972. p. 13. 87-88. ** Ibid. p. 89.

58

Rosen’s view of classical style, then, includes a compositional technique which allows surface elements of the composition as expressed in melodic details and specific harmonic progressions to occur at higher levels of the tonal structure. This is not inconsistent with the views of theorists of the time.*^ In the eighteenth century tonality can be viewed as proceeding from the key signature downwards: the key signature will generally deternune the opening and closing keys of the piece, and the principle areas of modulation, which will be derived from those chords which are consonant chords in the key of the signature.®^ Melodic material will emphasize almost exclusively those notes which are scale degrees in the local key, though non-scale tones were pemaitted with appropriate resolution. In this chapter I will suggest that an identical technique equating chord, note and modulation obtains in the work of Wagner with one exception: the tonal background no longer refers to the key signature, but may derive from any familiar pitch configuration. With the exception of this single substitution at the background level, Wagner’s tonal grammar and compositional technique is shown to be identical to the classical masters Rosen discusses above. One of the logical outcomes of Wagner’s substitution of the tonal background is the inability of Schenkerian linear analyses to elucidate the processes involved, since it implicitly relies on the conformity of key, chord and note to a single scalar model in order to define its ends. We will show this by contrasting our analysis with two earlier analyses of the same passage. Examples of embedded recursive application of a single compositional motive to different levels of the tonal hierarchy will then be examined to demonstrate that this is not a unique occurrence in Tristan. Act I, Scene v: Tristan Enters The first passage under consideration is the Orchestral opening to Act I scene v of Tristan und Isolde. This passage is approached with Isolde’s words

^ See Classic Music, L. Ratner, New York: W. W. Norton 1980 for an exposition of 18th century theorists’ views. *^There are of course exceptions to this rule in the cases of Chorales or Chorale preludes based on older modal models, and in the case of certain operatic conventions such as the scena, which does not rely on tonal closure as a form defining principle.

59

“Herr Tristan trete nah’ !” [Let Sir Tristan approach] leading to a cadence on the tonic F, but of undetermined mode. Example 3-1 reproduces the passage in its entirety from the transitional music leading into the scene up to Tristan’s opening phrase. Example 3-1

(Kurwenal retires again. Brangäne, scarcely mistress of herself, turns towards the back. Isolde, summoning all her powers to meet the crisis, walks slowly and with effort to the couch, leaning on the head of which she then stands, her eyes fixed on the entrance.)

Scene V

60 r-e-------------^--------------------r-H—. t-ar------rr-1-----------------/K .—L’ v m; l . ^ ► L -Z^KÎ--------------* l>—rH--------—b—k—T“ --------------- L—J----E.:ii07

1

--------------- J ', d* —trr^------^f-f

M 1,1 I UJ

__ • V

Ai;i

tl f

_LJ___ «i 1

P

> f V

> ^

• 7~ - -i « A- Jl-J: / f F#:VI

-frS-------

•

L

_j—^—p V

D:vü°

(Tristan enters and pauses respectfully at the entrance)

61

G:V

I

B:V

Example 3-1. The Beginning of Act I scene v of Tristan.

62

This is a particularly interesting passage since it modulates quite rapidly, without specific reference to dramatic or poetic events. The passage apparently caused Wagner some difficulties, and he discontinued working on his compositional draft at precisely this point, proceeding in the meantime to orchestrate the first half of the first act. His composition draft is very close to the final version.*® Examination of the preliminary sketches shows that all the details of the final key structure of the modulating passage were present in this transition from its inception. The preliminary sketch is substantially identical to the final version, though the sketches for the opening three phrases are incomplete, lacking the last two measures of string chords eliding with the sequential repetition of the melodic line. Tonally, these missing measures are the return to the second key of each phrase. Thus phrase one in the sketch modulates through F-Et-Q, and then directly to the of phrase two without the return to the interpolated E|, of the final version. The tonal path of the modulation visits the same tonics in both the

sketch and the final version, and this tonal path must be seen as the motivating factor in this segment firom its earliest inception. Wagner’s writings on modulation suggest strongly that modulation should be controlled by some poetic intent.*’ Only one thing happens in this section: Tristan enters Isolde’s room, yet there are sixteen clear changes of key. A strict reading of Wagner’s theories would suggest that there are therefore sixteen separate poetic intentions in this passage. This speculation is unsupported by any visible or audible events. The stage directions clearly specify that both Tristan and Isolde are to remain motionless. Though Isolde is directed to express violent agitation, that agitation is clearly audible in the tremolo chords in the string parts, which play no role in the tonal evolution of this fragment. Example 3-1 shows Key and Roman numeral chord functions written beneath each chord. Chord numbers are determined by assuming chords to be made up of scale tones drawn from some specific key. Therefore, for example, in “ The details of Wagner’s compositional sketches and their evolution are discussed at length in

The Genesis of ‘Tristan und Isolde ' and a Study ofWagner’s Sketches and Drafts for the First Act. Robert Bailey, Ph.D. thesis, Princeton, 1969. The discussion of this section begins on page 223. ”For the latest treatise on Wagner’s theories of modulation in relation to poetic intent, see Wagner's Musical Prose, Thomas S. Grey, Cambridge, New York and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

63

the third and fourth measures of Scene V, (the eighth and ninth measures of Example 3-1) the two major chords based on Q, and B|, placed side by side define the key of Et minor by means of an unambiguous VI-V progression. Similar analysis of the rest of the passage yields the keys indicated. Example 3-2 shows the tonics in sequence stripped of any rhythmic value. Example 3-2

Tristan Chord n Leading from A flat to B

Tristan Chord I Leading from F to Ab

J

^

llJ

J

Sequence ending in B, but pointing towards C.

n

4

ff f 1

■

1 J

'

1 *• •

1 '■ iSi

>

Example 3-2. The keys transited in the opening of Tristan I,v. Consideration of the results of Example 3-2 shows a clear logic to this passage: the opening five keys, F-Et-Q-Et-Ai, outline the opening chord of the opera, the famous ‘Tristan Chord’, the first chord heard in the prelude to the opera (hereinafter referred to as ‘TC’). Eliding with that same A(„ the next four notes, Ai,-F#-D-F#-B produce the TC transposed up a minor third (at the pitch level of the third chord heard in the opera). Holding to the simple dictum that notes are to be derived from scale degrees yields this result so clearly and so uniquely that it is difficult to imagine another approach or result so elegantly demonstrating the harmonic action of the excerpt or its supporting tonal structure.

64

The modulation from F to B is therefore achieved by means of the action of the TC at a level deep in the tonal stracture that would traditionally have been reserved for a major or minor scale; the TC defines the keys through which modulation proceeds in precisely the same way that major/minor scales traditionally defined the manner in which modulation proceeded in eighteenth century music. Outside of this single difference, substitution of a motive for a scale in the tonal background, every other aspect of this section is as classical as it is possible to be. Indeed, concurring with Rosen, but quite unexpectedly out of context, no more delightful audible and visible proof could be offered that a modulation is only the expansion of a chord, its transference to a higher level of the structure.®* In this case, the chord being transferred to a higher level of structure is the TC. The second line of Example 3-2 demonstrates the local keys after the initial arrival at the tonic B. The sequence of keys, when presented as individual notes, outlines a clear sequential passage of a rising major third descending through the circle of fifths from E to B: E-G#, A-C#, D-F#, G-B. If we were to label the scale degree functions of this succession of tonics, the result would be a simple sequence through a portion of the circle of fifths derived from C major, unexpectedly halting on the final leading tone to C major: E: l=A:5-7-l=D;5-7-l=G:5-7-l=C:5-7=B: 1 The function of this passage is confirmatory, much as the sequences in the second thematic sections of Mozart’s sonatas are: they extend and confirm the secondary key area once it has been achieved. In this case, having arrived at the targeted key area of B, Wagner merely prolongs it by means of a modulatory sequence around the circle of fifths. The sequence works out as keys melodic material which could easily appear as a bass line in the work of any eighteenth century composer. Wagner’s usage of melodic material at the level of key allows him considerably more freedom than a mere bass line would allow, since a key may be defined without any reference to its tonic and may include motives of any duration and

This quote is cited in footnote 82 above.

65

» significance. Most of the tonics in this passage do not appear at all - the keys being unequivocally represented by their dominant minor ninth chords.*® The next key that would be expected in this sequence would be C, the key in which the act ends. If we examine the motive with which Scene V opens, F-GBt-Ai,, it is originally defined as the scale degrees 1-2-4-3 by departure from the F cadence on which it begins. By the end of the modulation this same motive (transposed) is defined as scale degrees 4-5-j,7-i,6 by local concurrent harmonizations.

In retrospect, then, the opening measures of Scene V would

have the possibility of functioning as that same melody in C minor. There are two V-I cadences in this section: the cadence which leads to the first note of Scene V (C-F) and ends Isolde’s command along with the transition; and the cadence which opens Tristan’s first speech, along with ending the transition (G: V-I). The keys transited in the sequence through the circle of fifths are all notes in the key of C major Thus, we can infer that C major lies latent within the section itself according to several implications: the implied following tonic in the modulating sequence, the possibility of harmonizing the opening motive in C, and the cadences on IV and V of C defining the beginning and end of the modulation itself. The realization of C major at the end of the act is therefore already being prepared. As discussed in the Introduction to Chapter H, Wagner’s tonality is often described as ‘wandering’, ‘non-functional’ or even ‘atonal’. These results suggest that there is a clear method and intent to his tonality, and it occurs through the working out as keys of familiar materials, some of which would even be trite at the level of pitch. The material itself may be motivically defined (as in the modulations working through the notes of the TC) or may just be standard tonal material treated as keys instead of notes (as in the subsequent modulating sequence). Bailey has raised the question whether deceptive cadences that occur in Tristan, particularly VVI (e.g. mm. 22-23), are not really standard cadences rather than deceptive cadences. ‘An Analytical Study of the Sketches and Drafts’ in Wagner Prelude and Tran^guration from Tristan and Isolde, R. Bailey, ed., Norton, New York, 1985, p. 113-146. Wagner’s style is distinct from the musical grammar he employed. The cadences are deceptive since they conflict with the desire for resolution to the properly defined tonic. In all of Wagner there is not one final cadence that is not defined by scale degrees and an appropriate authentic, piagai or so called ‘phrygian’ resolution. Wagner’s avoidance of internal cadences was part of his style and had no effect upon the tonal logic of his pieces.

66

Consideration of these results invites the question as to whether this characteristic is unique to this passage. A cursory consideration of other portions of Wagner’s output yields some immediate results: The Ring opens with the notes in order Et-Bt-G, 1-5-3 of Et. The first three keys in the Ring are Et-Bt-G: Bt when Alberich first appears to gaze upon the Rhinemaidens, and G minor as he first addresses them. Many important motives in the Ring are’ then derived from this same harmonic configuration. The Tamhelm motive is made up of the chords E minor G# minor and B major or minor, which will be shown in Chapter 5 below to be the i-iii-V or v in E. The Walkiire’s ride begins arpeggiating the B minor chord and then modulating through the keys defined by that chord, B-D-F#.

The

Walhall music modulates through the keys of Di,-Gi,-Bi,-F-Di,-Ai, in its first version, arpeggiating the chords of Gt and Dj,. Thus, some important aspects of the Ring may be explainable according to the same protocol: familiar motivic material may appear not only as pitches but as chords, keys and key relationships. In Chapter 6 below the identification of the augmented sonority with Amfortas’ wound in Parsifal, and its usage in generating a tonal background is discussed.®“ The examples cited above suggest confirmatory evidence of the proposed technique, and it must be asked why this has not been discovered previously. Previous analysts have discounted entirely the possibility of analyzing Wagner’s works in terms of diatonic derivations of scale degrees. Schönberg derides openly any such attempt in discussion of the TC:®* ....little is actually said whenever one shows where the chord comes from. Because it can come from everywhere. What is essential for us is its function, and that is revealed when we know the possibilities the chord affords. Why single out these vagrant chords and insist that they be traced at all cost back to a key...? ...the pupil will best take all these vagrant chords for what they are, without tracing them back to a key or a degree: homeless phenomena, unbelievably adaptable and unbelievably lacking in independence; spies, who ferret out weaknesses and use them to cause The possibility of notes transforming into modulations and vice-versahas been raised by Bailey, ibid. (The volume also contains a number of interesting historical analytical essays of the prelude.) Grey has discussed this in relation to the third act of Parsifal, notably the B; - E tritone that opens Amfortas’ recitative, ibid., p. 84-92. The analysis presented here suggests that this technique is a much more pervasive aspect of Wagner’s style and appears regularly at every level of the tonal hierarchy. ” Theory ofHarmony, (Roy E. Carter, trans.) Berkeley: 1978, pp. 257-59.

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confusion; turncoats to whom abandonment of their individuality is an end in itself; agitators in every respect, but above all most amusing fellows. Once we abandon the desire to explain the derivation of these chords, their effect becomes much clearer. We understand then that it is not absolutely necessary for such chords to appear just in the function their derivation calls for, since the climate of their homeland has no influence on their character. Much of what Schönberg says is undeniably true and insightful, but it would appear that he has missed some of the major elements of Wagner’s style. It is true that even simple chords can come from multiple sources: any major chord can appear in seven different keys (I, N, IH, IV, V, VI, VU) while any minor chord can appear in six different keys (i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi) admitting only diatonic scale degrees and the Neapolitan chord. As soon as more than one chord begins to appear a different situation obtains. Possibilities are limited up to the point where either a unique source is defined for the conflguration, or derivation from separate sources is forced, as in the case of modulation. His implicit identification of the TC and other vagrant chords as ‘homeless phenomena, unbelievably adaptable and unbelievably lacking in independence’ is apparently quite wrong in the present instance. If the TC can define the tonal background for a modulatory process, it is not at all lacking in independence, but rather rises to the highest level of possible tonal function. Ultimately, it becomes important to define the source of a chord because that is how its function is defined. If a chord may have several derivations, then its function locally is determined by its local behavior, and most competent composers will explore all those functions in different contexts throughout a given piece. In the opening measures of Tristan for example, the TC resolves in the context of A minor. In the climax of the prelude, the TC resolves in El, major as if it had been derived from that key or its parallel minor. Wagner claimed a large part of his compositional technique to be modulation. It behooves the analyst to follow the composer’s path rather than to substitute one’s own path until such time as it is conclusively shown that the composer’s declared criteria are inapplicable.

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On the other hand, Schönberg’s final sentence quoted above is a profound insight into the specific nature of the TC and its function in tonalizing the state of the lovers in the opera. The multiple resolutions of the TC, and its concatenation of opposing tonal elements: the tritone F-B and their respective modes minormajor, does suggest a harmonic protagonization of the lovers who are constantly approaching each other but unable to find a single place in which to exist. The lovers’ tryst at the At midpoint between F and B is also prefigured by the G#-D# interval within the chord itself. The point, though, is not the impotence of the chord to function in the ‘normal’ world, - but rather its ability to define its own universe from outside the known world, meanwhile bending tonal function, just as the lovers manipulate the circumstances of their lives, to meet its demands in the process. With this observation, the statements of Dahlhaus and Deathridge®^ cited in Chapter 1 are effectively nullified. The harmonic coherence of the progression as it occurs in context in a modulatory sequence is unexceptional. The fact that the motive connects keys rather than occurring within keys is merely a melodic image of the tonal behavior of the TC. The lovers seek a path to one another, and there is no place in conventional tonal space where they can find it.

The

modulations in the present excerpt are an audible demonstrations of a passage from Opera and Drama^^ to which the drama itself is a visible counterpart. These Chief-tones are, in a sense, the adolescent members of the family, who yearn to leave its wonted surrounding for an unhindered independence: this independence, however, they do not gain as egoists, but through encounter with another being, a being that lies outside the family. The maiden attains her independence, her stepping beyond the family, only through love of the youth who, himself the scion of another family, attracts her over to him. Thus the tone which quits the circle of the Key is a tone already prompted and attracted by that other key, and into the latter must it therefore pour itself according to the necessary law of Love. The leading-tone (Leitton) that urges from one key into another, and by this very urgence discloses its kinship with that other key, can only be taken as prompted by the motive of Love. The motive of Love is that

Footnotes 12 and 13 in Chapter 1 above. ” Opera and Drama, Richard Wagner (W. A. Ellis, trans.) Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. p. 291.

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which drives the ‘subject’ {Subjekt) out beyond itself, and compels it to an alliance with another. In the excerpt under consideration, the connection of different keys by means of a motive which modulates is his musical image of the love relationship, leaving one’s own place to seek out the beloved. The larger structure which this activity confirms is the circle of fifths. Other theorists have offered explanations of the TC based on the conceptions of altered harmonies. Kurth’s determination that the TC is an altered dominant chord of E denies the independence of the chord and its dramatic function from the first note of the opera.®“* While one often finds altered dominants in Mahler,®^ Wagner suggested such interpretations of his music to be incorrect, as discussed in the preceding chapter. Besides contradicting the composer’s stated description of his technique, allowing altered chords into analyses has the unfortunate byproduct of collapsing the tonal structure and rendering invisible a number of possible structural devices such as the use of the TC as a background ordering device for a sequence of keys in modulation as discussed here. If the TC is not the TC, but some other chord, then its appearance in the background becomes meaningless,®® (if it can be determined at all using an analytical stance that randomly reassigns chords to inappropriate keys) and Kurth dutifully ignored its tonal generating power in his analysis of the transitional music. While at the same time the diatonic nature of Wagner’s musical surface remains intact, the relation of the surface to the background is radically altered. It is well known that Wagner sought to avoid cadences through a number of devices including all manner of deceptive cadences and elisions. Adding to these, the ^*Romantasche Harmonik und ihre Krise in Wagners “Tristan", 2nd ed. (Berlin, 1923; reprinted Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1968), p. 45.

^ Two examples would be the end of the second verse of the first song of Das Lied von der Erde, and the last verse of Urlicht, the fourth movement of the second symphony where a lowered second degree of the scale is included in the dominant chords in authentic cadential progressions. ^ Kurth does analyze some of this passage, and while our results agree with his (as far as they go), his omit exactly those parts of the passage which one would predict based on assuming the altered chord hypothesis. He ignores the opening F minor key area, for example and assigns the entire first phrase to Et minor with a neighboring Q, minor. Ibid. p. 125. By considering the F in the opening TC to be a substitute for F#. the function of the key of F in this excerpt was apparently incomprehensible to him.

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liberation of the tonal background to reflect motivic rather than scalar architecture renders any form of linear analysis which assumes some kind of connection between scale, chord and note a priori futile. Linear analysis based on scales will be opaque to the types of structural devices that Wagner employs. Katz®’ criticized Kurth for his failure to include the long pedal tones of F and At as part of his analysis. In her Schenkerian linear analysis of the same passage, she indulges in the same freedom of allowing altered tones without explanation and in the end has to declare: ...we have heard these measures as an expansion of a motion from the F minor to the B minor-major chord, with the possibility that the F minor chord functions as a prolonging fifth between the preceding C major and the succeeding B minor chords. This accounts for the technique in the smaller phrases and brings these three statements of the motive into a single structural framework. However, although we can integrate these phrases into a small organic unit, it is impossible to determine whether the C major®* and B minor chords are part of a larger structural motion or whether they are merely connecting links between two scenes. Her C major chord is presumably in the seventeenth measure of the scene, where Tristan enters and pauses according to the stage directions.

The orthodox

resolution of this (implied) C major chord (V of Tristan’s F in which the scene began) to the dominant of Isolde’s B via a N-V progression explains its function quite clearly, it is a reference to his dominant being brought under her control. Her B major chord (presumably the 14th through 16th measures of the scene) would not be problematic if she did not identify the B major V7 chord of E as a simple B major chord. With this gesture she arbitrarily destroys the coherence of the modulation as a whole and the sequential extensions which lead clearly to B minor 13 measures later.

^ Challenge to Musical Tradition, A new concept of Tonality, New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1946, p. 235-240. Her analysis ends at the 20th measure of Scene v. Katz has a tendency to refer to single pitches as Major chords, both here and in the measure preceding Scene v. The implied harmonies are major if we expect locally defined scale degrees to obtain in these passages, but the doctrine of altered chords renders this expectation somewhat unclear. Ibid. p. 235-237

71

Katz’s analysis also discounts entirely the tonality of E(, minor, which Kurth correctly located in the third and fourth measures of the scene. She argues®^ ‘in twenty measures Wagner would thus have used three different tonalities, no two of which disclose the “harmonic relationship” that is the significant factor in this type of analysis’. The first part of this argument denies the possibility of rapid modulations which have existed since the baroque period.

Three keys in three measures are

unexceptional in a modulating sequence. The second part of her argument is correct, the tonal background revealed in this passage is not that which one would expect. As we have shown it is motivically derived, not derived from a pre existing architecture. By predetermining which harmonic relationships are to be significant factors in this type of analysis, she renders invisible the harmonic relationships which are actually in the piece. Katz later remarks about Wagner’s music:'“’

^

We should not regard this as evidence of structural weakness or tonal indecision. It is obvious that in the music-drama, with a constant shift of scene and action, it would be impossible to achieve the structural unity that sustains the larger motions in a movement of a sonata or a symphony. Therefore we have no means of judging Wagner’s techniques outside of the motion they define, since the link they form with the preceding scene has neither a structural nor a tonal implication.

Again, the tonal structural implication is precise and exact. Indeed, harmonic analysis leaves not one note, not one musical gesture unexplained, and every note is seen to play an equal part not only in pointing toward the immediate goal of bringing F into the orbit of B but also of resolving both of them into the ultimate goal of the scene in the key of C major. Such a clear result is impossible within the theory of altered chord tones or within a theory of linear analysis which relies on confirmatory cadences defining predetermined results.

In the latter case, the lack of a tonic chord or note

cadencing in the defined key renders any possible result senseless and numerous

” Ibid. p. 239. '“/Wip.240

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events unexplained, as demonstrated by this analysis by Katz. Several separate analyses of hers in the same chapter are unable to resolve important aspects of different excerpts from other Wagner operas. In the former case, chords come to be identified as entities which they are not, and relationships to deep tonal stmcture are lost as demonstrated in Kurth’s analysis. Considering Wagner in relation to Beethoven and* some other more chromatic 19th century composers, Rosen states:*®' There are moments when Beethoven is as chromatic as any composer before late Wagner, including Chopin, but the chromaticism is always resolved and blended into a background which ends by leaving the tonic triad absolute master. It is in the relationship to the tonal background that Wagner differs from his predecessors in Tristan. One might argue that Wagner was less chromatic than Chopin, Berlioz or Liszt on the surface level of his musical structure. It is from the relationship of the musical background to the surface level events that Wagner’s chromaticism is generated. The tonic triad remains absolute master in Wagner as in Beethoven, as every Act in every Wagner opera ends on an undisputed tonic triad. It is through the specific technique of unifying note, chord and key (borrowed from the classical masters) that he was able to probe the psychology of his characters in such depth.

Our awareness of motive (both musical and

psychological) can be transferred from an obvious melody to chords, or to sequences of implied keys,'“ as befits the momentary exigencies of the drama. Within each of those keys, further motivic development can reveal the inner structure of the psychological elements defined by the higher level motive in the sequence of keys. Rosen invokes a concept of “tonal dissonance” to distinguish his view of Wagner’s technique from classical style. In discussion of Mozart’s G minor string

The Classical Style, p. 387. By “implied keys” I refer to keys which are logically defined by unambiguous chord progressions, but which do not cadence on the tonic.

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quintet he compares the classical correspondence between note, chord and modulation to his view of Wagner’s technique:'® The relations of note to chord to modulation are preserved at separate and articulated levels throughout the classical style. It is not until the nineteenth century that these levels are confounded, and one arrives with Wagner at the possibility of phrases which are tonally dissonant, but at the level of the chord and not only of the larger form. The last sentence is a bit obscure in its meaning. The opening clause correlates precisely to the excerpt at hand, and the levels he refers to are not at all confounded. The TC is the tonal background of the modulation in the sense that thè modulation moves through the notes of the TC just as classical modulations move through notes of the scale, while the initial and final keys are members of the TC itself. The remainder of the sentence requires some interpretation. What exactly is a phrase that is “tonally dissonant”? What is tonally dissonant at the level “of the larger form”? If we assume a phrase to be tonally dissonant which is in a key other than the tonic of the piece, the entire concept becomes meaningless in the world of opera. The scena of Italian operas never historically required tonal closure,*® and there is no reason to expect it of Wagner. What is tonal dissonance at the level of the chord? This phrase might çqasonably refer to anything: cadences to dissonant chords, deceptive cadences, chords incorporating non-scale tones or non-chord tones might all be considered to be referenced here in absence of a more precise definition.

All these had

occurred well before Wagner’s time, however. The opening of J. S. Bach’s G minor Fantasia uses diminished seventh chords as cadential points. Mozart uses a non-functional ersatz A minor chord incorporating non-scale tones in the sixth ’ The Classical Style, p. 88-89. The scena was a formal technique which dictated an aria include two self-contained rhythmic sections, the first slow and expressive, the second fast and vigorous. By the end of Rossini’s career, opening recitative and transitional sections between the two arias had become standardized. For a history of the development of the Scena see F. Lippman, Analectica Musicologica VI; Vincenzo Bellini und die italienische Opera seria seiner Zeit (Cologne, 1969). Grey, has discussed scena-like procedures in Lohengrin Wagner’s Musical Prose, Cambridge, New York and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1995. p. 213-223, and it is suggested this formal procedure is appropriate to describe a large excerpt from Parsifal in Chapter 6.

74

measure of the slow movement of his A major piano concerto, K.488. If our interpretation of the meaning of Rosen’s tonal dissonance at the level of the chord is correct, none of the characteristics listed distinguish Wagner’s practice from eighteenth century practice. Wagner, of course, does all these things more often than earlier composers, but never differently. Wagner’s “tonal" dissonance seems to be much deeper:, than the issues referred to by Rosen. It would appear to exist at the grammatical level of the music itself. If Wagner’s tonal practice can reasonably be defined in terms of earlier practice in the ways dissonances are resolved, the ways chords are defined in relation to their source keys, and the ways networks of closely related keys grow naturally out of one another, at the deepest background level, we are confronted with an unresolvable dissonance between that grammar and the defining tonal structure. If the TC can function as both a chord and as melodic material,'®^ its use as a “key” is impossible to determine. If, like other keys, we seek to create chords from this ‘TC-key’’, there is precious little harmonic material available (a diminished triad, a minor triad, a minor seventh chord without fifth, and a halfdiminished seventh chord without fifth). The use of the TC as a “tonality” which generates the keys through which a modulation proceeds is already on the opposite side of an almost irreparable break in the tonal hierarchy of note/chord/key/tonality. The system in use to generate the musical syntax (indeed, even to define the background levels) is no longer the product of the background levels themselves, nor of its effect on lower levels of the structure. Nothing can be inferred from the TC to suggest that major and minor chords organized around scales ought to interact in functional harmonic progressions.

Tonal grammar

functions completely independently of the governing tonal relationships. At the same time, motivic material is enriched by the amount of internal development that motives can contain within themselves, as each note of a motive becomes a key.'°®

The centrsl At duet in Act II, “O sink hernieder Nacht der Liebe”^ is crafted on melodic patterns generated from the TC, see Example 3-7b. In Chapter 6 an example of Wagner treating the augmented triad as a key in Parsifai is suggested.

75

It is the specific break between chord and tonality which generates the unique tension of the passage under consideration. As the chord progressions dutifully define their source keys, those keys are unable to coalesce into a familiar scalar pattern. Rather, the keys find themselves responding to invisible, unknowable organizing factors. It is just this break which provides psychological depth to the passage. As the two characters come into contact with each other, it is audibly demonstrated that unconscious forces (demonstrated by the hidden structural device of keys modulating through the TC) control their surface behaviors. Wagner originally sought to justify his theories of unusual modulations with his well-known and much discussed theories based on poetic intent,*®^ though he supposedly later reversed himself on this issue by pointing to music as the generating factor in his dramas.’“ Had poetic intent been the only issue to which music was responding in this short modulation, there would have been no need for the 16 different changes of key in order to arrive at the B minor goal. The fact that the modulations traverse a tonal path through the initial two transpositions of the TC while virtually nothing happens on stage points strongly towards a musical impulse behind this passage as opposed to a poetic one. While the dramatic situation may have suggested a few details of the music (the modulation from Tristan’s F to Isolde’s B as he enters her chamber, the Neapolitan-V resolution of C major to the dominant of B as she assumes control of his dominant, the string tremolos to mimic her agitation), the tonal action of the phrase reflects a pure unadulterated musical structure.'“ The relationship between the poetic musical period and musical structure will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 4 below. See Grey, Wagner’s Musical Prose,, p. 375-377 for an alternate translation of Wagner’s writings on the “poetic-musical period”. Nattiez rehearses this issue at some length in his treatise Wagner Androgyne, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1993. Theoretical approaches to this specific contradiction are summarized on his p. 99-101. Nattiez, ibid. p. 154 writes “In both Tristan and the Beethoven essay we are no longer dealing with male-dominated androgyny in which the poet, as author of the libretto, joins with the composer of the music, but with a female-dominated variant in which the female spirit of music dictates to the poet-composer, telling him what plot he has to construct and what music he has to write.” Nattiez includes very little actual analysis of music in his treatise, but this evaluation is not contradicted by the excerpt we have considered: the musical impulse clearly dominates, to the extent that poetic Justification is completely lacking. Whether and to what extent Wagner really did indulge in a poetically dominated style of composition is still not determined, since detailed convincing analyses of his works demonstrating the connections between the two do not really

76

This particular musical structure is far more radical than anything in the prelude, which can easily be analyzed using classical principles of functional chord progressions. The radical nature of the tonal structure of this transition was part of the first conception for this passage, and very likely could have been the aspect of the composition that gave Wagner significant reason to pause at this point in the score. As an abstract tonal conception this transition provides a tantalizing hint as to an approach Wagner may have taken had he lived to compose his planned one movement instrumental symphonies. In the end, it is Wagner’s music that endures. Though Wagner may have used poetic associations to explain some aspects of his modulatory technique, it would appear that behind the associations themselves there may reside a precise musical logic. The theories about poetic association may have ultimately served only to liberate the process of modulation from the tonal background of scalar derivation. This would permit key to be treated as freely as any other level of pitch in the tonal hierarchy, allowing manipulation of key centers with the same level of fluidity of any other form of motivic manipulation. The fact that a modulation need not ever display its tonic note created a new degree of freedom in tonal expression. It is possible, as in this excerpt, to be on a given chord, in a key differing from the chord, modulating to a different key. At the same time, motives evolving on the surface of the music are absorbed into the action of the motives being defined by the sequence of tonics. Meanwhile, the unconfirmed tonics of the background modulations exist only in the unconscious mental processing that relates keys to scales. The fact that the keys are not explicitly stated or confirmed provides a metaphor for the psychological depth of the issue being developed. An example of this process can be seen in Example 3-1: while Isolde and Tristan address each other from F and G respectively, (suggesting C major) their silent confrontation strongly emphasizes B minor, the dark focus of their innermost thoughts. The power struggle characteristic of the first act is shown in the forceful destruction of Tristan’s key of F and its absorption into the key of Isolde’s B through the deeper tonal action of the TC itself.

exist. In Chapter 7 it will be suggested that music just as strongly suggested the principal dramatic relationships in the Ring.

77

The model suggested above provides insight as to what may differ in Wagner’s technique from that of his predecessors and followers.

Wagner’s

technique was classically oriented and defined, but his liberation of the tonal background created degrees of freedom of expression that were simply unimaginable in the previous more strictly ordered hierarchies of tonal music. While Wagner’s followers were quick to imitate his overall effect in terms of harmonic variety, harmonic rhythm, distant modulations, orchestral effect and numerous other superficial elements of his sound, it is questionable whether the same level of unification of the entire tonal structure exists in later composers. As discussed in the analyses above, the concepts of altered chords and vagrant chords utilized by Kurth and Schönberg respectively would tend to collapse the tonal hierarchy, annihilating the possibility of this added level of expression, and the implications of psychological depth it creates from a purely tonal perspective. In terms of Wagner’s compositional practice, the debate over whether music or words are more important in structuring his compositions may ultimately be decided in the favor of the music. While associative tonality may play some part, it is not in the slavish imitation of guttural outbursts that Wagner’s music excels, rather it is the ability of the music to provide a psychological depth to the characters’ expressions that moves us. Any amount of psychological text can be set to simple dance tunes without throwing any particular insight into characters and their evolution through the music. Indeed, popular culture is full of this type of expression now that psychology has become an accessible discipline. But the ability to plumb the tortured depths of the most mundane dialogue Isolde: Tristan:

Herr Tristan trette nah. Begehrt, Herrin, was ihr wünscht.

[Isolde: Let Sir Tristan approach. Tristan: Demand, mistress, what you wish] is purely the provenance of music, with Wagner its most accomplished master. It is inconceivable that the same scene could be played without music, with no action on stage (as directed in the score) to the same, or even comparable effect. It is not through motivic manipulation per se that this passage has its effect, but rather through the profoundly disorienting yet precisely ordered modulations of

78

the tonal background that the unconscious motivations and emotions of the characters are displayed. Isolde’s Transfíguration Isolde’s closing aria in Tristan III, often referred to as the "Liebestod", but referred to by Wagner as “Isolde’s Verklärung"is an even more sophisticated example of the technique discussed in the excerpt above. The music of the first 12 measures is presented in Example 3-3. A linear harmonic analysis of this excerpt is presented in Example 3-4. In the opening measures of Isolde’s Transfiguration there are several very interesting tonal structures occurring simultaneously. Lodking at the example 3-4, the highest level of tonal structure moves through the tonalities of I (At major, extended by a sequence through the circle of minor thirds beginning on the tonic, mm 1-8), V (Et major, end of measure 8 through first part of m. 11) and finally arriving at El (enharmonically B major, end of m. 11) the key in which the aria ends. This large scale tonal structure is mirrored in the nnid level tonal structure of modulation through the keys of I-V-ni in the first two iterations of the rising minor third sequence and in a shortened version in the I-in modulations in the second version. The section in mm. 8-11 on the tonality of V is extended through a iii-I modulation. (Though the G major of m. 9 does not properly belong to Ei, major, it is justified by the chromatic line descending to B|, in the following chord. It is another instance of Wagner using non-scale tones to control sonority without abandoning standard tonal practice.) Finally, the harmonic motive itself which opens the aria is I-V-DI, leading to a passage which uses the identical tonal material to organize three levels of the tonal stmcture simultaneously: chord, key and multiple levels of tonality.’ ‘ ' Each chord contains within itself the elements See, for example, Wagner, Prelude and Transfiguration from Tristan and Isolde", for many discussions of the name, this excerpt and the prelude. R. Bailey, ed.. New York & London: Norton Critical Scores, W.W. Norton & Company, 1985. Consider the following quote from Gödel, Escher and Bach, D. Hofstadter, p. 152: “Recursive Enumeration is a process in which new things emerge from old things by fixed rules. There seem to be many surprises in such processes... It might seem that recursively defined sequences of that type possess some sort of inherently increasing complexity of behavior, so that the further out you

79

Example 3-3

go, the less predictable they get. This kind of thought carried a little further suggests that suitably complicated recursive systems might be strong enough to break out of any predetermined patterns.” Wagner’s use of modulation controlled by motivic promotion in the tonal hierarchy creates just such a response as past analyses have shown.

80

rdhJ j—L vs>w

■

ß

* hoch \t 4 ^ ^

y

r\

é

T'IT'Ë'tf' fnj ^ Li Il Sì L L1__ 1*- ^ h HD' 1— r~ P------ P f s ----- 1 \

sich hebt?

------

- - - - ^pf»J ^- - - - - -

ë

1

S :ht ihr's nicht?

^P h

H

d »

- é- - -

)

ir^

Example 3-3. The first twelve measures of Isolde’s Transfiguration.

■ >------

Example 3-4.

I (Al,)---- V(E1,)----- m(Q,)......................... -...................

B

I ( Al I__Vm \_

KQ) — V(F#) — ni(D)...................

I...

TTT

iii(g)----- 1 (Et)

1(D)------ ni(F)IIVIIII = VIVIVI = I VIIII = VI VIVI = I VIIII = IVIin = IiilIII = VIVsl Is = Vs Vli = iii VIIVVI = IVII

I

(TC) m: 1

10

11

12

SZÏ? harmonic ^alysis of the opening 12 measures of Isolde’s Transfiguration. The surface level chord SI m “ TH "-7 f progression I-V-HI. The modulations proceed by means of pivot chords m=VI in a series V Al modulaùon m measure 10 reverses this process. At the highest level indicated, there are two Ifmm 1 r IIìo I *s defined by the limits of the development of the opening motive (mm. 1-8 moving from I-V of A],) and the contrasting section (mm. 9-12 which move from V-ÜI of Aj,).

00

82

which then become the sequence of chords and that sequence of chords becomes a sequence of keys and a sequence of tonalities.

Isolde’s inner truth is being

projected upwards and outwards as her psyche becomes her universe to the exclusion of the world.

Isolde generates her own reality, and that reality is

projected only through the music. The consequences of this level of structural unity are profound. On the one hand, the obverse situation obtains to that of the excerpt in I,v. Surface motives gain in expressive power as they are endowed with significance drawn firom the expansion of lower order tonal structures onto the higher levels. Dramatically, Isolde’s upwardly spiraling mental state is represented by the same material being promoted to higher and higher levels of the structure over the course of the excerpt. Finally, the arrival at the final key, B major, is justified on entirely musical grounds. The last point is important in understanding Wagner’s compositional technique, particularly in relation to his ideas of modulation in response to poetic intent. With this example, and with others that shall be examined throughout this study, it will be made repeatedly evident that Wagner’s musical structures are not mere melodramatic responses to activity on stage, but rather that there is always a musical logic controlling the development of musical material. In addition to being psychologically and dramatically relevant, dramatic development is subordinated to a higher musical logic. Musical structure creates that sense of inevitability which is the sine qua non of tragedy. While the embedded I-V-in structures of the opening are important for raising Isolde to a higher state of consciousness, another anomaly begins between measures 10 and 11.

The V-IV progression in Ej, major begins a process that

leads to what may be the most intense climax in the history of music.

The

progression is repeated in mm. 13-14, D:V-IV=G:1, in m. 16: c#: V-iv. The harmonic move down a whole step is elevated to a pattern of modulations in mm. 16-29 with the developmental sequence of keys depicted in Example 3-5: c#-B, E-D, G-F, A],-F#, C-B|,, c#-B. Once again, the arrival at B major after a three measure extended penultimate c# is logical from a purely musical standpoint as the point of closure and repetition of the sequence.

83

Example 3-5

12

13

14

15

r

>.... ——--^ 23 -A

24

25 1

16

Hr

17

r r r r[ >

20

19

f

26 11 29 1 30 1 1 31 1

37

Hr

38

40

^

42

1

43

32

j

^

f

—fJ— ——

50

34

35

36

-------------=-—

«

48

22

----------- ¿—

J r T r f M r r

21

IT] [54] 1 61 \ 1 70 1 II» It — ------Í------f------Í------

U=^-r 1 r '

Example 3-5. The sequence of tonics in Isolde's transfiguration, mm 12 - 79. /

After a few measures of a domiriant pedal the sequence begins again in mm. 34-38 as a series of modulations transiting the keys of B-A-G-F.

A

chromatic descending bass line leads to the harmonic move firom V-IV at an orchestral climax in mm. 43-44. After a passage tonicizing scale degrees I,ii,üi,IV in B major (mm. 46-53) a dominant pedal is reached in m. 54 by means of an augmented sixth chord, and leading directly to the climax. The expressive power of the climax in m. 61 continues to inspire due to its precise preparation and in spite of its familiarity. There are three simultaneous elements at work to make this moment so effective. On the surface level, the C#B appoggiatura in the upper voice is a melodic statement of the descending whole step motive heard earlier in modulations. On the next higher level, occurrence of that appoggiatura on a V-FV progression adds harmonic weight to the descending

84

whole step. Finally, the appearance of the F# diminished seventh chord in mm. 58, and the B# passing tone at the end of m. 55 are both pointers towards the key area of C#, though they are both resolved appropriately in the key of B. (See example 3-6.) Thus, there is also hint of a tonal resolution from the implied key of C# minor to B major, consistent with the same modulations in mm. 16-17 and mm. 26-29. Thus the climax reverses the modulatory process ofjhe opening of the aria. Instead of moving recursively higher and higher into the tonal structure, Wagner brings all elements together in a single timeless moment to create the most intense of all possible tonal resolutions: every element of the tonal structure vibrates in unison as Isolde releases herself into the infinite. The expressive sense of the V-IV progression then becomes clear as we hear Isolde falling off the deep end musically, missing the solid ground of the tonic entirely and floating off into the infinite as her body collapses in death. Arrival in the key of B major is prepared no less than four separate times in this work, m. 12, m 29, m 44, and m. 60; the first three times by means of motivic action and the last time by means of confirmation of the tonal functions of I, ii, iii, TV and V of B major. The motive preparing m. 29 and m. 44 is the descending whole step appearing first as a V-IV progression, then a whole tone modulation downward and finally climaxing at m. 61 as a simultaneous implied modulation, harmonic V-IV progression and melodic 6-5 appoggiatura. In the process of achieving the key of B the following stages are transited; 1. A tonality built up out of recursive iterations of I-V-III sequenced through minor thirds deposits the music in B major, (mm. 1-12). 2. A series of motivic modulations outlining descending major seconds moving upwards from C#-B to C#-B. (mm. 16-29). 3. A sequence of motivic modulations descending by major second from B to F followed by modulations through the keys of vi-V-iii-I of B leading to a dominant of B. (mm. 34-43). 4. A series of modulations through the I-ii-iii-IV of B leading to the Aug6-V of B and a dominant pedal.

85

Example 3-6. Reduction of mm. 55-61 of Isolde's Transfiguration. Implications of C# are given by means of B# in m. 55 and the diminished seventh chord on B# in 58, leading to the C#-B resolution in m. 61.

86

Every arrival at B is scrupulously prepared, but those preparations result from a variety of techniques, some using motivic modulations, and some using traditional tonal methods. Each modulatory episode becomes more and more focused on B as its goal: the modulations of mm. 16 ff. are close to random in terms of tonal structure and are only organized by the motivic use of the descending major second key relationships. The final approachJoJB by means of secondary dominants is worthy of early Beethoven in its tonal clarity. The climactic B major is not effective merely because it is loud, but because it is also the only logical outcome of the sum total of the tonal procedures which preceded it. From this tonal structure the dramatic significance of Isolde’s aria becomes clear. In the first twelve measures she spirals up and away from the people around her, arriving in B to her own amazement as well as that of the bystanders on the words “Seht ihr’s nicht?" [Don’t you see it?]. Her instability is given a special kind of psychological truth by means of the subsequent modulations lacking any clear direction. Her second arrival at B accompanies the words “Höre ich nur diese Weise,..." [do I alone hear this melody...], and her recognition of what is happeiung is now expressed through the increasing order of the descending whole step modulations. Her third arrival at B is announced with the locally climactic “Heller schallend, mich umwallend", [brightly ringing, surrounding me] m 44. She has come to understand her transcendent state as she now remains firmly entrenched in the tonality of B major. After the ascending harmonic sequence arriving at the dominant of B, the arrival of the final climax: “Welt Athems wehendem All..." [...world-breath’s breathing all...] releases her into the infinite through B major which functions tonally as the space of her transfiguration. Isolde’s approach to B may appear somewhat random at first when viewed from the standpoint of traditional tonal behavior.

It is, however, precisely

determined using a logical sequence of motivic modulations. Her relationship to B becomes more and more focused on the scale itself as motives give way to the scale structure in determining the course of modulations. Following the climax, the continuing limitation of pitch materials to the scale of B in the closing measures prepares the final extremely poignant appearance of the TC: it is now almost a hallucination and its absorption of the F minor third into the context of

the key of B major by means of chromatic passing tones demonstrates how far she has removed herself from Tristan’s previous distress as she sinks, lifeless, upon his body. From the example of Isolde’s transfiguration, we can see that Wagner’s method of opening up modulations to motivic manipulation is not a one dimensional process but rather multiplies greatly the possibilities for relating keys one to another. Isolde’s relation to B major is one of purification and recognition. She slowly but inevitably explores and then discards every other tonal area as she homes in on that key. This use of motivic modulation is consistent with this dramatic action as Isolde discards the world in favor of a higher reality in which she is united with her lover in death. This result diverges from earlier research which emphasizes leitmotives by pointing to harmonic and tonal action as the force through which the characters struggle, grow and die. Motivic manipulation by itself is sufficient merely to express the moment, not to create the kind of closure, and satisfaction we experience with Isolde’s death. Had B major not been defined as the logical goal of musical development there could be no fulfillment in Isolde’s death. The results also contest the question raised by numerous analysts about the absence of middle sized forms in Wagner.“^ In this particular instance, the aria has a kind of Rondo form with introduction when analyzed from a tonal viewpoint. The opening 12 measure introduction prepares us for the significance of Isolde’s mental state in B major, while the reappearance of the key of B major four times, with three modulatory episodes in between, causes us to experience her increasing recognition and exaltation in communion with her lover in that key. This strucmre cannot be uncovered by means of motivic analysis or by predefined structures, it is entirely harmonically defined. The form is perfectly fabricated to the dramatic situation. Rather than force Isolde’s psyche into a bogen, bar, or sonata form mold, Wagner creatively used tonal grammar to fashion a form uniquely appropriate to her evolving state of mind.’*^ The New Grove Wagner, p. 79. Cosima cites Wagner expressing his need to push himself to the limit musically as his motivation for writing Tristan. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, An Abridgment, p. 325, October 1, 1878. This limit may be less in the extension of chromaticism than in the creation of more varied formal processes to contain that chromaticism and render it specifically expressive under the duress of dramatic situations, p. 192, November 18, 1873.

88

The Prelude It is the point of this study to demonstrate harmonic and tonal structural techniques which span the six music-dramas in question. Analysis of the prelude along the lines of this research has already been accomplished.

_The intention

here is only to make one point which connects with the issues of modulation already discussed above. The opening chord continues to excite passionate debate. Using Wagner’s concepts of “salutary bounds” and “house laws of key”, we must a priori reject atonal analyses*'^ and discuss the chord in terms of its tonal function. Since, as Schönberg has remarked, any chord may come from any source, the TC can only be assigned meaning in local context. In m. 1 of the prelude it occurs in A minor, in m. 81 of the prelude it appears in E[, major, in m. 102 of the prelude it appears in C minor, and at the end of the opera as discussed above it appears in B major. Each instantiation treats different parts of the chord as scale or non-scale tones, which allows its resolution in any key at any time. The half-diminished sonority of the chord is greatly exploited throughout the opera as well (see example 3-7). The opening progression of Act III is a iA-I progression functioning as a piagai cadence. The principle melody of the A|, major section of the Act II duet is based on the same chord. The prelude itself is also replete with many examples of this sonority, including for example, the motive introduced in measure 25. The opening chromatic melodic line in measures 2-10 articulates the half diminished seventh chord built on G# over the series of TC’s resolving to the dominants of A, C and E, all of which has been previously observed."®

'"'Smith, Leland, Handbook of Harmonic Analysis, pp 146-147. The analytical results offered here differ slightly from Smith’s in disallowing non-scale tones. For example, Boretz in Perspectives of New Music, Fall-Winter 1978, 159 ff,'. Cone, in Perspectives ofNew Music, 14/2 and 15/1 (1976) and Babbitt, in Perspectives of New Music 14/2 and 15/1,1976. See, for example, William J. Mitchell, “Ihe Tristan Prelude” Techniques and Structure”, in The Music Forum I, (1967): 178. Wagner Prelude and Transfiguration from Tristan and Isolde, ed. R. Bailey W.W. Norton & Company, New York and London, 1985 contains a number of historical analyses citing these and other relationships.

89

Example 3-7

Example 3-7. Various occunences of the half-diminished seventh sonority. a. The opening measures of Act HI. b. . Theme from the second act love duet. c. The opening melodic line in the prelude, mm. 2-10. d. Measure 25 of the prelude. The question of harmonic function in the prelude is no more difficult than it is in Bach.**’ Once we understand the concept of a tonality allowing access to the full range of materials within closely related keys, there are no real analytical problems in the prelude.

Closely related keys then coalesce to form the main

**’ See for example variation 8 of the Chorale variations on “O Gott du frommer Gott". In this variation, as in Wagner, modulation occurs instantaneously from key to key through remote harmonic functions.

90

tonal areas of the prelude all according to the same rules previously articulated. The tonalities transited by the prelude are: A, C, and Et. Example 3-8 shows a linear harmonic analysis of mm. 83-94 to demonstrate the relationship of the keys therein to their governing A minor tonality. The example demonstrates the consistent use of the French augmented sixth chord resolving to the dominant. It also demonstrates a strong piagai emphasis to the A minor tonality as the keys of iv, VI and Vn (IV of iv) are emphasized, while the key of the dominant, E is avoided until the final cadence in A minor, mm. 93-94. Example 3-8 a i--------- m-------------------------iv---------- -// VI-— // VII—// i --// V-------- i —

Fr6 1V l=V,-l Ft 6 1VI—lvii=vi Fr6 I V//Fr61 V//Fr61 V//iv 1/A^ I,ï =V1VI

Example 3-8. Linear harmonic analysis of measures 83-94 of the Tristan prelude. The analysis demonstrates the diatonic nature of key relationships and the use of remote tonal functions to create a sense of disorientation in relation to the presiding tonality. This correlates with Isolde’s psychological state as the first act opens. This succession of keys in mm. 83-94 creates a sense of undirected meandering which is again dramatically significant according to Wagner’s poetic intent.

Isolde’s first words in the first act are “Wer wagt mich zu höhnen?

Brangäne, du? Sag, wo sind wir?". [Who dares to mock me? Brangäne, you? Say, where are we?]. Isolde is extremely disoriented, not knowing where she is, whom she hears, or with whom she is speaking. This disorientation is explicitly stated in the close of the prelude where remote, almost dysfunctional (but not non functional) tonal relations create the sense of utter confusion.

Far from being

atonal, their distant relationship to the tonic is their musico-dramatic point. Atonality means no expression in this case. More importantly in terms of the program for the prelude as outlined by Wagner, we get a surer sense of what is happening as it draws to a close:

91

Here in music’s own most unrestricted element, the musician who chose this theme for the introduction to his drama of love could have but one care: how to impose restraint on himself, since exhaustion of the subject is impossible. So just once, in one long-articulated impulse, he let that insatiable longing swell up from the timidest avowal of the most delicate attraction, through anxious sighs, hopes and fears, laments and wishes, raptures and torments, to the mightiest onset and to the most powerful effort to find the breach that will reveal to the infinitely craving heart the path into the sea of love’s endless rapture. In vain! Its power spent, the heart sinks back to languish in longing, in longing without attainment, since each attainment brings in its wake only renewed desire, until in final exhaustion the breaking glance catches a glimmer of the attainmpnt of highest rapture: it is the rapture of dying, of ceasing to be, of the final redemption into that wondrous realm firom which we stray the furthest when we strive to enter it by force. Shall we call it death?..."* In response to those analysts who doubt the tonality of the piece due to lack of resolution of the opening three dominant seventh chords, it might reasonably be asked how we can be at all surprised at lack of resolution when the subject of expression is that “insatiable longing which languishes in longing without attainment”? In terms of expressive use of modulation, the opposition of A minor as the opening key and E|, major as the key of the unrealizable climax is significant in light of Wagner’s program notes. If association occurs at the highest coherent level of the tonal structure, then the opposition of these two keys, a tritone and a change of mode apart, must signal the psychological distance the lovers must travel to realize their desires. The use of A major symbolizes the unapproachable, as it does in the Tagesgespräch in Act H."’ The use of ^ major to symbolize the “path into the sea of love’s endless rapture” coheres with its use in Brangäne’s ' '* Bailey, ed., Wagner Prelude and Transfiguration from Tristan and Isolde, p. 47. The key of A major is also used to symbolize the unapproachable in Lohengrin’s third act narration “In fernem Land, unnahbar euren schritten”. [In a distant land, unapproachable by your paths...] Tonal association is discussed in more detail in Chapter 9. The Tagesgespräch has been analyzed by Abbate “Wagner ‘On Modulation’, and Tristan", Cambridge Opera Journal 1,1, 3358, and Dahlhaus, “Wagner’s ‘Kunst des Übergangs’ - der Zweigesang in Tristan und Isolde" in G. Schuhmacher, ed.. Zur musikalischen Analyse, Darmstadt, 1974, 475-86. Their results differ from the kind of results presented here: Dahlhaus focuses on leitmotives as a form defining factor for his analysis, while Abbate uses a kind of modified Schenkerian approach, ignoring the constant key changes and the tonalities that they define. Petty has discussed A major poetics in other contexts in his article “The Ravished Flower”, Opera Journal, 30:4,2-20, 1997.

92 following aria describing the ocean voyage, and with the voyage itself which is the physical path the lovers take leading to that same end. The end of the prelude in C minor to symbolize death coheres with the introduction in Act I of the death drink in that same key. The question of tonal closure of the prelude is the open one. Wagner wrote an unsatisfactory ending in A major which is rarely performed. More often, the prelude is followed by Isolde’s Transfiguration. The question must be asked how can the tonal stmcture of the prelude complete itself? What tonal process can answer the sequence of keys in the prelude and bring about some sense of closure or completion? If no such conclusion is easily defined, how does the prelude connect with the following act? The answer strangely enough is the opening of Act I. The first phrase of the sailor’s song is exceptional in its effect, as it points towards the key of G minor by means of an implied iv-V progression. (Example 3-9).

There are several reasons to regard it’s appearance here as

significant in and of itself.

First, the key signature is G minor. Secondly, the

insistent cadencing on D’s in mm. 8, 10, 15 and on F# in m. 21 are more consistent with the key of G minor than Bj, major.

Finally, and somewhat

paradoxically, the insistent appearances of At are more easily rationalized as Neapolitan functions in G than as anything in Bt, particularly in apposition to the cadential D’s mentioned above. Tonally, the key recalls the ending notes of the prelude, as weU as pointing backwards visually to the west where the journey from Ireland to Cornwall began, and psychologically to Isolde’s past which she is now abandoning.

(Later

references to G in this song refer specifically to Isolde as a child, e.g., to the words

Though the key of G occurs for only two measures, it comes after two measures of unaccompanied G’s in the cellos and basses. Within the sailor’s aria, the key of G appears to be part of a series of modulations through the I-iii-V of Ei,, in spite of the key signature of two flats, which in this excerpt could as easily reference G minor as Bi, major. The repeated Ai’s are more easily be analyzed as Neapolitan of G minor than as anything relating to Bj,, major.

93

(krdftig)

West-warts

schweift

der Blick,

■

weht

der

Wind

.3

m

wei

-JL J?K-

1

Jr ^M 1 ffT\ im —^— die

der

Ost warts streicht das Schiff.

3

P

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(nachlassend)

mein

i - risch Kind,

du?

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dei - ner Seuf -

^ |»I-'• JJn___ k _B » S’

centers, they are incapable of organizing this greatly expanded set of options into

J

an orderly musical succession with the kind of predictability necessary for dramatic development, tragic inevitability and catharsis. It is through musical

^ ”

organization superimposed on the most varied of dramatic expressions that Wagner created the psychological depth and tragic power of his works.

11 factorial = 39,916,800, a number of such prodigious dimensions as would surely have daunted even Wagner.

III

113

CHAPTERS MAGIC IN THE R/A^G Introduction It is the purpose of this chapter to examine musical representation of magic and magical transformation in the Ring^^^ in order to demonstrate how, at least in this instance, theory can be demonstrated to work at several levels of tonal analysis.

Keys were apparently meant by Wagner to be associative only at the

highest level, but at the same time tonal material does occur at every level of the tonal structure with associative connotations. The question then arises as to at what level and in what manner does tonal association play a part in determining musical structural coherence? In the case of magic in the Ring, it will be shown that there is a clear derivation of magical elements from a given pitch in its first occurrence through the several manifestations of the various magical artifacts. At the same time, rarely does that magic function as the primary key. Most often it is subordinated to the local key in terms of its function. Tonal association turns out to be an important aspect of Wagner’s compositional style, justifying or suggesting remote modulations and allowing the dramatic relationships between objects, characters and events, but it is almost totally unimportant in creating coherence and comprehensibility.

Association

exists independently from and outside of tonal grammar. Labeling a key as associative is equivalent to naming a motive. Without observing the behavior of an associative key in its place in the musical development nothing is really being said. Magical occurrences are special in that, even within the context of the mythological universe, they occur outside the rales of the physical world and outside the conscious understanding of the protagonists. Therefore, in order for them to be presented convincingly, one might presume that music, rather than stage action or text, would be the preferred means of communicating these events to the audience, isince musical ideas lie outside the conscious ability of the Though the entire Ring may be said to be magical, occurring in a mythological time and place, there are still elements in the cycle which function magically within that context, i.e. outside the physical laws of the universe defined by the basic assumptions of the myth itself. These are the subjects of this chapter.

114

protagonists to express. Through an examination of-the magical elements in the Ring a'number of issues in Wagnerian analysis are clarified. The music describing the requirements for forging the Ring {Rheingold m. 617-624), the Tamhelm {Rheingold m. 1953-1969), Briinnhilde’s magic sleep {Walkiire IH, m. 1617-1624) and Hagen’s Forgetfulness potion {Gotterddmmerung I, m. 214-215) are passages where magical elements are projected in the Ring. Under the influence of the music in these latter three passages magical transformation occurs on stage.

The Tamhelm makes Alberich invisible,

Briinnhilde falls into a multiple decade slumber, and Siegfried forgets Briinnhilde. Lorenzremarked on the similarity between the Tamhelm and Magic Sleep motives, and the Tamhelm motive is routinely associated with the potion in Gotterddmmerung. While these motives contain some obvious similarities, most notably emphasis on major third relations either melodically or harmonically, it is the intention here to analyze their tonal and harmonic implications in detail. The resulting analysis demonstrates how their harmonic and tonal functions elucidate their varied dramatic functions, clarifies what is similar and what is different between them, and demonstrates how Wagner’s compositional technique evolved over the years of composing the Ring. The collapse of the upper levels of the tonal hierarchy is demonstrated. The Magic in the Ring In Rheingold i, m. 509, magic makes its first appearance in the Ring as the stage directions invoke a magical golden light (“ein zauberisch goldenes Licht”). This occurs as the key of C major makes its appearance. Given the overriding Ej, major tonality of the scene up to this point (major for the Rhinemaidens alone, and minor for the rebuff of Alberich), the magical light introduces a new pitch to us in a new context: E natural as the third of C major. That C should be the Rhine’s weak point might be observed from the prelude, where C was the last note to appear. In this scene, the C major Rhinegold is the last element to appear, and the remainder of the scene may be viewed as Alberich’s correction of nature’s ’’’ Lorenz, Das Geheimniss der Form Bei Richard Wagner Band I. p. 105. Lorenz’s discussion centers on melodic variants of the Tamhelm and does not discuss the harmonic-dramatic function of the motives.

115

tonal hubris, as he steals the gold and returns C to its minor version to accord with the prevailing tonality of the scene. Shortly after the appearance of the gold, in mm. 617-624, Woglinde informs us explicitly of the way to the power of the Gold in the Rhine (example 5la). This is the first appearance of the word “Zauber” (magic) in the Ring C minor Nur wer der Minne Macht entsagt, nur wer def Liebe Lust veqagt E minor nur der erzielt den Zauber, zum Reif zu zwingen das Gold [Only he who renounces love’s might, only he who casts out love’s joys, only he achieves the magic to force the gold into a ring] sung to the famous Renunciation of Love motive . This specific phrase ends in E minor, and it modulates specifically on the word “Zauber” [magic], pivoting on a diminished seventh chord to E minor. While the first two phrases climax on E(, resolving downwards in the key of C minor, the word Zauber exchanges that Et for a D#, at least functionally, since it here resolves up to E. The harmonic ' progression in association with the text is: Zauber zum c:viiVv = e:vii°7

Reif zu zwingen das

Gold

Tonally, then, the modulation is from C minor to E minor in association with the renunciation of love leading to the power to create the ring. The modulation to E minor occurs on the word “Zauber” [magic], and the note E|, (D#) becomes the “determinant leading tone” which abandons the key of C minor for E minor. Additionally, it will be noted that the chord on the word “Reif’ [ring, or circle] is made up of the notes of the Ring motive itself, as sung by Wellgunde just a few measures earlier (measures 601-603) to the text “wer aus dem Rheingold schiife den Ring” [who out of the Rheingold would make the ring], (Example 5-lb).

116 Example 5-1 Woglinde

n-fi-X----------------------^ (cn

4A-J ~-—=----------Nur

‘

44

T^T

1

kr=-----------------------------V ■y-------------d—j—j, T------F-------if— ^ 1 ■'-

werder Min - ne Macht

ent

mIT wer der

sagt,

f-:=j ---------------9 7

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IAl \ -H—

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--------------------^

r r

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9

—■:

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y 1 •6 ' 119ffc. k-S--------------------------TS Vo-----------------:- » •—------------. P... u ^ •

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.

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jg 9----------------------il- 2-----------------------------------

117

Wellgunde

Example 5-1. The Renunciation of Love motive and the Ring motive. a. The introduction of the Renunciation of Love motive, and the requirements for forging the Ring. Rheingold, mm. 617-624. b. The Ring motive, introduced by Wellgunde. Rheingold, mm. 601-603. This reference to E (major or minor) as the key/chord/note associated with magic was prefigured in the appearance of C major with the magical light a few measures earlier. The transformation of melody into harmony on the word Reif amounts to a promotion from one level to the next in the tonal hierarchy: notes have coalesced to become a chord. This is not particularly surprising in this instance, since the notes themselves arpeggiate that chord, but it becomes a very flexible tool in Wagner’s evolving style, as we have already seen in Tristan. Alberich’s theft of the gold then results in the tonal action of removing the magical E (which first appeared in the stage directions) from C major and leaving the Rhine in C minor darkness. This E becomes the key of the Ring motive and the key of magic in general. Tarnhelm In the case of the Tamhelm, it is difficult to find a clear tonic in this motive, and it has been attributed to the keys of B minor'^* and to G# minor*^®. Bailey, for example in "The Structure of the Ring and its Evolution”, Nineteenth Century Music Vol. I No. 1, July, 1977, p. 53, asserts without proof that the Tarnhelm, motive is fixed in B

118

However, neither of these keys can be considered to account for the behavior of the progression as a whole. Given the fact that even in Bach, Haydn and Beethoven, motives are constantly open to reinterpretation in different keys, it may not be a wise idea to assign a single key to a motive. In the case of the Tamhelm motive, however, there is a good reason to assign a fixed tonality to it, if not a fixed key. The motive contains three chords: E minor, G# minor and B major or minor, and occurs throughout the Ring in three keys: E, G# and B at its original pitch level. Thus, we have another example of a musical symbol which functions on two tonal levels identically: both chords and keys are identical, and both are derived from the tonality of E by a process of arpeggiating the tonic triad, first as chords and secondly as keys. That this is a process which had already consciously occurred to Wagner is known, due to his original plans to sequence the prelude to Rheingold through the chords of Ej,, G andBi,.*'*® The enigmatic nature of the Tamhelm progression demonstrates his wisdom in abandoning that conception for the prelude, even though it would have provided a further link in the chain of musical events which opens the first scene. The music begins with the notes Ej,, Bi,, and G appearing in order as overtones of the first bass note. The opening string melody begins with those three notes in order, and the first three keys to appear are the same three keys in the same order: minor). While mm. 4 through 8 of the motive are quoted regularly in Gotterdammerung and are often used as a plagal cadential gesture in B minor, this cannot be considered sufficient to characterize the tonality of the entire motive. There are also occurrences a half step lower later in Rheingold. Bailey’s assertion of a B minor fixed tonal association Tamhelm is clearly in error. K. Marie Stolba, The Development of Western Music, A History, second edition, WCB Brown & Benchmark, Madison and Dubuque. 1994. plate 33. Darcy in his thorough treatise on Rheingold assigns to the motive (at its principle pitch level) the key of G# minor on the basis of Schenkerian linear analysis derived from the first and last chords only and ignoring the central i-V progression in E. Wagner’s Das Rheingold, p. 168. Darcy’s analysis ignores all the accompanimental influences in the various recurrences of the motive in order to keep a fixed key association. '^arcy, ibid. p. 78. Darcy argues that the idea to sequence the prelude through the triads of E|„ G and B], may have come from another source, such as the Rainbow theme at the end of the opera which has a bass line rising up through the notes of its tonic chord. The present research suggests that organization of chord progressions, key sequences and melody around the same motivic material is fundamental to Wagner’s compositional technique beginning in Rheingold. The intention to sequence the opening triad through chords based on its individual notes and follow that with modulations through the same three notes as keys is the specific method by which Wagner created his musical cosmology out of a single note and its overtones.

119

Bt when Alberich first appears and G minor when he first speaks. The expansion of these three elements through the hierarchy as overtone-melody-key skips over the level of chord. The Tamhelm motive suggests that rendering that step explicit would have challenged Ae innocence of the opening pages. The first occurrence of the Tamhelm motive is sketched in Example 5-2 (Rheingold iii, mm. 1930-1940). Though the prevailing key signature is Bi, minor, the motive is performed on Homs in E with no key signature, and it is therefore presented here in E major, with the voice part in B], minor as notated in the full score. The opening G# minor chord is unavailable to the key of B minor, while the progression from G# minor to E minor is unavailable in G# minor, at least as it is scored; G natural could be a chromatic lower neighbor to G#, but the composer has taken pains to avoid this possibility by having the horn playing G# move to E, while the horn playing B moves to G natural. Thus, these two chords should be viewed as separate entities rather than the result of chromatic non-scale tones.*'*’ On the other hand, the cadence in the eighth measure of the theme can in no way be called a modulation to the relative major of G# - particularly since Alberich’s line ends arpeggiating the dominant seventh of E/Fj, to the words “...fertig gefiigt,” [...completely finished]. We are introduced to the Tamhelm as being finished and ready for use on the

of the key of E major. The G# minor

and E minor chords are then assigned the functions of iii and i of E major. This continues the symbolism of scene i, the note E, representative of the magic which was stolen from the Rhine, now has taken on a power of its own in the guise of the Tamhelm, which can transform appearance, and place for the wearer. This ability is latent in the tonal ambiguity of the artifact to turn chords and keys into one another. It jumbles levels of meaning in the musical stracture. The magical power of the Tamhelm is its ability to transform tonal stmcture. The second half of the theme, as it appears when Alberich uses the Tamhelm to hide himself from Mime (mm. 1953-1969, example 5-3) is characterized by what seems to be I-V progressions in E minor and concludes On this matter generally Wagner commented himself: “The person who, in judging my music, divorces the harmony from the instrumentation does me as great an injustice as the one who divorces my music from my poem, my vocal line from the words!”. Letter to Theodore Uhlig, 31 May, 1852.

120

Example 5-2. The Tamhelm motive in its first appearance in Rheingold, Scene iii, measures 1930-1940. with an obvious modulation to G# minor. Instead of the Bti, Alberich used in the first appearance of the theme, Alberich now uses Bj, in the first half of the theme, suggesting a local key of Q, major.As he begins to utter his spell, his notation changes enharmonically to E-B, and he closes in the key of G# minor.

Thus he

renders explicit the power of the Tamhelm motive to shift tonal levels. The device itself is presented to us in the key of E, borrowing only the parallel minor tonic chord. When in use, that E is promoted to a tonality within which keys are shuffled at will by its master. A few moments consideration will confirm that these three elements again spell out the E major chord, and in fact all the keys used in connection with this motive are close relatives of E major, and were so considered a century prior to

Notation under discussion is taken from the full score. Vocal scores may vary in their notation of this passage.

121 Example 5-3 *1

-----------------f---------- ^—

L- »T----_______S____ ---- A--------------------------- M—9—i*----------------—B4M1 ff--- U___________ ______ifezid^ *3'L ^ . lA—^—g fcV fl L. It It---—Jr* tfur I---- *? —P —’ u tf A—^......... .... TI »’ ^

1 .'i'4r

Dem T~------------- 1------------------------- 1

. • "y

*i ^

“2 '

£_____ ^ ^ b» "■

• TT

# 5. n------------- n----------r-----------------------------------

_

3 ______ ______ b___^.g...r , 3 fc^* ■ L. ^ I—n---- n------- r------ r i-I h U k> -k.-y* j/i - f“ ^ c__ c__Z_ ----i / T"' ) T” :>— - 3---------------7^ ---------- n—7----t_____ 1 ft ^ ob sich der Zau - ber mich 3»igt? ^ Haupt fUgt wohl der Helm: P=«)

f’

i

a--

-rsr.-H-l^------ 7

p W 7i.....1

b- -HV-

i—

— 7-r tinitli

"Nacht

and

1—

,c'

-5.^------------------ 1=

1^ b —ft— EF=-

Ne-bel

-

' Nie - mand gleich!” lEZ 1t±| ^i 1

■

4

c

—? ■e

___ i

1’

11—tt-r--------Tl

1

J iji .#

~Z71»

c

61

Ira-:------------------4h----------------- g

It ft

ft

« -al

3

7

___

122 (seine Gestalt verschwindet, statt ihrer gewahrt man eine Nebelsaule) [His form vanishes, in its place is seen

(blickt sich verwundert um.) [looks around in astonishment] rrn ^ —~-r

__ ±_________ gf___ p a_ __ ±_________ 1____C___ yi

Wo

—ft- . , U 1 —U.—LiZ_U____ _________ _ i______________ fm / h— 1J--------___2____ 1_________

3

K--------

m ^ » i-------/\___ r—7----n-----n------------- yt n----—n—n yt ----- m i_yf—yt ---- y-------------------------------------

bist

du?

ich

se- he dich nicht.

■■

.

--- L—JJ

—--------------

-------- If

---------------- i--------------------------------IB

y—

Example 5-3: The first full appearance of the Tamhelm theme. the composition of this piece.*"*^ Thus the motive begins on the iii chord of E major, moves to a half cadence, and ends by modulating to iii of E major. Linear harmonic analysis is presented in Example 5-4 to demonstrate the tonal relations in the motive.

143

Classic Music L.G. Ratner, p. 50.

123 Example 5-4 E

I (E)------------------------ :---------------------------------------------iii (G#)-------------

iii-l- i I

i I iii I i VI V I i-l~ VI i-l~ V = in I i 6/4 V I i

Example 5-4. Linear Harmonic Analysis of the Tamhelm Theme. Rheingold iii, mm. 1953-1968. It will be noticed from the analysis that almost all the chords heard are minor. The V chords in E are open fifths, so the haunting minor effect of the motive is not destroyed by them at all. The only major chord heard is the V of G# minor at the end which establishes the new tonic. The absence of a third from the V chord serves several tonal functions: it maintains the minor sound of the motive as a whole, and it allows later reinterpretation in the key of B minor as a plagal cadence. The use of a minor third in the B chord would have destroyed the tonal coherence of the motive, since it would not have been available to E major, strictly speaking, at least at the stage of cosmological development characterized by Rheingold. By the time of Gotterdammerung the separation of major and minor into synthetic tonalities based on sonority had proceeded to such an extent that appearances of this motive routinely utilized all minor chords.^'*^ There are nine recognizable occurrences of the Tamhelm motive in Rheingold, seven beginning on a G# minor chord and two beginning on a G minor chord.'"*^ Each occurrence is harmonized differently, emphasizing different keys: E(Ei,), G#(G) and B(Bi,).

In contrast to the linear analysis of Darcy which

emphasizes the G# minor chord as first and last sonority in the example, harmonic analysis emphasizes the three keys of E, G# and B which arpeggiate the E major We are artificially speaking of the motive itself in isolation here. Some occurrences of this motive in Rheingold have the major third added in the voice part for the half cadence in measured 7-8 of example 5-3. In Gdtterddmmerung, sometimes the minor third is included at this same position in the motive. In addition to the two appearances discussed above, the motive appears in: m. 2136, Et, as Mime describes himself working; m. 2175, E, as Mime seeks to find the magic in it; m. 2603, E, as Alberich brags about it; m. 2656, E, as Alberich becomes a dragon; m. 2717, E, as Alberich becomes a toad; m. 3002, E, as Alberich gives up the Tamhelm to the gods; m. 3380, Ei, as Loge adds the Tamhelm to the hoard to cover Freia’s hair

124 chord.(Though E minor is emphasized as a chord in the motive, that chord was historically available as parallel minor of E major.

E major is therefore the

connecting link between E minor, G# minor and B major/minor.) Assignment of the key of G# minor to the Tamhelm theme leaves unexplained numerous elements in the various occurrences of the motive, such as Alberich’s first statement which presents it in E major discussed above, and Mime’s version in mm. 2175-2190, where the E melodic minor scale is utilized to accompany the second half of the motive. Mime’s text is den Zauber, der ihm entziickt, den Zauber errieth ich nicht recht, der das Werk mir rieth, und mir’s entriss, der lehrte mich nun doch leider zu spat, welche List ISg’ in dem Helm. [the magic that lies therein, that magic I guessed not right, he who planned the work, and wrested it from me, he taught me now, but sadly too late, what craft lay in the helm.] Mime’s speech is about the magic in the Tamhelm, and Wagner references that magic to the tonality of E by means of the E minor scale. Strict observance of the house laws of key cannot support an analysis of G# minor. The question as to why E major, and why that tonaUty is hidden behind the surface, is the next logical area of inquiry. As Alberich dons the Tamhelm he is instantly transported to E major, a tonality invisible in the context of the prevailing Bi, minor: thus the tonality of E is not a surface event, but a background result of what we hear on the surface. As Alberich works his spell, he is further covered over by a modulation to the mediant of E major. The third scale degree was considered the point of farthest harmonic remove in common practice. Here that modulation is used to hide within the key of E major, which is itself as far as possible from the prevailing Bt minor. The stage directions explicitly require Alberich to disappear at the point of this modulation to G#. There are four transformations that create the magical effect of the Tamhelm:

'*^Wagner’s Das Rheingold. p. 168-170. Darcy refers to the theme being notated in G# minor in

the Schirmer vocal score, but ignores the G naturals (which should be Fx’s if the notation were G# minor) in his statement. Wagner’s notation uses Eb’s for horns in E in this particular passage, supporting a tonality of E with use of the parallel minor, rather than G# with neighbor note motion. Ratner, Classic Music, p. 208.

125 1. modulation of a tritone. 2. change of mode. 3. hiding the tonality in the background. 4. modulation to iii. One could argue that the music hides Alberich better than stagecraft can. It is small wonder, then, that when Alberich asks Mime in G# minor “Siehst du mich Bruder?” [Can you see me, brother?] Mime has to answer from his dominant of B|, minor “Wo bist du? Ich sehe dich nicht.” [Where are you, I can’t see you]. Mime simply cannot see E major and all the transformations it has undergone from his earthbound B|, minor! ■ We observe that the E minor, G# minor and B arpeggiate the notes of the background E major tonality, the source from which the tonal resources of the motive are drawn. Reference to G# minor as a tonal background to this motive fails, since E minor would not be available to G# minor, and the note G natural is not orchestrated to appear as a neighbor tone. The explicit statement of the artifact’s completeness in E major, the notation of Alberich’s spell, and the relationship of E to magical elements in scene i, all combine to support the view that the Tamhelm is an artifact expressed through the tonality of E major. As with the Ring motive, this is another example of upward mobility in the tonal hierarchy: E major is not only the key of the motive, the notes of the E major chord are the roots of the chords of the motive. The tonality is therefore projected through entirely harmonic (as opposed to linear) means: the chords and modulations are the notes of the tonic triad. The sonority of the motive is another interesting issue. Omitting the vocal lines from consideration, all the chords but one of the motive are minor or open fifths. This creates a unique feeling tone to the Tamhelm and its references. It also creates the possibility of reinterpretation of the motive in different harmonic contexts: the E:iii-i-V of the Rheingold Tamhelm can be easily reinterpreted as b:vi-iv-i, a variant of a plagal cadence in the closing scene if Act I of Gdtterddmmerung.

In this later form it does not function as a fixed tonal

association of B minor with the Tamhelm, however. Rather it functions as a

126 plagal reminiscence of its magical power (related to the tonic E) and its subordination tonally to the mechanics of B minor, the key associated with Hagen as personification of Alberich’s curse.'"*® Most importantly, though, we can see clearly that the effect of the Tamhelm is calculated and executed using to maximum effect the traditional resources available to the composer at the time. The structure and harmonic function of the motive is consistent with Wagner’s description of his own techniques of modulation and with the previous harmonic definition of magic proceeding into the key of E. The Tamhelm’s effect is predicated on the presumptions of common practice eighteenth century tonality. If third relations and tritone modulations are considered to be the normal state of affairs, then Alberich can find no place to secrete himself. The modulation to E major gains its significance from the primary key of Bi, minor in which it is embedded, and the modulation to iii of E hides Alberich inside the tonality of E. The appropriateness of the tonal environment to the function of the motive in the drama is emphasized when Alberich performs his tricks for Loge, turning himself into serpent and toad. (Rheingold measures 2655-2663 and 2716-2722). In both these statements Loge leads Alberich into the Tamhelm motive via passage through a D# major chord as V of G# minor, the key into which the Tamhelm motive secretes Alberich. Since the motive begins on a G# minor chord and ends in G# minor, Wagner has already informed us that Loge has the key to Alberich’s transformation - there is nowhere the Tamhelm can hide Alberich, because Loge is already there waiting for him.'"*® Finally, the relation of the E major Tamhelm to Alberich’s B[, minor is instractive, and the first example of a tonal relationship that we shall see often in the late music dramas. It is no mere coincidence that Alberich is undone by an

Alberich’s curse is delivered in B minor, the curse motive itself modulates from E minor to B minor similar to the manner in ■which the Tamhelm motive in this scene inflects B minor with a plagal cadence. These occurrences would appear to support Stolba’s and Darcy’s assignation of G# minor to the Tamhelm, if the motive were consistently used in this type of context. However, as mentioned earlier there are too many counter-examples to assign the motive to the key of G# exclusively in addition to the problem of its E minor chord. In fact this is only an example of the motive being embedded in a G# minor context.

127 artifact removed a tritone and change of mode from his key. He has overreached himself and is undone by his tonal opposite. MAGIC SLEEP Brilnnhilde’s magic sleep motive is an enigmatic progression that becomes very important later in the scene and later in the Ring}^° The progression, shown in Example 5-5, consists of a series of chords that seems to sequence down a major third every two measures over four iterations, though inner voices are varied in the second statement of the sequence.*^' The upper voice plays a descending chromatic scale while the bass repeats a rising motive of m3, m3, m2, m2. As opposed to the Tamhelm, which is characterized by predominantly minor chords, this motive is characterized by predominantly major chords. Though this motive modulates constantly, the local tonic chord is only heard once, and is immediately treated as a Neapolitan function. Example 5-5 begins three and one half measures before the Magic Sleep motive, Wotan’s words “so kiisst er die Gottheit von dir”

[so he kisses thy

godhood away] and ends with the measure after completion of the motive. One element of the full score which is absent in some piano reductions is the pianissimo pedal E played on timpani during the eight measure sequence. This note is reproduced in the example one octave below its written position in the

McCreless has discussed its appearance in the music of the third Norn in the Prologue to Cotterdammerung, for example in “Schenker and the Norns”, while Katz discusses it in Challenge to Musical Tradition, A new concept of Tonality. One of the most important aspects of this motive,

invisible to their Schenkerian approaches, is its ability to build tonality from the bottom up rather than from the top down. Compared to the Walhall theme, in which all the surface keys are heard as they relate to the governing Di, in the background, in the Magic Sleep motive all the background keys are results of the motive’s activities. This is a process that evolves over the course of the Ring in which tonality frees itself from the background without losing its grammatical structure. The motive is prefigured in fragments several times in the preceding music of this scene, but only achieves its complete form at this point in the opera (Act in mm 1617 et seq.). It would not be unfair to say that the previous appearances are premonitions of this appearance, and all subsequent quotations of the motive refer to this moment. Since this paper discusses magical transformation, it is most appropriate to focus attention on the instant where that transformation occurs.

128 Example 5-5

Example 5-5. Wotan kisses Briinnhilde to sleep. The excerpt begins three and one half measures before the Magic Sleep motive, Walkure Ill.iii mm 1613-1625.

129 score. Due to the acoustics of timpani, a gentle stroke and a sojft beater produce a sound an octave below the notated pitch. Linear harmonic analysis of example 5-5 is presented in example 5-6 below. The key signature is E minor until the first note after the Sleep motive, which begins the E major close of the opera. In the analysis below we allow modal borrowing at all times (for example, the Ai, major chord in m. 1617 is accessible to the key of C major as VT borrowed from its parallel minor).

Example 5-6 e

E

VI (C)---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

in(E|,)---------------------- 1 N(E)-I

I

V(G)-------- III(Ei,)---------------------------rV(A|.)I N(E)~

lliilvlvi=IVVllVIs=Vsll=NllVs=Vsll=IVVlIvis=Vsll=rVVllvis=Vs —

I I

I

I

Example 5-6. Linear harmonic analysis of Example 5-5.

There are a number of interesting points here. First of all, the tonal path in the background is derived mostly from keys working out the c minor chord: the local tonics in order are C, E|,, E, Ei,, C, G, At, Et and E.

The single time that E

major appears as tonic in the middle of the motive it is one chord only and it is treated as a Neapolitan key/chord to Et major. (The single appearance of At is even more transitory, serving as a pivot key between G and Et). This gives Brilnnhilde’s final collapse into E major a magical floating quality, since its approach seems to have been as a Neapolitan which never touches down. Secondly, the use of diminished seventh chords as a I substitute in deceptive cadences, though rare outside Wagner’s operas, has almost become the norm by the end of the Todesverkiindigung scene in Walkure II.

In this instance.

“The Acoustics of Percussion Instruments. Part U” Thomas D. Rossing, in The Physics reacAer, May 1977. p. 281.

130 Briinnhilde’s collapse out of consciousness is characterized by cadential formulas (IV - VI - V - Is=dim7) which lead to points of dissolution rather than resolution. The bass and soprano lines discussed above do not combine to create a specific key, but rather float aimlessly between keys without being able to point towards any specific reference. Finally, the level of transposition of the sequence, the major third repeated four times, outlines an augmented triad - another symbol of tonal dissolution rather than resolution. Wagner again combines several techniques in order to create a specific effect: 1. melody and bass not pointing towards a single tonic. 2. cadences on diminished seventh chords as symbols of dissolution. 3. sequences iterated at the major third as symbols of dissolution. 4. preparation of the final tonic as an unresolved Neapolitan. 5. sequence of background keys which diverges from the principle tonic. Again, we see a tightly structured musical idea, extremely well calculated to create its effect. Again, without the assumption of common-practice tonality, the effects built into this music would become meaningless: there would be no dissolution possible by means of diminished seventh chord or by sequencing through the notes of the augmented triad were those sonorities considered to be normal. Again, we see the key of E associated with magical transformation, emphasized by the pedal timpani E. Again E is set up to function tonally as it functions dramatically. The gentle disposition into the tonic as Neapolitan is itself nothing less than magical. The variance of the second iteration of the sequence in order to create E as Neapolitan of E|, is the point of maximum tonal stress in the motive, as the E - E|, move almost loses any sense of tonic relationship. The succeeding chords do nothing to confirm or deny any relationship between E|, and E, the following chord being merely an appoggiatura chord to the final diminished

131 seventh chord of m. 1620.*^^ At the same time, the disposition of keys resolving E|, into E is maintained in a manner not inconsistent with the “determinant leading tone” function described by Wagner and seen in the first appearance of magic in Rheingold i. The innovations in this example are in the tonal background.

The

resolution of Et to E is accomplished at the level of key to key rather than note to note. The promotion of melody to chord that we witnessed in the opening scene of Rheingold referenced above has now been extended. Here we see promotion of note to key, the determinant E|, - E move, which characterized the modulation from C minor to E minor in Rheingold, now has been promoted to become a part of the tonal background. Though Wagner enters the tonal space of C through the major mode of that tonic by its function, as submediant of E minor, the Sleep music itself arpeggiates the tonic chord of the key of C minor as keys. C minor is implied as a background tonality through the keys derived from the root, third and fifth of its tonic chord. This is an innovative tonal event which demands some comment. The idea of expounding a key by modulation through the notes of the tonic triad is not new. The prelude music of Act HI of Die Walkure, which expands on ^ its B minor tonic by moving through the keys of B minor, D major and F# minor is a famous example. Above, we discussed the Tamhelm as another example, and Loge’s entrance in Rheingold, which cadences respectively on the chords of F# major, C# major and A major outlining his F# minor tonality and confirming the key signature of his entrance, is another example {Rheingold m. 1184-1212). The innovation in the magic sleep music is the divergence of the tonality outlined in the background from its tonal environment. The implied C minor is unsupported by key signature or by any cadences or progressions in that key once the chord progression begins. Nonetheless, the sequence of keys transited by the magic sleep motive does not cohere without reference to C minor as the defining tonality, from which the progressions derive. It is therefore instructive to examine in detail how this sequence proceeds. G resolves via chromatic scale through F# to F natural, Et is suspended and resolves down via half step to D, Bt resolves via chromatic scale through A to Ai. The chord Bi.-E|,-A-F# therefore has no meaning or function as a chord, though it dramatizes the loss of control associated with the E major chord of the previous measure.

132 Reference to C minor begins to appear by means of modal borrowing as Wotan states his intention to kiss Briinnhilde into sleep (m. 1614). As he fulfills that intention by his actions during the magic sleep music, the key of C remains as the background which musically generates the modulations of the sleep music. All reference to C disappears once the deed is complete. That C minor should appear here is significant. It was in the key of C minor that Alberich renounced love and stole the gold, it was the key of the close of Rheingold i, depicting the darkness and desolation of the Rhine once robbed of its light, it had appeared consistently with images of sleep, darkness and death.*^'* That it should orchestrate the theft of Briinnhilde’s consciousness and immortality and her subsequent collapse as a result of a crisis of Wotan’s love is only, appropriate. According to all that had been attributed to it, C minor was bom for this moment: it is the archetypal image of the loss of consciousness created out of forsworn love, and of the sorrow and darkness that will remain with Wotan once he has lost Briinnhilde. Most importantly, we see here a quantified model of several elements of Wagner’s compositional technique as it evolves throughout the Ring The liberation of the interior levels of the tonal hierarchy, to imply tonalities unrelated to either the key signature or the surface level harmonic progressions, opens up numerous compositional possibilities. Meanwhile, the pedal E in the timpani reminds us of the primary key which is the root associative tone around which this tonal action revolves. In this passage we see again a working out of Wagner’s compositional aesthetic as articulated in Chapter 4 above: “...the musical Modulation would have to be led across to, and back from, the most diverse keys; but all the adventitious keys would appear in an exact affinitative relation to the primary key”.

The

primary key is the E minor of Wotan’s farewell, transforming to the E major of Briinnhilde’s sleep. The emergence of the key of C minor at the end of Wotan’s aria, transforming to the tonality of C minor in the Magic Sleep motive and resolving ■ to E major is the complement, completion and rectification of Woglinde’s music cited above. Briinnhilde is released into humanity in a fashion Numerous examples exist in Siegmund’s act I monologues to confirm C minor as a key of death and despair. It’s first occurrence is in Rheingold i as a chord characterizing the sleeping gold: “des Goldes Schlaf, hiittet ihr schlechti” [the gold’s sleep, you guard badly].

133 analogous to the release of the magic in the gold by means of Wotan renouncing his love. Woglinde: C minor - E minor Wotan: E minor - C minor - E major The loss of control of the highest level of the tonal hierarchy (key signature) coincides with Wotan’s abdication from the position of ruler to the position of observer. At the same time, the tonality of any given passage becomes free to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down. Finally, since key signature need not be reflected in tonality, and since tonality need not be visible in keys, and since keys may be projected by any available chord progressions (which need not necessarily include the tonic), every level of the tonal hierarchy can become independently protagonized and expressive.

This

technique will be demonstrated explicitly in many examples below. Hagen’s Forgetfulness Potion The motive of the forgetfulness potion is enigmatic in the extreme.‘^^ (see • Example 5-7). Two chords, the first of which cannot be analyzed as a chord as

In White, David A. The Turning Wheel: A Study of Contracts and Oaths in Wagner's RING. Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press, 1988, some discussion is given to the potion in its relation to contracts. "The correctness of Briinnhilde’s moral judgment (on Siegfried) implies that the magic potion that induced Siegfried to commit perjury was not, in fact, an exculpatory factor after all. It then becomes essential to interpret the significance of the magical potion in relation to the oaths that it affects. From this perspective, I suggest that one should not view the potion (as, for instance, Shaw did) merely as a fillip to remind Wagner's audience that dramatic devices often found in 'grand' opera could also serve the more grandiose aims of music dramas. The potions that induce Siegfried to swear the oath of blood brotherhood and later to regain his memory of Briinnhilde.... are essentially magical. And, as noted above, magic of this sort runs contrary to the normal flux of natural processes. The artificial and indeed unnatural quality of the magical substance provides a key to discovering a more penetrating reason for its presence in this context. For if the unnatural quality of these potions is seen in conjunction with the present state of the institution of contracts and oaths, then the hollow artificiality of the latter is summarized symbolically by the artificiality of the magic that has led instrumentally to the destruction of Siegfried, Brunnhilde and the entire Valhalla regime.” (p. 95) The analysis presented here confirms that the potion is not artificial, but magical both in its interchange of tonal and melodic action (substituting g for b) and in its usage of tonality (c minor and e minor) specifically intended for magical purposes in the Ring. Most importantly, the answer is found in specific tonal behavior

134 written, though it sounds like a C minor chord, and the second which could be a half diminished seventh on ii in b minor, or on vii of D major or on vi of e minor, alternate beneath a melodic motive of a major third in the upper voice. This motive cannot be analyzed by itself, though its eerie conflation of C minor and c#^7 gives a sinister feeling to it. In order to make sense of it, it must be placed in context. In so doing, we will see how much more flexible Wagner’s compositional technique became over the years, though apparently the fundamental assumptions remained constant. The first two appearances of the Potion motive in Gotterdammerung I are identical in four distinct tonal elements. 1. The note E (m. 161 and m. 210) is followed by 2. the iii-i-V/v progression of the Tamhelm motive (mm. 162-163 and 211-215) leading to 3. the Potion motive (mm. 164-165 and 216-217) resolving to 4. V of G major (m 166 and m. 218). The motive is embedded in a context which begins with a melodic resolution to E, proceeds through the chords of the Tamhelm motive (iii-i-V/v of E) and resolves to G major (HI of E). The first appearance of the motive is without text, and accompanies stage directions requiring Hagen to hold Gunther’s attention fixed by a gesture full of hidden meaning (example 5-7a). The second appearance of this motive coincides with Hagen’s description of the draught to Gutrune, Gotterdammerung I, m. 209216 (example 5-7b).

Gutrune had just asked of Hagen how Siegfried could

possibly find her worthy.

Hagen proceeds to describe how the potion will cause

him to forget that he had ever seen any women. The potion motive moves from the introductory B minor through an ersatz c minor, through c#‘*7 functioning as b:ii = D:vii, to D as V7 of G. b (c) E:v=b:i-----

C#®7 D7 ii=D:vii Is=G:V

which effects tonal structure from the bottom upwards. This issue will be explored in greater depth in Chapter 7 below.

135 That the motive deposits in this instance in Vs of V of G is the answer to Gutrune’s question, since she hopes to be the object of Siegfried’s desire and she introduces herself to him in G major.Once again, the sequence of keys E-B-G defines a tonal background associating magic with the tonic E, while the dysfunctional ersatz C minor chord sits at the center of the motive, symbolizing the same crisis in love which motivated Alberich and Wotan in earlier situations. Example 5-7 a.

Fi. r-i —f-n l -f J-

^ r b.

tfr ‘p

J J _ r_ _ _ _ _ _ _ t

GotterdUmmerung I, m. 466.

J

I

..... -

r

— ±=------------------’¥•• ■p

136

3

Example 5-7. The first two occurrences of the motive associated with Hagen’s magic potion The rapidity of modulation here is exceptional, but the technique, the depiction of magic via an E derived complex of keys, and the tonal-poetic implications remain the same. The approach to the second appearance of the motive includes five measures of the Tamhelm motive. Precedfed by a reminder of E major and magical function, the potion’s harmonic action is to change that tonal background to E minor by substituting the key of G major for the key of G# minor. This is all accomplished through the agency of an ersatz C minor chord, reversing completely the natural flow of control in the tonal hierarchy. Hagen’s chromatic passing tones behave in a fashion opposite to the Fate motive as discussed above. While Siegmund and Briinnhilde were still under

Wotan’s control, ersatz chords were still subject to the demands of their tonal environment.

Now that Wotan’s power has been broken, Hagen is free to

manipulate the tonal environment from below, and his magic potion reorients the level of key by means of an ersatz chord which is invisible if analyzed from the context of key itself. Once again, if we exceed the house laws of key and explain C minor as i,vi of E, we miss the point of the music and the drama. It is the very fact that C minor is invisible to E which renders the potion effective. The motive is meant to symbolize a psychic crisis that occurs beneath the level of conscious awareness. When Siegfried is actually physically confronted with the potion itself, it arises out of a strangely transforming trill (example 5-8a). Dedicating the act of drinking to Briinnhilde in the key of Ai,, the tritone between Dt and G is sustained with the G trilling up to Aj,. In the third measure of this trill the upper note changes to A natural in a hair-raising modulation. As the potion motive enters, adding a B to the G-A tjill over Di, (enharmonically C#), the tonic E is referenced again. The coHectionof notes G-A-B-(C)-C#-D#-E in m. 497-499 are sufficient to define E minor as tonic.

(The C in parentheses is treated as chromatic

appoggiatura to the following C#, just as it always has been in this motive, while identification of C# as a scale tone forces D# to be a scale tone as well.) Thus, the potion motive, as well as the Ring, the Tamhelm md the Magic Sleep music, can all be seen to derive from an E major/minor tonal background. Resolutions of the potion motive are instructive and suggest a powerful tonal-poetic connection at work, which has the power to generate motives and force dramatic action and psychological evolution purely on the basis of tonal associations. Melodically, the motive oscillates between two notes: B and G. The motive resolves to one of two keys: B or G. Resolution to B associates with Briinnhilde and resolution to G associates with the Gibichungs. We have remarked on the resolution of the first potion appearance to V of G major. The C# half-diminished seventh chord, which ends the potion motive as

138 Example 5-8

139

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Example 5-8. Siegfried drinks the potion twice. a. Act I: Gutrune gets the guy in G. b. ActlH: Briinnhilde is back in B. Siegfried drinks it, resolves to Gutrune’s G major motive. Though the immediate harmonization is ambiguous, the music urges towards G major as Gunther names his sister in that key. Gutrune has now captured Siegfried’s whole attention, and he becomes subject to her tonal logic. As Gutrune commandeers this motive, taking hold of Siegfried’s attention, the structure of the melodic third above it becomes clear. Brunnhilde’s B minor has been replaced by Gutrune’s G major. This has some rather sorrowful entailments later in the Act I Briinnhilde Siegfried scene. Siegfried identifies himself after the potion motive with the words “Ein Gibichung” in G major. As Hagen offers Siegfried the drink in Act El to help him remember his past, (Gotterdammerung El, m. 772) the motive is again preceded by the ■Tamhelm motive (example 5-8b). It resolves via a dramatic German augmented

140 sixth chord resolution to the V of

(compare to Act I, m. 504 where Siegfried

lands on the same chord, but resolves it as V/TV in G major). The potion has restored B to its rightful place as the object of Siegfried’s love. The rest is history. The potion proceeds from the context of E and modulates to the appropriate key as determined by dramatic circumstance. When Gutrune or the Gibichungs are objects of affiliation, the potion leads to G, when Briinnhilde is the object of affiliation the modulation leads to B.

This is true even in the first

act scene with Briinnhilde, where Siegfried, disguised as Gunther, demands that Briinnhilde follow him by leading the key of B minor into G major: “Dich werb ich nun zum Weib,: du folge willig mir!” [m. 1625-1630,1 court you now as wife, you follow me willingly!]. Thirty-two measures later he identifies himself as “F.in Gibichung” by resolving the potion motive directly to G. Though the potion

motive is only two chords, one of which is non-functional, it shows a specific structure, perfectly suited to its tonal-dramatic action: 1. It is melodically designed to vacillate between two notes which are its two possible tonal goals, associated with the two women in Siegfried’s life. 2. In isolation it is tonally unclear, it cannot determine where it came from, or where it is going, mirroring its effect on Siegfried’s emotions. 3. The beginning on C minor signals a crisis of love. 4. It emerges from a tonal environment of E major/minor signaling the action of magical transformation. Reiterating, without the tensions inherent in common practice tonal relations, there is no sense of magic here. True, the motive can sound almost atonal when heard by itself, but that is its dramatic function: to disorient Siegfried from his true context. It causes him to forget where he came from and to reorient his affiliations in the future. Thus it is a perfect description of the power of the potion. Once again, we see that the music is the drama, and that the drama is The chord is of course G-B-D-F. Gutrune’s G has been released back into B minor. The magical effect of the motive is harmonic and tonal.

141 inherent in the musical relations as defined by common practice harmonic techniques.

Furthermore, any suggestion that the potion is not magical is voided

by the musical action of the motive. Further Instances of Magic The above analyses show several elements of Wagner’s style that remained consistent over the course of the composition of the Ring, including the consistent association of E as a tonic with magical transformations, and the use of modulations through keys which project a kind of tonal background not consciously audible. From this we may perhaps suggest that, in all the examples, E as tonic is associated with transformational magic on stage, or illusion throughout the Ring. There are other references to magical elements in the Ring, and though no specific transformational action occurs in response to them, their tonalization is remarkably consistent with the above analyses. Some of them are discussed here. 1. Freia’s golden apples; though they are originally mentioned in D major, at the point where their spell begins to dissolve the key signature is E minor. {Rheingold n, m. 1675 to end of scene ii.) The magical transformation that removes the gods firom immortal status is characterized by E minor. In a stroke of enharmonic humor, Lxtge’s “das Obst, bald fallt faul es herab” [the fruit soon will fall decayed] is set to an Aug6 - V progression in At, using the decaying I], to arrive at its cadence. 2. Siegmund’s sword: the relation between the two tonics E and C is worked out in many instances, including Siegmund’s monologue (Act I, scene iii) and Sieglinde’s narration immediately following Most significantly, at the one point where there is some magic associated with the sword on stage (Siegmund withdrawing it from the tree) the key signature is E minor, and the music is deposited on an E major chord after the sword is withdrawn (m. 1378 - 1454). Siegmund’s subsequent modulations are to keys derived from E minor as he discusses the power of the sword to transform their lives: a=iv, B=V; G=ni and e=i. Thus the tonal sequence here is E minor-C minor-C major-E major=V/iv in E minor.'^* The similarity of this sequence to The harmonic details of Siegmund pulling out the sword will be discussed in Chapter 8.

142 the C major-C minor-Eminor of the first appearance of the Renunciation of Love motive should be noted. The key sequence is reversed. 3. Fricka discussing Siegmund’s sword: “Entzie’ dem den Zauber” [withdraw from it its magic, WalkUre II, 521] Zauber occurs on E major. Here E is only a chord outside the prevailing tonal context, part of a modulation from C major to B minor. . 4. lyiagic Fire: the magic fire music appears in E major and includes figuration over the magic sleep music, as discussed above, and additional material in E major (close of Walkiire HI). Later appearances are keyed to concurrent dramatic situations. The magic fire itself does not cause any specific transformations in the drama. 5. Erda: “Kraftig reizt der Zauber” [strongly lures the magic] Siegfried ni, m. 132-135) the chord progression is N-I-HI-dim? in E. It is derived from the second (varied) phrase of the first appearance of the Magic Sleep motive as analyzed above. 6. Briinnhilde’s magic runes which protect Siegfried from wounds (Gotterdammerung, H, m. 1434-1439) E as V7/TV leading to a deceptive cadence in E. 7. The Ring itself and its magic have the strange characteristic of being referenced in both E minor and Bi, minor. Both these keys are associative, one with the hoard and power, the other with magic. This characteristic gives the Ring the symbolism of combining opposites, and stands in marked contrast to the fact that many major characters are undone or die in keys a tritone from their home key. The circle of the Ring itself contains the entire circle of fifths. Just how pervasive the magical effect is on stage can be inferred from the position of the tone E in the tonal hierarchy. In Walkiire Act I, the magic is so important that it controls large sections of the second half of Act I. When Fricka discusses the sword’s magic, she demotes it to a chord. Briinnhilde’s charms have enough power to control a phrase, but their effect is not evident on stage. Freia’s spell is so all-pervading that we should see it taking effect before our eyes (key signature

Nor should Logo’s entrance music in Rheingold ii be confused with the magic fire music, since the former is merely Logo’s motive at that point.

143 is the visible aspect of key).

Erda is called forth by the magic of an E minor

phrase, but asserts herself on C# as the object of the spell. Another example of Fricka’s demotion of the sword’s magic is instructive. In Walkure II, m 410 - 413 she refers to “das Zauberstark zuckende Schwert” [the magically strong, glittering sword] in the context of an E minor to C major modulation, E minor modifying C major just as “zauber-” modifies “stark”, does not get its own key, since the principle adjective here is “stark”, and the noun is “Schwert” - the C major reference. The word “zauberstark” is on an F major chord which pivots out of E minor. (The use of the chord F for the concept of strength ties in with the tonalization in that key of the two Giants, as discussed in Chapter 9 below.) Conclusion From the results of this investigation it must be concluded that Wagner’s ideas of magic and magical transformation were relatively consistently tonalized around the key of E major or minor throughout the

The significance of

this specific key remained unaltered throughout the cycle, even though Wagner’s compositional technique became more and more supple, modulations proceeded more quickly and more effortlessly, tonic chords appeared less and less in his music as he matured, and his flexibility in manipulating background key relationships increased dramatically. This suggests that his earlier theories on modulation may have continued as part of his compositional technique throughout his career, and that his keys, once selected, may have been consistently applied to the same images. On the other hand, it has to be acknowledged that reference to the associative pitch may occur at any level of the hierarchical structure, and there is As a result the tonalization of Walse (Wotan in wolfs clothing), in E major makes perfect sense. The illusion is being musically characterized by the key, while the true identity is characterized by the Walhall motive. This is stated explicitly in Sieglinde’s monologue referenced above: she alone is able to “recognize” Walse in his E major clothes. The fact that E signals illusion is of course distinct from Loge’s tricks. As shown above, Loge tricks Alberich by anticipating his move to G# minor, rendering the Tatnhelm tonally transparent. Alberich’s E major magic is destroyed by this as the theme now is surrounded in G#, minor rather then projecting a hidden E major coming out of C minor. Alberich cannot hide because Loge is already there. Walse’s E major, on the other hand, is an active projection of something that is not true.

''

144 no simple one dimensional transformation possible between any given pitch on the page and the words associated with it.

The two problems that arise in

attempting to define a one-dimensional associative transformation of pitch to poetic intent are: 1. Any given pitch may be part of a different chord or key or tonality. At which level is the association occurring? /

2. Since Wagner wrote of keys as being related to each other by expressive significance, the question always arises whether a key is significant in and of itself, or whether it is an expressive function in terms of some other key. If so, how is that expressive function defined? We can chart the derivation and function of magical elements in relation to E as their source, and we can trace them back to the first occurrence of the word magic in the Ring. We cannot, however, always localize the behavior of those elements in the key/chord or note of E. Association therefore functions outside the system of tonal structure and can become quite deeply embedded in the tonal action of the drama. In Chapter 7 this will be discussed in more detail in relation to Wotan and Di, The expressive nature of key relationships will be discussed in Chapter 9 below.

145

CHAPTER 6 A WAGNERIAN SCENA Introduction Amfortas’ Prayer (measures 933-993 of Act m of Parsifal) has been the subject of an extended analysis by Lewin.'®* In this chapter an alternative approach is offered using a more rigorous and specific discussion of harmonic tonal behavior in order to clarify some of the issues raised in his paper, and to examine the excerpt in the context of the larger formal procedure in which it is embedded. In the process, Lewin’s principal insight into the function of the Enharmonic CVB is demonstrated and confirmed as one of the motivating tonal features of the scene.'®^ At the same time his main analytical weakness, tonal substitution mirroring a “blasphemous” poetic substitution, is strongly contested. Lewin’s bar form vision of the Prayer as a self-contained set piece may be deemed substantially accurate, insofar as it demonstrates the relationship of musical material to the bar form structure of the verse.*®^ It errs in that it misses entirely the harmonic processes which unify and motivate the musical discourse. The several changes of tempo and ensemble of the scene do not fall easily into Lorenz’s formal procedures, which define everything from the abgesang of the prayer up until Parsifal’s entrance as the abgesang of an extended bar form.* This result must be seen as an attempt to resolve a difficult situation by superimposing a predetermined formal procedure over music not completely analyzed. Amfortas’ Prayer will be shown to be part of a full blown scena, which begins with Amfortas’ recitative and ends with Parsifal’s healing of Amfortas and assumption of the kingship of the Grail. This contradicts the analyses of Lewin ’** “Amfortas’ Prayer to Titurel and the Role of D in Parsifal: The Tonal Spaces of the Drama and the Enharmonic CyB" David Lewin, in 19th Century Music YH/3 13, April 1984. p. 336. Curiously, though Lewin discoursed at length on the significance of this pitch, he was unable to locate its key in the prayer itself. Lewin cites the three parts of the bar form as falling into the sections mm. 933-953, 954-978 and 978-993. Lewin’s form, however, breaks the text in mid sentence as will be shown below. '^Das Geheimnis der Form bei Richard Wagner; Der Musikalische Aufbau von Richard Wagner's “Parsifal”, A. Lorenz, Hans Schneider, Tutzing, 1966. p. 176

146 and Lorenz and answers the observed lack of mid-sized forms in Wagner.*®^ Lewin’s charge of “raging atonality”’^ will be specifically answered, and Lorenz’ predetermined formal result is shown to be unrelated to the actual harmonic processes which generate the form of the scena. Amfortas’ Scena as a Whole Lewin compares his analysis to Lorenz’s earlier analysis in terms of defining the length of the form under consideration. In Lewin’s analysis the Prayer is a self-contained set piece including measures 933-993.'®’ Lewin defines these limits as central to his analysis. Still, it is essential in my reading that the Prayer should close very strongly, as an internally coherent set piece, right at m. 993, where the prayer as a text ends. And it seems ruinous to suggest to the actor playing Amfortas that Verzweiflung should somehow dominate the tender, fantastic and intimate pathos of the prayer itself. (Consider how one would light these sections of the drama!) Without these boundaries his analysis presumably suffers. His limits are arbitrary however, and his consideration that these two sections of the drama are so distinct must explain how the scant six measures of music that separate Amfortas’ last word in the prayer from his entrance in the Verzweiflung can be so dramatically unrelated. If they are different, it is not due to any musical issues; Amfortas begins his next aria with the same key (IVC#) with which he ended the prayer. Lorenz defines Amfortas’ “Verzweiflung" as being the 18th period of Act

in and includes in it the measures 933-1028. These measures include everything from the beginning of the D minor key signature to Amfortas’ penultimate word.'®*

'*^For example in “Ritornello Ritomato, A Variety of Wagnerian Refrain Form, Anthony Newcomb in Analyzing Opera, C. Abbate and R. Parker eds. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles. 1989 p. 202. "Amfortas’ Prayer” p. 337. '”/i>iUp. 337. Das Geheimnis der Form, p. 176. Why Lorenz would curtail his form prior to the last word of a sentence, and on the dominant of a modulation to the relative major of D minor is not clear.

147 We begin by suggesting that the label “Verzweiflung” is inappropriate to describe the dramatic action of this scene. The action of the second aria is Amfortas’ forceful abdication of his office. He opens with the words “Nein! Nicht Mehr!” [No! No more!] and closes, after urging the knights to murder him with “von selbst dann leuchtet euch wohl der Oral!...” [from yourselves then the grail will shine on you]. As abdication is the action of the aria, so does this action also rule its tonal activity, which Lewin referred to as “raging atonal music”’®, with no analytical support to his claims. The analysis offered below demonstrates that the music is not at all atonal. A single tonal procedure governs the structure of the entire aria, and that procedure accords perfectly with the passages cited in Chapter 4 above from Opera and Drama. The form of Amfortas’ prayer, his abdication and his healing is a simple translation of the Italian operatic 5ce«a.”° The scena consists of four parts: an opening section which sets the scene (tempo d’attacca), the soloist’s response in a slow lyrical aria (cavatina), an intermediate section which changes the context (tempo di mezzo), and the soloist’s response in a vigorous tempo and vocal style (cabaletta).^^^ There followed an optional coda where the tension generated during the scene was either heightened or resolved. The tempo d’attacca, tempo di mezzo and coda could be of arbitrary length and complexity, often encompassing whole duets or choruses.

Lewin, p. 337

™ The scena was a formal technique which dictated an aria include two self-contained rhythmic

sections, the first slow and expressive, the second fast and vigorous. By the end of Rossini’s career the opening recitative and transitional sections between the two arias had become standardized. For a history of the development of the Scena see F. Lippman, Analectica Musicologica VI; Vincenzo Bellini und die italienische Opera seria seiner Zeit (Cologne, 1969). Early versions of the recitative-slow-fast form can be seen in Die Zauberflote (the first queen of the night aria, Tamino's aria in the act I finale) and in Fidelia (Leonora’s Act I aria and Florestan’s Act II aria). These earlier versions do not include the tempo di mezzo which transitions from the slow aria to the fast aria. Grey, has discussed scena-like procedures in Lohengrin Wagner’s Musical Prose,, p. 213-223. Grey’s definition of the scena seems to be somewhat different than the standard definition given in the text. Wagner first seriously considered using the Parsifal legends at about the time of composition of Lohengrin, so it is not inconceivable that some of the musical techniques from that time period might survive in his operatic response. The famous Miserere from the fourth act of Verdi’s Trovatore, for example, is full blown duet with chorus which functions as the tempo di mezzo to Leonora’s scena.

148 One of the most significant aspects of the Scena is its tonal structure, or lack of it. Budden in his extensive study of Verdi summarizes this situation: A corollary of all this is that it is useless to look in the operas of Verdi and his contemporaries for any large-scale key scheme such as can be found in Wagner’s scenas or Mozart’s finales. In Italian opera even andante and cabaletta may be in totally unrelated keys. An even more dramatic example of this tendency can be found in Manrico’s cavatina from Act III of II Trovatore which begins in the key of F minor and ends in the key of Dj, major. Apparently it was not even necessary for each movement to end in the key in which it began in the mid nineteenth century scena. Key being central to Wagner’s conception of the relation between music and drama, he does unify the entire scena tonally. The individual parts, though, do not achieve closure. Amfortas’ scene fits the scena model precisely, his short recitative (measures 920-932) forms an almost exact definition of the concept of tempo d’attacca. The prayer is a slow expressive aria demonstrating his emotional state. The exhortations of the knights to reveal the Grail in measures 994-999 function exactly in the style of a tempo di mezzo, raising the emotional pressure on Amfortas to fulfill his office. His wild abdication from those responsibilities in measures 1000-1029 is congment with the expected high energy response typical of this form. The close of the form, which will be shown to be motivic, harmonic and tonal, is Parsifal’s healing of Amfortas (mm. 1030-1061) which functions as a coda to Amfortas’ arias.’’^ Tempo d’attacca Cavatina Tempo di mezzo Cabaletta Coda

Recitative Amfortas’ prayer Knight’s exhortation Amfortas’ abdication Amfortas’ heahng

(922-932) (933-993) (993-1000) (1000-1029) (1030-1061)

The Operas of Verdi, Julian Budden, London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. p. 15. ' Lorenz saw Amfortas’ healing as a section of Parsifal’s aria separate from what followed. He did not see it in connection with the previous music. Ibid. p. 177

149 Why Wagner would adopt this formal procedure here is an open question. Within the larger boundaries of the definition of recitative-slow-chorus-fast-coda he has held to his own techniques, particularly in terms of providing strong tonal linkages between the various parts, as well as tonal and motivic closure and harmonic resolution. Certainly the internal structures of Amfortas’ two arias are much more sophisticated than would be expected from the standards of the scena of the earlier nineteenth century. They include a number of motivic, harmonic and

I

tonal unifying factors which cross the boundaries of the form and create a unified whole. If the musical procedures of the earher scena were not sufficiently provocative to inspire Wagner, perhaps the dramatic and tonal structure it

■u

provided to the scene may suggest a significance to this form. It was in 1882

"'I

already fast becoming an archaic form, even in Italian operas. Its usage here may

III

express something about the archaic nature of Amfortas’ tenure. Wagner also

iii

used the tonal instability of the scena to force resolution from outside the system. Within the world defined by Amfortas’ arias no resolution is possible, only

s:i

Hi

Parsifal’s entrance from without can bring redemption. (The specific tonal actions in Parsifal’s aria which resolve Amfortas’ unresolved tonal issues are discussed

*

below.) Finally, the scena was a form given only to principal characters, and its usage here quite efficiently elevates Amfortas to a higher level in the drama. Each of the four parts of this scene will be analyzed separately in detail according to its own specific musico-dramatic compositional procedures.

Tempo d’Attacca Amfortas’ recitative, mm. 922-933, is given in Example 6-1. After the entrance of the knights; there is a two measure modulation (mm. 920-921). Amfortas enters with the words “Ja - Wehe! Wehe!, Weh’ iiber mich !” [Yes woe! Woe! Woe on me!]. As Grey previously noted,’’^ Amfortas’ opening melodic interval of Bi, - E recapitulates the keys of the knights’ funeral procession, which began in Bt minor and ended in E minor.

175

'Wagner’s Musical Prose, pp. 84-92.

4

150 Example 6-1

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151

(Der Sarg wird geof&iet._ Beim Anblick der Leiche Titurel's bricht Alles in einen jahen Wehruf aus.) [The cofBn is opened. At the sight of Titurel's corpse all break into a sudden cry of woe.] 933 •f. y

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§

Example 6-1. Amfortas' opening recitative, nun. 922-932 of Parsifal Act HI.

152 This interval is significant since it has a number of resolutions possible: as a bare tritone it suggests either resolution to B or F if interpreted as scale degrees 4 or 7. If we consider the tritone between scale degrees 2-6 and in the minor, it also allows resolution to D and At minors. Considering the possibility of having a tritone between the raised 6th degree and minor third degree of the melodic minor, the tritone also has the possibility of resolution to C# and G.

All of these

resolutions are utilized except one, and in fact they define the major turning points in the scena. The prayer begins in D minor, which is its key signature, and ends suggesting Dt major. The abdication begins in C# minor and ends in F major. Parsifal heals Amfortas in D major and reveals the grail in Ai, major. B minor appears regularly, as harmonic analysis will demonstrate, always forcing a reaction out of Amfortas. Thus, this opening tritone, the aural counterpart of Amfortas’ “Wehe”, is the impetus to act for the remainder of the opera.*’® Without needing to do a complete harmonic analysis for such a short recitative, which in any case is generally a modulatory form leading to the key of the aria, Amfortas’ melodic action should be noted. For the first five measures he confines himself to the three notes of the vii° chord of B minor, and dutifully resolves in that key to the words “So ruf ich willig mit euch.” [So shout I willing with you.] over a V7 - Is cadence.

The motivic structure allows us to hear

Amfortas’ melodic descent as 4-3-2-1 in D major over a solitary D on the downbeat, before the chord is completed on the second beat of m. 928. The ambiguity between D and B is heightened in the next cadence, m. 928, third beat on D minor.

Again, Amfortas cadences on the third scale degree, preparing for

the modulation to F minor, mm 930-931. As Amfortas has consistently cadenced on the pitch which becomes the next key, his cadence in m. '931 on a rising G-At suspension in F minor is particularly poignant. Suspensions which resolve upwards have an expression of decreasing energy about them, an expression supported in this case by the syncopated delayed resolution. In this case the struggle to get from G to At makes several points. First, it is the motto of Parsifal’s search, to find At again after having conquered Kundry’s temptation in G. Secondly, since Amfortas The one resolution that is not utilized is to G. This is appropriate for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that this is the key in which Parsifal previously rejected Kundry’s blatantly Oedipal advances, a test which Amfortas failed.

failed that same test, he is unable to complete this move, and the sequence collapses beneath the repeated move of G - At, first dissolving into a diminished seventh chord, and then finally dumping Amfortas into the wounded, self pitying key of D minor, the farthest tonal distance possible from the unattainable At major. The manner in which this D minor is achieved, by reinterpretation of the sought after At as a G# chromatic appoggiatura to the fifth of a D minor chord, is a pure and elegant example of Wagner’s compositional style. The expression associated with this modulation is one of regression. D minor is a retrograde tonal collapse from the progress so far achieved in the recitative. The action of this recitative-is then for Amfortas to accept his guilt explicitly in the open phrase in D minor, then to struggle to raise himself from the key of B minor associated with Klingsor and his wound, through a cycle of minor thirds to reach the key of Aj, major, where he ought to achieve atonement and fulfill his office. He fails in the last modulation, falls into the diminished seventh chord which contains all the tonics of his modulatory cycle, and is deposited back into the key of D minor, a tritone and change of mode away from his goal. The descending bass line in m. 932, b-a-f-d leads to the D minor opening of the Prayer and is a retrograde version of the Abendmahl motive which opens the opera. The exchange of minor key for major key, descent for ascent and tritone modulation, all tell us that Amfortas is moving in the wrong direction. There is thus a kind of tonal unity to this recitative which ironically belies the traditional usage of the form. Amfortas is unable to achieve the relief he seeks, as he is unable to escape the key of D minor. It is for that reason that the D minor prayer must begin with a shriek of horror. While that shriek is generated on stage by the revelation of Titurel’s body in the coffin,’^’ Titurel’s death is a direct visual reminder of a physical result of Amfortas’ imprisonment in his own self pity. The shriek of horror is as much an inner scream on the part of Amfortas as it is a sound produced by the knights and the orchestra. D minor is Amfortas’ horror. Measures 932-933. The stage directions read (Der Sarg wird geoffnet.- Beim Anblick der Leiche Titurel’s bricht Alles in einen jahen Wehruf aus.) [The coffin is opened. All, at sight of Titurel’s body, break into a sudden cry of woe.] Beckett’s assertion that the cry is a “bullying shout” is unsupported by any musical analysis, and shows again the danger in basing analyses purely on textual grounds. Richard Wagner Parsifal, Lucy Beckett, ed., Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1981. p. 56.

154 933

Example 6-2

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7 Example 6-2. Amfortas' prayer from Parsifal Act HI, mm. 933-993^

V

160 Prayer Harmonic Analysis The prayer, mm. 933-994, is shown in Example 6-2. The melody traced out by the sequence of keys is offered in Example 6-3. The prayer opens with a i-IH-lLl'fi-IV-i cadence in D minor and remains static in that key for the next three measures (mm. 933-938). The cadence is significant. As the bass line outlines the tonic triad, we are specifically prepared to hear the IlHe chord as distinct from the m chord and as a substitute for the dominant in its harmonic function of cadentially preparing the tonic. The use of DI'^ as a dominant substitute in cadences is not new, especially in first inversion with the dominant in the bass.

It will become the norm over the course of the

prayer for this chord to fulfill the harmonic cadential function of the dominant. Measure 938, though entirely analyzable in D minor, serves as a pivot which begins a modulation, and our first point of contention with Lewin’s reading is the D# minor chord in m. 939. Lewin identifies this as being derived from the key of D# minor. This assignment of function is in error. There is no evidence of D# minor leading into this chord and no progressions in D# minor leading out of the chord. The D ^ chord which follows the D# minor chord occurs in a manner exactly analogous to the manner in which

6 followed F major in m. 934, and the

spelling as well as the next chord tell us that this phrase is analogous the previous phrase. A much simpler and more straightforward analysis suggests this chord is a pointer towards the tonic B surrounded by chords derived from B minor. The chords, C#®7, D# minor, D augmented, and E (unspecified mode) are easily and logically rationalized as; C#®7 d: vii”7 = b: ii®7

D#m B: iii

b: Hf

E7 iv7 = d: ii7

Rationalizing these chords in D# minor is impossible: most particularly the C#‘*7 chord simply does not fit in D# minor. Though the F# augmented chord may be -

161

Example 6-3. The sequence of tonics in Amfortas’ Prayer from Parsifal IE. The example shows the three occurrences of the 1-5-6 key motive and the constant intrusion of D minor at regular intervals. seen as a D# minor chord,”® its behavior is not typical of D# minor; the ensuing resolution to E is unrelated to D# minor.’” Finally, mm. 939-940 repeat with modal variation the chord progression of m. 934: m-HT-iv is answered by iiinT - iv. With the collapse of Lewin’s unsupported assignment of this key as D# minor, all his interpretations fail. D# minor is not a tonal substitution for D minor, but rather a mere sequential restatement of material heard five measures earlier. Being no substitution, it cannot serve as a musical counterpart to the supposed “blasphemous” textual substitutions'®” that he reads, nor can later events in the prayer be interpreted as the lingering effects of that key. Thus, using the idea that chords are drawn from scale degrees, and the simplp technique of modal borrowing, we have an explicit invocation of B major/minor as the source of this passage. There are clear pivot chords into and The notation in the orchestral score does not help in this matter, the same notes are notated in sharps in the viola part and flats in the trombones: ft-g#-a and gi-^-a respectively. Since the violas continue on to resolve the a appoggiatura to g in the succeeding chord, their notation is probably more significant. Resolution to an E major chord might have suggested a Neapolitan relationship to D#, but E minor implied by the resolution of the suspended A down to G natural points more naturally towards B minor as the relevant key. Lewin’s assertion of “blasphemous” textual substitutions fails on its own when considered in light of normal catholic practice. Their validity will be discussed below.

162 out of D minor and Lowin’s all important B/Q, is actually located here at the beginning of the aria and turns out to be its principal motivating tonal force. Without detailed harmonic analysis this appears to be invisible. The modulations through A minor (m. 942) and B[, major (m. 943-944) are clear if we cling to the principle of chords being derived from scale degrees. The descending B natural in measure 942 marks it as a scale degree, pointing towards the key of A minor. The Ei,-A tritone marks m. 944 as implying Bt on a local level, the C# being a chromatic appoggiatura to D and the E natural being a chromatic passing tone to F. It should be noted that measures 941-944 define an important motive which is only clear at the level of key: D-A-B|,, or 1-5-6. Lewin encountered difficulties in analyzing measures 947-953, accounting for most of the sharps as substitutions from D# minor into D minor. The tonal logic does not follow and he is required to “alter” the degrees of D# minor to make this claim.'** Harmonic analysis shows clearly that these notes are more easily and sensibly derived from a sequence through the keys of E minor (ii of D major) B major (V of E) and C# minor (ii of B major). Example 6-4 shows that no alterations need to be made to identify any chords in this sequence. All non scale tones appear in chromatic scales and are unexceptional in their behavior. Example 6-4 946 6*7

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Example 6-4. Key derivation of the chords in mm. 947-953 of Amfortas’ Prayer. Even though mm. 946-947 and 948-949 are sequential in terms of the melody and bass line, mm. 950 forces a different harmonic and tonal analysis from m. 949. The logic behind this variation in harmonization is only rationalized by the coherence gained at the level of key sequence. The motive 1-5-6, which originally occurred in the keys of d-a-B[„ now occurs in the keys of e-B-C#.

The continuation of this motive yields the next

“So, for example, the F#-minor harmony in the music of m. 947 is a substitute for the F major harmony of the figure: altered HI of D# minor for III of D minor. (The alteration A for A#, reflects the persistent residual force of D-minor scale degrees.)”: ibid. p. 337

163 iteration as f#-C#-D, which should come as a revelation if not as a surprise. This is exactly what transpires, with the proviso that D minor intrudes between the tentative f# minor i^ in m. 953 and the Dj, major of m. 959.'®^ Thus again, strict, conservative and rigorous harmonic analysis uncovers organizing factors in the music which can accurately predict tonal evolution, and which are otherwise invisible, at least in this specific instance. D minor intrudes several times in the aria, and always in this same fashion, creating a rondo-like tonal structure. Amfortas is unable to release himself from the anguish of this key, which continually occurs in a regressive manner in relation to surrounding developmental action. Though the technique of reiterating the tonic while constantly leading away to the most varied keys and back to the primary key is analogous to the use of B major in.Isolde’s transfiguration, the expression is entirely different as those relationships are varied between the two pieces. In Isolde’s transfiguration, B is made more and more clearly the goal of tonal action. Amfortas’ D minor is constantly intruding into the tonal action of his prayer, giving the sense of a prison from which he cannot escape. The modulation to Di, major in m. 958 is without pivot.'®^ The move from

ni+ of D minor to V of Dt is unmediated, just as the move from i of D minor was in m. 953.

of F# minor to

In measure 959 the Dj, major Engel motive is

analyzed by Lewin as substituting for D major/minor.

(A more accurate and

telling relation is the fact the A|, major dominant of D|, occurs in m. 958 just where we would expect progression to the G minor subdominant of D minor on the basis of previous iterations of the same motive in mm. 934 and 939-940.) The key of 4 here is cued by the text “Oh! Der du jetzt in gottlichem Glanz”, [Oh! you who now in divine radiance...] a text reminiscent of some of the textual images used in

Lewin in the above footnote discusses the persistence of D minor, but again seems unable to Iwate its function and therefore discuss its true dramatic significance. ^ This move is accomplished in the process of the “Weihegruss” motive. Lewin remarks that Wagner is here preparing us to hear D flat for D as tonic by preparing us with A flat for A as dominant. His analysis is flawed though in that the A flat chord which is functioning as V of D flat is actually occurring in the position of the iv of D minor chord in this motive. Thus, it might be more reasonable to hypothesize that we are being prepared to hear A flat for g as subdominant rather than A flat for A as dominant. Though we do not actively assert this substitution, we broach the issue to suggest that the Lewin’s concept of tonal substitution is not rigorously defined and can yield wildly divergent results for the same phrase. Lewin, ibid. p. 339.

164 this same key in the Ring to describe Walhall.*®'* Though some of the Rheingold texts are studded with modulations, those modulations are forced by Wotan to subsume into the reigning Dt of Walhall. Here the use of Dt major to tonalize similar imagery is far more poetic and supple than in Rheingold. The key materializes for only the length of the poetic image itself and is unrelated (seemingly) to the surrounding tonalities, while in the Walhall example the architecture of the building itself reflects itself in the theme and the way it is built out of its component parts.

Nonetheless, the two Di, majors clearly are keyed to

the same poetic imagery: the sparkling vision of heaven.

The innovation of

Wagner’s style is his ability to stmcture musically the wide ranging modulations by means of motivic key melodies.

Thus, the Dj, major vision is the natural

response to F# minor of the previous phrases which were so rudely interrapted by D minor. The succeeding D major is keyed to the word “Erloser” [redeemer], completing and justifying the key sequence f#-Di,-D that began with the d-a-B], modulation. Measures 965-967 are aurally ambiguous. They could be in either d minor or F major.*®^ If understood in d minor as Wagner’s notation suggests, d: i-ivvii°7------- IE''' they maintain the regular collapse of the prayer into d minor characteristic of Amfortas’ imprisonment in that key. Their behavior is certainly consistent with Amfortas’ inability to achieve anything: writhing through the diminished seventh chord unable to move in any direction. The final F augmented chord of m. 967 begins a falling tonal sequence through d**7 functioning as a dominant substimte to E|, (a substitute for a Bi, function) to Ei,7 as dominant of At

The stage directions at the opening of scene ii of Rheingold state: “Der hervorbrechende tag beleuchtet mit wachsendem Glanze eine Burg mit blinkenden Zinnen...” [The breaking day illuminates with growing brilliance a fortress with gleaming battlements...]. Wotan sings shortly thereafter “....die Gdtterburg prachtig prahlt der prangende Bau!...stark und schbn steht er zur Schau’ hehrer, henlicher Bau! [... the God’s fortress gloriously stands the glittering edifice!... strong and fair stands it in sight, hallowed, glorious building!] . Later as the gods are about to enter the building at the close of the opera Wotan states “In prachtiger Gluth prangt glanzend die Burg” [Gloriously gleaming proudly sparkles the fortress.] Amfortas’ Di, image of heaven is not dissimilar to Wotan’s of his Dt fortress. The significance of D|, major in the Ring is discussed in more depth in the following chapter. The analysis in D minor is favored due to the ultimate resolution upwards of the C# between measures 967 and 968. The tonal function of this resolution as 7-1 of D is strengthened by the fact that the chord of resolution also contains a C as seventh of the d‘’7 chord, which could have been the object of a 6-5 resolution had the passage been in F minor.

165 where the grail music reappears. This falling circle of fifths continues after the Grail motive to the key of Dt in measures 972-973. Dramatically the message is clear here. Through exploration of keys on the sharp side of D minor in the first Stollen, Amfortas straggles mightily for relief from his plight.

In the second

Stollen, he collapses through the flat side keys of D, eventually landing in his desired key of D(„ but only after passing through the Grail’s key of Aj,. The regular D minor interruption occurs in measures 974-977 before Dj, materializes as a cadence and introduces new melodic material. Measures 981982 contain a modulating iii-I sequence through the keys of QM, DlM and E|M, analyzed as HI, IV and V of

At m/M.

This is important since it is the

rationalization of the anomalous B m/M of the measures 938-940 reinterpreted in terms of the key of At major, the key of the Grail. The text of this Dt section begins asking for “Sterben_ einz’ge Gnade!” [To die, sole mercy!]. The text of the modulating sequence begins in Ct on the word “ersterbe” [die] and continues through the iterations in Dt and Et “das es zemagt, erstarre das Herzl” [that it tears, hardens the heart!]. The sequence ends reinterpreting Et as Neapolitan of D minor in measures 983-984. Though the sequence through the HI IV and V of At would most logically be followed by resolution of V to I in At, the sudden shift to D minor is a dramatic tonal depiction of how Amfortas’ D minor prison commandeers every tonal process that seeks to achieve mercy, grace or redemption. The deceptive move into D minor for an expected cadence in At mirrors the deceptive move to the At chord in place of the expected cadence to D minor in m. 958, and demonstrates that there are tonal issues which cross the boundaries of the bar form of the poem. Measures 985-987 are harmonically a repetition of measures 978-990 transposed from Dt major to D major. Measures 989-990 are a varied repetition of the m-IV-V sequence now pointing towards the key and then-the chord of A as dominant of D. Measure 990 concludes not by tonicizing V of A, but rather presents the chord V of A leading to the diminished seventh chord of A. E major has been demoted from a key to the chord Vs of v, the implied mode having been shifted from A major to A minor. The tonal point is clear: E major as a key points to derivation from the key of A major, which in turn points to derivation from the key of D major. To achieve a convincing close in D minor the tonal background has to begin to reflect the minor mode rather than the major mode.

By

166 substituting the diminished seventh of A for the key of V of A major we define A minor, the key of v of the expected final D minor. In this manner it is made explicit how the dominant as related key differs from dominant as harmonic function. The chord is (almost) always major, the key is minor when drawn from a minor key. Here the minor mode is required by the differing significations of D major and D minor. TextuaUy the D major section cues towards the word “Erloser” [redeemer] which is achieved on the note D, the longest sustained high note on a downbeat in the entire aria. This mirrors the first appearance of the key D major in measure 962, which appears on that word as well. The note D in measure 990 is already polluted by reference to the minor in the modulating sequence which approached it (through C, D and E - A minor), and by the last syllable of the word on the note F natural. Both tell us that we have already lost contact with the pure D major of the earlier part of the aria, which described Amfortas’ father in direct contact with the redeemer, and we have been deposited back in D minor. D major is thus textually associated with the redeemer. The key of D major cues Titurel in direct sight of the redeemer, whose radiance commands all in its environment. The note D (the obvious climatic note of the aria due to length, placement in the stmcture and text) in an unstable tonal environment shows Amfortas longing for redemption but unable to achieve it. D major is only finally achieved with the unexpected (to Amfortas) appearance of Parsifal, and he is thus identified tonally as the redeemer in response to Amfortas’ text. D minor appears on a regular basis in the prayer as shown in the following tabulation: 933-937 940-942 945-946 953-957 965-967 974-976 983-984 992-end‘®® Lewin would have reduced the entire prayer to a D minor form in his figure I, but in so doing he missed the point of Amfortas’ longing to escape. The contrasting keys are not substitutions for D minor, but rather attempts by Amfortas to remove himself from the prison of his curse. The

167 The tonal processes that go on in between these occurrences of D minor are important in and of themselves, but they are unable to proceed to completion in a regular manner. Though Amfortas visits the keys of C, Di,, D, Et, E, F, F#, At, A, Bt, and B, before the aria is over, D minor functions tonally in this aria exactly as a prison cell: Amfortas can try to modulate wherever he wants but he always finds his progress interrupted by D minor, which continually limits his sphere of harmonic activities

Modulatory processes can be viewed as proceeding after

interruption, but they can only go so far before coming up against another D minor wall of his imprisonment. This harmonic analysis confirms the usage of background motivic structures audible only at the level of key, as demonstrated in Chapter 3 in relation to Tristan.

Since keys are not defined by their tonic notes, but rather by the

behavior of their scale degrees, these background motives would not necessarily be visible via surface level analysis of counterpoint and motives. In this aria, for example, the motive 1-5-6 has three iterations, D-A-Bt, E-B-C#, F#-Di,-D. Since these are relationships among keys, in none of these situations is the surface level music repeated. Though this same motive is worked out throughout the aria, there is little recognizably the same among the different statements, which occur in varying poetic and motivic contexts. It is probably no mistake that the motive 1-5-6 is reminiscent of the melodic Abendmahl motive, 1-3-5-6 which opens the opera, since that is the purpose of the assembly. Nor should the relation between this motive and the melodic motive introduced in the abgesang, (m. 978) of a falling sixth and rising second (3-5-6) be overlooked. The motive appears in chord progressions as well. In mm. 959-962, the harmonic progression is

Di,:I-iii-V-ni-Is = f#: V-VI = D:I As will be shown below, the motive is answered in Amfortas’ abdication aria (mm. 1011-1019) by modulations outlining the Grail motive, 5-6-1, and the 1-5-6 motive is referenced as a sequence of keys at Parsifal’s entrance.

constant reappearance of D minor is a result of Wagner’s extension of Riepel’s admonition - the primary key must never be lost to the ear or the eye.

168 The concept of a deep structural sequence of keys, divorced from the actual surface of the music, accounts for the incredible flexibility of the surface structure of the music in Parsifal, permitting it to inflect every aspect of text motivically and harmonically in the most effortless manner. Organization of keys in motivic sequences of tonics liberates the foreground, since a key is defined not by a cadence on its tonic, but rather by use of its scale tones in certain combinations. Achieving a cadence is therefore unnecessary to define a key, and in some cases would be positively destructive to the drama.'®’ Since a tonic need not be sounded in order to be defined, a modulation can create a tonal reference by means of chords, scale tones, non-chord tones, and even by the treatment of non scale tones. The F# minor key of the downbeat of measure 953 is an instructive example of a key defined by a non-chord tone. Looking at the barechord, we see scant evidence of a key there. Looking at the previous B minor measure (vii“7-i), we see even less reason to point to the F# chord as a tonic. However, paying close attention to passing tones, we see A and G# falling away from the B minor chord. It is these two non-chord tones which effectively rale out B minor as a tonic in the following context. To sustain the sense of B minor, A natural would need to be followed by G natural, or G# would need to be followed by A# simple rales of the melodic minor scale. In context, the non-chord tones derive more simply and naturally from the behavior of notes in the F# minor scale and the progression is F#: iv - i«4. A key can be defined by a number of different interval relationships: demonstration of a tritone ds fourth and seventh scale degrees, a diminished fourth is sufficient to define a minor key, an augmented sixth chord is sufficient to define a tonic, an augmented second is sufficient to define a key. While all of these intervals and chords require confirmation from other scale tones or harmonic functions, it is clear that defining different keys in different ways has no effect on the motive defined by the modulations themselves. The surface level of the music

If Amfoitas actually could achieve direct experience of his D major at the end of this aria the rest of the opera would be irrelevant. D is reserved for the final appearance of Parsifal and directly precedes his announcement of the return of the holy spear. TTiough textless at that point, we recognize in his D major fanfares the tonal portrait of the redemption of the Grail Kingdom. Amfoitas has made clear to us what D major means.

169 becomes infinitely supple, capable of inflecting instantaneously at any level to fulfill the requirements of the poetry and the drama, while at the same time the motive itself in the background creates coherence. The flexibility is evident in several places in this aria. We have discussed the implication of the modulation Di,-D motivically as a completion of a sequence. The opening inflection to B minor/major is another example.

Though this B is

nowhere approached as a tonic in the vicinity of these chords, the use of chords and scale degree functions do unambiguously define B as their source tonic. The substitution of the iii of B major for the in of B minor should also be clear here: D major is the key of the redeemer, B minor the key of Klingsor and the wound, source of Amfortas’ persistent agony. The appearance of the redeeming chord of

D major in the context of the wound orchestrating Amfortas’ agony is in itself a tonal contradiction of the type Wagner evidently wished to avoid. D# minor is then a substitute, but a substitute for the chord of D major, not the key of D minor As such, its sphere of action is limited, and it cannot be claimed responsible for the sharp side chords later in the aria.

The function of D# minor here is merely

that of a scale step in a harmonic progression drawn from a single tonic, and another example of utilizing modal mixture at the level of chord to generate a synthetic “minor” sonority. The squaring off of D minor and B minor in the opening measures is also significant. These two keys do not directly relate to one another, and can only easily be related through a D major background.

The significance of this matter

should not be lost on anyone who hears the whole aria, the D major sections cany a clear sense of relief and fulfillment in this aria. It is through D major that the B minor wound to D minor is absorbed and resolved. Thus association of D major with the Redeemer is tonally significant. D major redeems B minor’s penetration

Compare to the following quote from Bailey: “An important feature of Wagner’s later works is the preparation of their musical structure in the structure of the poem itself; musical decisions were made in the act of turning into verse the dramatic conception which he had written out in detail in a complete Prose Scenario.” “The Structure of the Ring and It’s Evolution”, p. 48. The possibility of notes transforming into modulations and vice-versa_has been raised by Bailey in his essay ‘An ^alytical Study of the Sketches and Drafts’ in Wagner Prelude and Tran^guration from Tristan and Isolde, Norton, 1985, p. 113-146. Grey has discussed this in relation to the third act of Parsifal, notably the B|, - E tritone that opens Amfortqs’ recitative, ibid. p. 84-92. The concatenation of these two ideas suggests that poetry was conceived with musical relationships in mind.

170 of D minor.*®® It is most Wagnerian that this motivating conflict occurs entirely in the music and not in the text, though it is realized visually as Amfortas is directed to raise himself.

The visual struggle which we witness as he raises

himself is his struggle against the key of B minor. The significance of D minor as Amfortas’ prison has already been mentioned. Another aspect of the tonal behavior of D minor can be considered from the actual behavior of tonal material appearing in that key.

The opening D

minor lasts for 5-6 measures, the sixth being the pivot to B minor. The first three measures proclaim two of the principal motives of the aria: Measure 933 the fortissimo chord with rashing scales, and measure 934 the Weihegruss motive. After the opening three measures, literally nothing happens until the pivot chord to B minor. The D minor firom measures 940-941 is too short for very much of significance to happen. All we really hear is a V-i cadence in D. The D minor in measures 953-957 mirrors the opening.

Beyond the level of surface

activity, again almost nothing happens; a two measure dominant preparation leads to a loud D minor chord and the Weihegruss motive.

After these sections D

minor is notable for its inability to achieve a single cadence. Measures 965-967 languish on a diminished seventh chord. Measures 974-976 stall on a weird V13 chord which can barely find its leading tone. The same chord hangs motionless in measures 983-984, falling finally into the second phrase of the Abgesang. The final cadence (mm. 992-993) which should be a V-i in D minor is in fact subverted by the sagging of the three lower tones of the vii°® chord of D minor to their lower chromatic neighbors. Resolution of these three non-scale notes back to their proper positions in the

chord of D minor takes a full three

measures. At the same time, the deeply desired Dt major implied by the drooping ersatz viiS--------------------------- ^^ ‘f'

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Example 6-5. Harmonic reduction of the Kinghts' exhortation of Amfortas, mm. 993-1000of Parsifaim. As we have remarked above, the half-diminished seventh chord in measure 993 serves as a dominant substitute at the close of Amfortas’ prayer: the notes C-E|,-F# are all chromatic lower neighbors to the notes C#-E-G of the diminished seventh chord of D minor. These notes do resolve in the expected fashion over the course of the following three measures.

177 The knights, however, interpret this ersatz chord in an entirely diatonic manner, referring it to the key of Bi, major as a half-diminished seventh chord borrowed from the parallel minor. B|, minor is the key in which this scene began in measure 857. The dramatic significance of this connection is clear: the knights remain unmoved by Amfortas’ sufferings.

Though the tonal logic forces

resolution back to the key of D minor, the knights continue this in upward sequence to E minor as they press Amfortas to fulfill his commitments. Again, this is the exact tonal transformation of their entrance into the scene in the funeral procession of measures 857-920.

Amfortas’ sufferings have had no effect on

them and their desires, and the tritone interval of Bt - E continues to be the motivating factor for the action of the scene. Of particular interest in this short passage is the tonal behavior of the ostinato bass line C-G-A. It is interpreted differently in three different keys, but is well behaved in all of them. In the opening knights’ Bj, major/minor, (m. 993994) it acts as scale degrees 2-6-7, using the raised sixth and seventh degrees of the melodic minor scale and resolving to the tonic as should be expected. In D minor, (m. 995-996) it acts as scale degrees 7-4-5, using the lowered seventh degree of the natural minor scale and resolving correctly down to the dominant. In E minor it acts as 6-3-4, (997-999) and resolves down to the tonic in an entirely conservative gesture reminiscent of such pieces as Pachelbel’s canon. In and of themselves, these resolutions are not particularly profound, but their contribution to the harmonic texture at this point in the music is powerful. In Bt minor, the rising sixth degree creates a cross relation with the lowered sixth degree in the prevailing harmony, in D minor the C natural creates a cross relation with the raised leading tone, and in E minor, though well behaved, the G natural creates a cross relation with a chromatic passing G#. These cross relations are not evidence of atonality or even of weakening of tonal grammar, but rather of the dissonance between the knights’ perceptions and desires, residing in the ritualistic repetition of the ostinato figure, and Amfortas’ evolving agonies. The tonal significance of these diverging harmonic tendencies is interesting as well. Amfortas hears this section in D minor, as his drooping chord slowly returns to its dominant: he is unmoved by the activity around him. The knights hear this chord in Bt minor and push it upwards to E minor by means of that key’s diminished seventh chord. They are repeating the B[, minor - E minor

178 resolution that opened the scene, and this puts added pressure on Amfortas to fulfill his duties. One of the most significant tonal gestures in this short seven measure excerpt is the closing bass line. The resolution of D# diminished seventh to C# diminished seventh is accomplished with a falling sixth, A-C# in the bass. This is a significant connection to Amfortas’ following abdication aria and will be discussed in relation to its structure below.

Abdication While there are some interesting resolutions in this section, Lewin’s suggestion of atonality is much overstated and fails adequately to describe the specific effect of the piece and how Wagner is able to create the effect of healing at Parsifal’s entrance.

This section, indeed, presents special problems for the

analyst, but these are not related to any ambiguity of function, but rather to the creative use of the tonal hierarchy Wagner has utilized. As I shall show, no one dimensional analysis can uncover its single compositional process. The aria (mm. 1000-1029) is shown in Example 6-6. The key sequence is presented in Example 6-7. Tonally, the abdication accomplishes something similar to that which Lewin attributes to the prayer.

The opening resolution of the C# diminished

seventh chord to the key of C# minor actually does substitute the key of C# for the expected key of D. The specific resolution is not uncommon in the major mode, and is commonly notated as #ii‘’7 -1, or #iv°7 -1. Wagner resolves to the minor mode instead.

The diminished seventh chord which sagged at the end of the

prayer in search of Di, major now finds its release into C# minor, substituting that key for the expected D minor. Example 6-8 shows the sequential derivation of the opening modulating melodic sequence. It is significant that the modulations transit the keys of C#-CB, recoiling from the orthodox resolution of c#°7 to D minor by rejecting the tendency of its leading tone, assigning to it a key, and then modulating downwards by successive half steps. This series of modulations is contained in the melodic motive itself which moves down chromatically from the note C#. Arrival at the key of B minor again forces aqecoiling response on the part of

179 Example 6-6

180

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Example 6-6. Amfortas' abdication aria, mm. 1000-1030 of Parsifal HI.

184 Amfortas, who jerks back into D minor. The significance of this sudden reversal is the reinterpretation of the Augmented triad which up till now had been consistently employed as DI'^, or at worst as V#5, its equivalent. Between mm. 1003-1004 we are forced to reassign this chord the function of VI^, based on a mixed modal configuration of i,6-l-3, as the by now familiar fif" of B minor resolves into D minor. Though there is little D minor in this aria, its appearance is strucmrally significant.

The reinterpretation of this chord in this resolution

prepares the way for the progressions of mm. 1011-1019. Example 6-7 1000

Recoil from D minor.

*r #

1011

The open wound.

Opening of Grail Motive

i 1021

End of Grail motive modified.

Example 6-7. The sequence of tonics in Amfortas' abdication aria. Motives that occur at the level of key are marked. Measures 1004-1007 are a failed attempt to cadence in D minor, mm 1008-1010 are a failed attempt to modulate to F major. The D minor cadence is evaded by the same means the movement began: the vii°7 of D is again treated as #ii°7, this tifaie resolving to the chord of Bj,. Cadence in F major is evaded by a traditional F:V7 = eiGerman Augmented Sixth modulation.

The reference to

185 keys of D and F suggests further motion to the key of A, as arpeggiation of the tonic triad of the key signature. Example 6-8

1000

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C major:

5

17

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Example 6-8. The developing sequence in mm 1001-1004. Measure 1000 shows how C# minor is defined as key of the opening statement of the motive. The sequence develops the modulating pattern 5-3-l-7-i,6-5=^,6. Each of the last three statements omits some of these pitches: the second (C major) has no lowered 6th degree, the third (B minor) has no 1 between 3 and 7 and lacks the continuation down to its 5. The last (D minor) is missing the 7, (C#) and the subsequent descent to its dominant. Since each statement of the sequence is rhythmically varied, measures are aligned to show identical scale degrees rather than identical beats. The remainder of Amfortas’ aria is particularly significant in terms of modulations and close analysis yields insight into Wagner’s technique. sequence of keys is entirely motivically derived:

The

186 Measure

Key

1010

E minor F# minor A minor F minor C# minor Bt C C# minor - D minor E major D minor to F major (D minor on downbeat as vi of F by means of Grail motive)

1013 1015 1019 1020 1021 1022

1023 1024 1026

The first three of these modulations, E-F#-A outline the first three notes of the Grail motive, and complement the 1-5-6 modulations of the prayer with a 5-6-1 series of modulations.

Elided with this set of modulations is a series of

modulations through an augmented triad A-F-C#. The passage in mm. 1011-1019 gives an intensified answer to the above suggested modulation to A by preparing it as the result of the Grail motive modulations (mm. 1011-1017), and then by modulating around the circle of major thirds, turning A* into a kind of tonality (mm. 1018-1020). There follows a series of modulations by step rising from Bi,-E. While the keys and their respective modes do not necessarily suggest a background tonic, the tritone outlined by the tonics themselves clearly points towards F major. Additionally, the stepwise modulations are highly reminiscent of the second half of the Grail motive (completing the earlier implication of the e-f#-a modulations), but substituting the scalar interval of Bi,-E for the more orthodox B-E. The Bi,-E interval between keys mimics the knights’ exhortation as Amfortas exhorts the knights to plunge their weapons deep into his side to end his misery.

Amfortas’ F#-E on the word “geben” coming out of an E minor measure forces interpretation of this augmented chord as deriving from a mixed E major/minor. The subsequent measures follow in sequence. The resolutions of augmented triads in measures 1011-1018 are irregular, but dramatically so. As will be demonstrated below, it is resolution of this sonority that cures Amfortas. He is unable to achieve this on his own.

187 The passage ends with a plagal set of modulations into Parsifal’s healing key of A major: d-F-A, answering the earlier sequence of distorted modulations through the augmented tonality of A'". The healthy key of A major can only appear with Parsifal’s entrance. The key of D minor again inserts itself between Amfortas and his goal: the scalar progression from B|, to E must first deflect to D minor.

The specific modulation takes place in mm. 1025-1026 with the

progression E:vii‘’7 - d:i. This is another common Wagnerian progression and its explication is merely to recognize the sudden unmediated modulation.

The

modulation is smoothed by use of the Grail motive in woodwinds (beginning in m. 1024) to bridge the keys it traverses. Amfortas has recoiled from B minor in both his prayer and his abdication.

In the end he finds his refuge in F major, as

far as he can distance himself tonally from the offending B minor. Were this scene to continue forever there could be no further development. Amfortas is frozen in a state of total opposition to the offending prick of B-minor. The tonal process that governs Amfortas’ abdication is promotion and demotion of the augmented triad up and down the tonal hierarchy. As the aria begins, the augmented triad is hidden in chromatic descending scales following an aipeggiated tonic triad (m. 1001).

As the opening sequence develops the

augmented triad is uncovered (m. 1003) and reassigned as to function (mm. 10031004, b:Iir = d:VT).

In the middle of the aria (mm. 1011-1018), the VT chord

derived in mm. 1003-1004 is resolved directly to the tonic in a sequence of modulations outlining the opening of the Grail motive. In mm 1015-1017 the augmented chord comes as close as is possible to functioning as a key: all passing notes are chromatic scales, and all leaps are between chord tones. No independent scale tones are allowed outside the chord itself. In mm. 1018-1020, modulation through the keys of A-F-C# treat the augmented chord as a tonality, generating the keys transited in a series of modulations. This process of promotion throughout the tonal hierarchy answers the insistent usage of d:!!!* as a dominant substitute in chord progressions in the prayer by promoting that chord to a dominant substitute tonality. The aria ends with demotion as the chord progression of A:VI-iii-I renders each of the notes of the triad as an independent chord leading to A major and Parsifal’s healing of Amfortas. Finally, the opening of the aria (mm. 9991000) begins with a descent in the bass from A to C#, the climax occurs in the

center on the A*' chord and tonality, and the role of Amfortas ends vocally in F

188 major (1029).

The entire structure of the aria is based on the augmented triad.

In this chord, C# is fulfilling the position of the tonic D and that choice on Amfortas’ part is his rejection of his office. In this aria, the augmented triad is projected as the tonal image of Amfortas’ wound. Historically, we were first introduced to Amfortas in Act I with the Amfortas motive which begins by outlining the VT" chord in B major. The climax of the abdication aria occurs in its center as Amfortas tears open his garment and presents the augmented triads as chords, key and tonality, and proclaims “the open wound here”. In this aria, forceful appearance of the augmented triad at the moment when Amfortas reveals his wound would seem to support an identification of the augmented triad with the wound. The ensuing climax, on a series of modulations through the keys augmented triad of A-F-C#, also associates the chord with the visible symbol of the wound. After Parsifal’s healing of Amfortas (which is complete in m. 1057) there are only two augmented chords in the rest of the opera. In m. 1072 the first occurs under a chromatic passing tone on the word “wunde" [wound] in the key of F referring to Amfortas’ wound. The second occurs sequentially under a chromatic passing tone on the word “bluf’ [blood] in measure 1075 referring to Christ’s wound. The opening modulations of both the Abendmahl motive of the prelude and Klingsor’s motive of Act II, also transit augmented triads. Generation of so many significant motives and events from a chord associated with the wounds of the various characters suggests something about how the music is to be interpreted, which I shall discuss below. Amfortas’ abdication aria must be seen as the point where the suffering of his wound becomes so profound and so deep that it destroys his ability to function. As the augmented triad evolves from melodic line to chord to tonality and finally to structural pillars of the whole scene, so Amfortas is permeated to such an extent by his pain that he simply “loses” it. If the “it” that Amfortas loses is the tonic, “it” is not the tonal language. The piece is in no way “atonal”, since the promotion of a sonority to the level of key or tonality is impossible outside a tonal context.

The piece is entirely dependent on tonal practice and the

substituted C# gains its significance exactly as Wagner theorized decades earlier in Opera and Drama. Referring to material already cited in Chapter 4,

189 ....all the adventitious keys would appear in an exact affmitative relation to the primary key, which itself will govern the particular light they throw upon the expression, and in a manner, will lend them first their very capability of giving that light. If Amfortas wants to escape his tonic, Wagner does not give up his. The light which C# throws upon the drama in this situation is only granted it by its relation to the primary key of D minor. The denial of the affinitative relationship of the leading tone C# to its tonic D is the exact expression of Amfortas forcefully abandoning his position.

These relations between keys are not quantifiable

outside strict harmonic analysis. At the level of key sequence we then have a very clear message being projected in the second half of the aria: the Augmented chord, a tonal symbol of Amfortas’ wound, disrupts the flow of the Grail motive, and therefore by implication its dispensation of redeeming grace. The fact that a sequence of keys outlining the two halves of the Grail motive ends with a statement of the Grail motive in the last key achieved is further evidence of the relationships between keys and motives in Wagner.

The fact that the first half of the Grail motive key

sequence harmonizes the text

,

Hier bin ich, die offne Wunde hier! Das mich vergiftet, hier flieBt mein blut: [Here I am, the open wound here! That poisons me, here flows my blood:] is no mere fortuitous circumstance. Amfortas’ blood flowing through his wound is being blasphemously compared musically to the redeeming blood of Christ flowing .through the Grail. All these correspondences can be heard quite clearly by playing the ‘melody’ associated with this sequence of modulations: E-F#-A-FC#-Bi,-C-C#-D-E-D-F. The first three notes of this key melody (E-A) open the Grail motive, the third through fifth notes (A-C#) spill Amfortas’ blood, the sixth through tenth notes (Bi,-E) completes the Grail motive, the tenth note (D) intrudes just as it did during the prayer, and Amfortas recoils to the last note (F) to seek relief, simultaneously preparing the appearance of A major as his key of healing.

190 Amfortas’ abdication is an invention of Wagner’s. In the sources of the Grail myth Amfortas remains in his kingdom as mler. It is only upon Parsifal’s reappearance that Amfortas asks Parsifal to let him die. In Wagner’s version of the story, however, Amfortas forcefully abandons his position and leaves a vacuum.*®® It is not until Amfortas has already shown his wound and asked the knights to murder him that Parsifal even appears on stage. In the abdication aria Wagner shows us why this is so. Without a clear tonal exposition of the open bleeding wound, the healing would be impossible and non-existent at the tonal level.

Stage Directions for Parsifal’s Entrance Wagner was very specific about the staging of the last line of Amfortas’ aria. As Amfortas sings the word “Qual” [torment] (Parsifal ist, von Gumemanz und Kundiy begleitet, unvermerkt unter den Rittem erschienen, tritt jetzt hervor und streckt den Speer aus, mit desen Spitze er Amfortas Seite beriihrt.) [Parsifal, led by Gumemanz and Kundry, has appeared unnoticed among the knights, now advances forward, extends the spear and touches Amfortas’ side with its point]. It is in measure 1035 that the spear is to touch Amfortas’ wound.

(The tonal

significance of the timing of this stage action is discussed below.) As Amfortas begins his last line “von selbst dann...’’ the stage directions state (Alles ist scheu vor Amfortas gewichen, welcher, in furchtbarer Ekstase, einsam steht.) [All are shrunk back in fear from Amfortas, who, in fearful ecstasy, stands alone.] The dramatic action for Amfortas’ final aria is his abdication from the duties of his kingship and the revelation of the open wound.

The tonal action is retreat

from the tonic D to the tonic of the leading tone C#, creating a tonality out of the It may be remarked that Amfortas was unaware of Parsifal’s first appearance as well.

191 resulting augmented triad C#-F-A. The resulting stage directions are to mimic this tonal and dramatic action: the knights are to withdraw from Amfortas as he withdraws from his position.

The open wound is projected onto the social

structure just as it is projected onto the tonal structure. Wagner’s stage directions are in opposition to Amfortas’ words, and that opposition needs to be respected. It is into this vacuum that Parsifal is to appear. His entrance is not to be violent or forceful in any way, but is meant to be peaceful and gentle, in a manner consistent with his compassionate nature. It is a violation of the musical structure and of the dramatic and mythical significance of the drama for the knights to draw their swords and approach Amfortas. ’’’ Parsifal does not conquer the Grail kingdom, he heals it.

Healing The music of the beginning of Parsifal’s aria is presented in example 6-9. The augmented triad embedded as a sequence of keys in mm. 1018-1020 is stated as a sequence of chords in m. 1029 (F major, C# minor, A major). Thus keys have been transformed into chords.

Musical material originally stated as a

sequence of keys has begun the process^of transformation by being demoted in the tonal hierarchy from key to chord. With Parsifal’s entrance these same chords are further to be demoted to become the individual notes of a single augmented chord (m. 1035). Parsifal’s first harmonic move (m. 1030) is to E, the dominant of his A major key signature. (This modulation closes the open and unresolved dominant of E in measure 1025).

His second modulation is to F# major (1031).

The

significance of this should not be overlooked. It is based on the same background key motive used in the prayer, 1-5-6, as A-E-F#. The move to F# minor rectifies Amfortas’ F major, raises the third scale degree of D and opens the path to the resolution into the redemptive D major. In measures 1035,1039, 1043, and 1047 the augmented triad F-A-C# (and enharmonic equivalents thereof) are presented and resolved explicitly and A particularly egregious example of this sin occurs in the video recording of the Bayreuth > production of the work under the stage direction and artistic direction of Wolfgang Wagner. New York; Polygram, 1981.

192 Example 6-9

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