Wagner, Schumann, and the Lessons of Beethoven's Ninth 9780520960978

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. Wagner’s Faustian Understanding of Beethoven’s Ninth
Chapter 2. The Impact of Beethoven’s Ninth on The Flying Dutchman
Chapter 3. Wagner, Thematic Dispersion, and Contrary Motion
Chapter 4. Schumann, Thematic Dispersion, and Contrary Motion
Chapter 5. Late Schumann, Wagner, and Bach
Chapter 6. Brahms’s Triple Response to the Ninth
Chapter 7. Wagner and Schumann
Appendix 1. Citations of Wagner’s Possible Allusions and Influences in The Flying Dutchman
Appendix 2. Contrary Motion Counterpoint in the First Movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
Appendix 3. Contrary Motion Counterpoint in The Flying Dutchman
Appendix 4. Contrary Motion Counterpoint in the Fourth Movement of Schumann’s Second Symphony
Appendix 5. Contrary Motion Counterpoint in the First Movement of Brahms’s First Symphony
Abbreviations
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Citation preview

Wagner, Schumann, and the Lessons of Beethoven’s Ninth

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Joseph Kerman Endowment of the American Musicological Society, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The publisher also gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Ahmanson Foundation Humanities Endowment Fund of the University of California Press Foundation.

Wagner, Schumann, and the Lessons of Beethoven’s Ninth

Christopher Alan Reynolds

university of california press

University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Oakland, California © 2015 by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Reynolds, Christopher A., author. Wagner, Schumann, and the lessons of Beethoven’s Ninth / Christopher Alan Reynolds. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-520-28556-9 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn 978-0-520-96097-8 (ebook) 1. Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770–1827. Symphonies, no. 9, op. 125, D minor. 2. Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770–1827—Influence. 3. Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770–1827—Criticism and interpretation. 4. Wagner, Richard, 1813–1883—Criticism and interpretation. 5. Schumann, Robert, 1810–1856—Criticism and interpretation. 6. Symphonies—19th century— Analysis, appreciation. I. Title. ml410.b42r49 2015 780.943′09034—dc23 2014049385 Manufactured in the United States of America 24 10

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In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on Natures Natural, a fiber that contains 30% post-consumer waste and meets the minimum requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1992 (r 1997) (Permanence of Paper).

For Joel, Ellen, Anne-Marie, Susan, and Martha

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Contents

Preface Acknowledgments

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Introduction Wagner’s Faustian Understanding of Beethoven’s Ninth The Impact of the Ninth on The Flying Dutchman Wagner, Thematic Dispersion, and Contrary Motion Schumann, Thematic Dispersion, and Contrary Motion Late Schumann, Wagner, and Bach Brahms’s Triple Response to the Ninth Wagner and Schumann

Appendix 1: Citations of Wagner’s Possible Allusions and Influences in The Flying Dutchman Appendix 2: Contrary Motion Counterpoint in the First Movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony Appendix 3: Contrary Motion Counterpoint in The Flying Dutchman Appendix 4: Contrary Motion Counterpoint in the Fourth Movement of Schumann’s Second Symphony

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1 17 35 59 86 107 135 160

171 174 177 179

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Appendix 5: Contrary Motion Counterpoint in the First Movement of Brahms’s First Symphony Abbreviations Notes Works Cited Index

182 185 187 199 207

Preface

When in fall 2007 I began to write this book, I had in mind something very different. My sabbatical-year plan was to take several projects that I had begun and bring them together by stressing a few of the themes they shared. Most obvious to me at that point was my interest in analyzing pairs of works, identifying the musical features they shared, and then using those observations to say something new about the works individually. I had just published my comparison of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and Alban Berg’s Wozzeck and thought that perhaps that article could serve as both a chapter in the book and a model for how I would proceed with other pairings. My method in the Gershwin-Berg confrontation was a kind of musical-historical triangulation. There are the two works to compare, of course, but their reciprocal interpretation is guided by some biographically or historically relevant document. In my study of Porgy and Bess, Willi Reich’s analysis of Wozzeck from 1927 gave focus to the comparisons of music and drama; indeed, it made it possible to identify the many points in common in the first place.1 My intention was to gather a series of confrontations that were to have included a chapter on how Wagner’s opera The Flying Dutchman can be understood as a free, but thorough, reworking of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony; I also wanted to write on Brahms and how his exploration of various forms of rhapsodizing led him to compose the Alto Rhapsody, op. 53, and also the Schicksalslied, op. 54, works that deserve to be seen as “expressive doubles” of each other. Two other ix

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chapters included a study of the “Ardo sì” settings of Marc’Antonio Ingegneri and his pupil Claudio Monteverdi; and finally, not as far afield as one might think, a discussion of how certain rock songs ought to be understood as intentional compositional reworkings of stylistically distant Broadway songs from the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. Of all of these works, only the madrigals of Ingegneri and Monteverdi have resemblances that are easily audible. In the other cases, perhaps most notably in Gershwin’s response to Berg, the borrowed ideas resulted in new works that differ substantially from their models. As much fun as I expected to have fitting all of these disparate works into a single volume, it is doubtless a good thing that I got sidetracked (each of the ideas that fell out of the book have been, or will be, published separately as articles).2 I began with the chapter I expected would be easiest to write, since I had already presented my ideas, as they then stood, at a symposium on The Flying Dutchman of the Wagner Society of Northern California (2004). Those ideas followed the method that I had applied in comparing Porgy and Bess with Wozzeck. Thus to begin the new book, I used Wagner’s Faust-centered program for the Ninth Symphony as a means to analyze his Faustian opera, The Flying Dutchman, and its multifaceted debts to Beethoven’s Choral Symphony. In seeking to explain what musical details motivated Wagner’s narrative for the first movement as a struggle between good and evil, I gradually came to a conclusion that I had not anticipated; namely, that Wagner had found the seeds for his conflict narrative in Beethoven’s manipulation of counterpoint by contrary motion. With this discovery, the relatively contained “chapter” I had anticipated quickly expanded into a book of its own. One discovery led to another. Many of the compositions that are confronted with each other in this book involve works that have already been recognized as related, such as Beethoven’s Ninth and Brahms’s First Symphony, and the Ninth and Schumann’s Second. But there are also several unexpected juxtapositions: Schumann’s Second Symphony and Tristan und Isolde, Tristan and Bach’s Cantata 21, and Brahms’s First and Wagner’s Faust Overture, among them. My findings emerged more or less in the order they now have in this book, with one important exception. A late discovery affected the words I had been using in the first draft to describe contrapuntal voices moving against each other. Initially I coined the term oppositional counterpoint, but in the course of writing my final chapter, I realized that the centuries-old usage contrary motion was far more appropriate. In German the equivalent word,

Preface | xi

Gegenbewegung, has a double meaning. In addition to its musical significance, it is also the military term for lines of soldiers moving against each other, an action for which the English language often borrows from French for countermaneuver. The implications of this for Wagner’s analysis of the Ninth Symphony and his narrative of conflict are clear. This project is an obvious outgrowth of my interest in musical allusion, but while occasionally I point out allusions between works, most of the shared ideas are not necessarily allusive. This is not a study of how Schumann and Wagner alluded to Beethoven’s Ninth. My argument is broader, that Beethoven’s successors discovered techniques Beethoven had used in the Ninth, and from the moment of discovery, began to apply these techniques in their own works.

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Acknowledgments

Among my many debts to colleagues, friends, and family, it is a pleasure to acknowledge the following: in the past few years several people have taken on the responsibility of reading, critiquing, and correcting entire drafts of the book. First among these, both chronologically and for the extraordinary detail of his efforts is my colleague D. Kern Holoman, a masterful editor and dear friend. Stephen Hinton and Karol Berger both helped me greatly with their comments, as well as for the chance to discuss various issues that arose as I approached the finish line. For their efforts and the errors they spared me, I am very appreciative of David Brodbeck and my teacher, Lewis Lockwood. Early in the project Michael Tusa invited me to give a talk, and the discussion that arose in the course of the questions proved very helpful. And at University of California Press, I am indebted to Mary Francis both for her support and for her patience in listening to me discuss this project over several years, to Rose Vekony for her guidance, and to Mary Ray Worley for her editorial expertise. It has been a privilege to work with them all. In the preparation of music examples, I was very fortunate to have the professional skills of Bryce Cannell. Thanks to assistance from Chris Castro and Spencer Iascone, he was able to ready the examples in remarkably short time. I have been buoyed in numerous ways by the transcontinental friendships and generous encouragement of my friends Anna Maria Busse

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Berger and Pablo Ortiz. We are all fortunate to work in the most collegial of departments, and so it is a pleasure to thank Christian Baldini, Ross Bauer, Carol Hess, Katherine In-Young Lee, Beth Levy, Sam Nichols, Jessie Ann Owens, Mika Pelo, Kurt Rohde, Laurie San Martin, Henry Spiller, and Jeffrey Thomas for many years of stimulation and camaraderie. Although they are not so fortunate as to be members of my department, I am not less thankful for Ana Peluffo, Alan Taylor and Emily Albu, Annabeth Rosen and Silvano Sole, and Ewa and Zbyszek Stachniak, all of them paragons of friendship. Many years of annual returns to Göttingen have allowed us to establish a second home in that beautiful city. The friends who have greeted us warmly each time and who have in various ways made it possible for both me and my wife to conduct our research there include Andreas and Sabine von Tiedemann, Tom and Chris Crozier, Gret Dietrich and Willi Ege, Martin and Elisabeth Staehelin, and Salvatore Ciniglio. The many and far-flung members of my family have been aware to varying degrees about my progress on a book about the Ninth. One of the most excited of all was my father-in-law Donald Johns, who is sorely missed. His infectious enthusiasm in discussions of matters musical and familial was always an inspiration, and I am sure there will be a few typos in this book that his keen eye would have spotted. He and my mother-in-law, Jorun, who has helped translate several difficult passages over the years, have been wonderfully supportive. Likewise, for decades my life has been enriched by my amazing passel of in-laws: Edward Goetz, Thomas Hall, Jennifer Jay, Andreas Johns and Frank Messina, Karl Johns, and Steven Laitz. And to my wife and partner in life, Alessa Johns, I am grateful for so many things, including, in the particular case of this book, for her getting a fellowship from the Lichtenberg-Kolleg of the Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen. They furnished her (us) with a large apartment that included a beautiful study that she graciously let me take over. For Alessa and our son Gabriel Reynolds, I am so very fortunate. This book is dedicated to my five remarkable siblings and first musical companions, Joel, Ellen, Anne-Marie, Susan, and Martha. I wish only that the counterpoint of our busy lives allowed us to come together more frequently.

Introduction

As Richard Wagner’s star began to rise, and Robert Schumann’s peeked before beginning its slide downward, their paths crossed for a few years in Dresden. With good reason, no one thinks of them as friends, much less as composers who helped each other develop their own mature styles. By the end of his career, Wagner routinely derided Schumann, especially late Schumann, whom he portrayed variously as mentally weak and too much under the influence of Jewish music, meaning primarily Mendelssohn. This was the argument of his essay Judaism in Music (Das Judenthum in der Musik), which he had initially published anonymously in 1850, and then in 1869 under his own name, in an expanded form that included a discussion of Schumann. Wagner here distinguished between an early, brilliant, and healthy Schumann, the genius who composed remarkable piano works, and a late, unstable, and uninspired composer of second-rate instrumental music. Even that division between the good Schumann and the pathetic had disappeared by 1879, when Wagner helped his henchman Joseph Rubinstein prepare and publish the attack “Über die Schumannsche Musik” in the Bayreuther Blätter. In this rabid diatribe, even the early music received scorn. Yet earlier in their lives they had encountered each other on numerous occasions. Twice they had lived in the same cities, in the early 1830s in Leipzig, where both of them knew Friedrich Wieck, Clara’s father, and much more consequentially from 1845 to 1849 in Dresden. From the beginning Schumann may have seen Wagner as an adversary. 1

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A thirteen-year-old Clara Wieck unwittingly fanned competitive flames by writing to Schumann that “Herr Wagner has outdistanced you; a symphony of his was performed; it is as like Beethoven’s A-Major Symphony as it is possible to be.”1 Wagner, though three years younger than Schumann, had written a C-major Symphony that was performed in January 1833 at the Leipzig Gewandhaus; Schumann had already drafted his juvenile G-minor Symphony, a movement of which was performed in 1832 in Zwickau. Subsequently Schumann published some of the reports Wagner wrote from Magdeburg (1836) and Paris (1841–42) in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik.2 Both by the examples of his own critical writings and by the availability of an opportunity to publish in his journal, Schumann helped Wagner to become a writer.3 Wagner’s 1842 return to Germany—to Dresden, an easy train ride from the Schumanns, who lived a hundred kilometers away in Leipzig— did not bring them closer personally. As Ulrich Konrad has documented, after two visits from Wagner in spring 1842, Schumann ignored at least four invitations from Wagner to come to Dresden to witness a performance of Rienzi. Although Wagner chose not to invite him the following year to the premiere of The Flying Dutchman, his offer to pay Schumann’s expenses for him to attend the third performance was again in vain. When he then actually sent Schumann the score of his new opera, Schumann’s negative reaction greatly offended Wagner (as discussed below). The opportunity for an actual friendship between the two composers increased considerably in fall 1844, once Robert and Clara Schumann decided to leave Leipzig for Dresden. That this was an opportunity that neither man was capable of seizing is well known. But the most often cited account of their interactions, Wagner’s autobiography, My Life, is misleading on several accounts, two of which can be raised here. As Wagner told it, from Schumann’s arrival in late 1844 to Wagner’s hasty departure in summer 1849, he and Schumann met from “time to time,” and he “didn’t get any real stimulation from his company.” In fact, in the four years between fall 1845 and New Year’s Day, 1849, they met at least twenty-four times, and quite possibly more, since Wagner occasionally took part in evening gatherings hosted by Ferdinand Hiller that Schumann and others often attended. The density of meetings between Schumann and Wagner varied greatly, including only once each in 1847 and 1849. During the fall and winter of 1845–46 and the calendar year 1848 they saw each other frequently. Because the vast majority of these encounters were at Wagner’s instigation, his claim that he got no stimu-

Introduction | 3

lation from them seems typically self-serving, especially since by the time he wrote his autobiography he was well into his habit of denigrating Schumann. The meetings they had with each other over a period of six months in 1845–46 occurred at a time of particular stylistic growth for both Schumann and Wagner. Independently, studies of both composers have long identified this year as a time in which they developed more contrapuntal approaches to composition. Schumann brought to a close months of intensive studies of counterpoint and began composing his Second Symphony, a work that critics then and in the generations to come have heard as particularly indebted to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony; Wagner premiered Tannhäuser, made substantial progress on Lohengrin, and conducted the Ninth for the first time. The extent to which their compositional styles changed in a common direction, toward a style that was both more contrapuntal, more densely motivic, and engaged in processes of motivic/thematic transformation, has for the most part gone unexamined. Until recently, discussions of Wagner’s stylistic development and Schumann’s have been pursued without reference to the other. Comparative studies of Wagner and mature Schumann are few in number and largely deal with Schumann’s opera Genoveva.4 My aim in the chapters that follow is to show that the stylistic advances that Schumann and Wagner both made in Dresden in 1845– 46 stemmed from a deepened understanding of Beethoven’s contrapuntal techniques and strategies in the Ninth Symphony. Whether the original insights were Schumann’s or Wagner’s, the evidence provided by their compositions from this pivotal year and the years to come suggests that they discussed Beethoven’s Ninth with each other in the months preceding the performance of this work that Wagner conducted on Palm Sunday, 1846. What appears to have interested them both was Beethoven’s use of counterpoint that involved contrary motion, and the way in which the Ode to Joy melody was developed gradually in the preceding movements, so that the appearance of the theme in the finale was dramatically and musically motivated. By the later decades of his life, Wagner’s interest in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony had become proprietary. He was Beethoven’s worthiest heir, the only one of his generation to have advanced music beyond what Beethoven had accomplished, the pinnacle to which Beethoven’s music naturally led. Wagner’s diverse writings about the Ninth Symphony took many forms. They ranged from broad statements—at times cast as

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historical narrative, at times as artistic polemic—about how his own music had boldly gone beyond the initial combination of word and tone that Beethoven had pioneered in the Ode to Joy, to narrowly focused essays such as his conductor’s notes about the infelicities of Beethoven’s score, in which he offered the solutions he had devised to realize Beethoven’s “true” intentions. Similar in scope are the didactic program notes that he wrote to accompany his 1846 performance of the Ninth. The historical and polemical writings immediately spurred a critical debate on the division of absolute music from programmatic that continues to the present day, and the essay on performing the Ninth has influenced conductors ever since; while in contrast, his program notes, which matched Beethoven’s movements with quotations from Goethe’s Faust, have had comparatively little impact. Wagner wrote and spoke about Beethoven’s Ninth throughout his career, often to emphasize his special connection to the work. No work was more central to the construction of his personal myth. In his 1840 novella, A Pilgrimage to Beethoven, he first staked a claim for having a privileged bond with this work, imagining that he had met an elderly Beethoven and become the first person other than the composer to see a score of the Ninth Symphony. After Beethoven confessed the inadequacy of Schiller’s words (noting “the incompetency of poetry” in general), Wagner waxed euphoric: “Still today I can scarcely grasp my happiness at thus being helped by Beethoven himself to a full understanding of his gigantic last symphony, which was then barely finished, and still known to no one.”5 Much later in his life he and Cosima Wagner spent part of an evening talking together about the Ninth, as indicated by Cosima in her diary. Once they had discussed Beethoven’s motives for composing the symphony, and mused about the order in which the movements had been written, they concluded by praising not the choral finale but the first movement: “We are, however, more and more convinced that such compositions as the first movement of this symphony do not belong in front of an audience, which never achieves the concentration necessary to grasp such mysteries.”6 This singling out of the first movement for mysteries that only a worthy elite could perceive echoes passages in his autobiography. There he describes the opening measures as “the ghostly fundamental of my own life” and the symphony as a work that “held the secret of all secrets,” that possessed “mystic constellations” and exercised a “mystic influence” over him.7 Wagner’s understanding of the Ninth demonstrably advanced in stages, deepening in a way that supports his description of the sym-

Introduction | 5

phony containing mysteries that needed to be plumbed. By October 1830 he had made both a copy of the full score and a complete reduction for piano (two hands) that he attempted to publish, in vain. Soon afterward, a rehearsal he attended in Leipzig that was conducted by August Pohlenz in 1830 left him disappointed and full of doubts, not only about the symphony but about Beethoven himself.8 These doubts persisted until they were dispelled in fall and winter 1839, when Wagner heard rehearsals of the first three movements in preparation for a performance of the Ninth in Paris, with François-Antoine Habeneck leading the orchestra of the Paris Conservatoire. This Beethovenian epiphany ended “years of bewildering confusion” and sowed “the seeds of an inner change of direction . . . as though exerting a magic force.”9 It coincided with an attempt to write a Faust Symphony in D Minor, of which only the first movement was completed and later published in revised form as his Faust Overture. And it briefly preceded both his writing of A Pilgrimage to Beethoven and the composition of The Flying Dutchman, which has long been thought to commence with an allusion to the first measures of the Ninth. Wagner reached the next milestone sometime after the summer of 1845, when he decided in his capacity as Royal Saxon Kapellmeister in Dresden to conduct the Ninth Symphony at the Palm Sunday Concert that would take place the following April, 1846. For this event he wrote his program note for the work based on quotations from Goethe’s Faust, strung together with his own interpretive narrative. As he prepared for this concert, his studies of the score again impressed him with the first movement, which filled him now with awe: “it is simply not possible that the heart of a pupil has ever been captivated with such rapturous force by the work of a master as mine was by the first movement of this symphony.”10 Wagner conducted the Ninth twice more in Dresden, in 1847 and again in 1849, in the volatile month before the May uprising in Dresden. As he prepared for the 1846 performance, Wagner completed the verse draft of Lohengrin (November 1845); in the months following the April performance, that is, from May to July 1846, he composed a first draft of the music. The starting point for my study is Wagner’s program for the Ninth, which mixes his own narrative with four extended quotations from Goethe’s Faust. Wagner’s program is a dramatic narrative of struggle that is based on his analysis of the music, an analysis I attempt to explicate. As Scott Burnham observed in his discussion of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, programmatic readings of works in the nineteenth century

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and analytical interpretations of the twentieth are both rooted in study of the music: “programs make explicit metaphorically some of the same grammatical and stylistic aspects of the music that other analytical methodologies do formally.”11 Both approaches discuss the same musical issues in different languages. Wagner’s association of the Ninth with Faust came many years after he first combined ideas from the Ninth with music about Faust. His Faust Overture, the only completed movement of the D-minor Faust Symphony that he began in December 1839, has from the outset been interpreted as building on the first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth; moreover, the passage that he chose from Goethe’s Faust as a motto for this movement are the verses that continue seamlessly from the passage that he chose for the first movement of the Ninth. Among the aspects of Wagner’s narrative for the Ninth that seem particularly related to musical processes is his description of a struggle between good and evil. What in Beethoven’s movement spurred Wagner’s depiction of the first movement of the Ninth Symphony as a struggle “between the soul striving for joy and the oppression of some inimical power interposing itself between us and earthly happiness”? What musical feature(s) led him to speak of “a noble defiance, a virile energy of resistance that increases, in the center of the movement, to a state of open battle against its opponent”?12 After briefly examining and, for various reasons, rejecting a few possible musical traits that could have inspired Wagner’s interpretation, I settle on the exceedingly common and simple technique known as “contrary motion” (in German, Gegenbewegung); that is, musical lines accompanied by a line (or lines) moving in the opposite direction, whether in an exact mirror inversion or in a freer, yet still close, opposing motion that in many cases makes use of the same pitches as the idea being countered, such as scales, triads, or diminished sevenths moving in opposite direction. Wagner’s first father-in-law, Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus, deemed the term important enough to include this entry on it in many successive issues of his Conversations-Lexikon, an encyclopedic twelve-volume handbook on all aspects of culture: “Contrary motion is what one in music calls such a passage with several voices in which one voice ascends while another falls, or whose sequence of notes in one voice leaps upwards and the other down, or also reversed, from the upper registers and the lower against the middle. By means of this can one avoid many errors in voice leading and unharmonious songs.”13 For the purposes of this study, I do not include contrary motion that is successive rather than simultaneous, as contrary motion occasionally

Introduction | 7

is in imitative or fugal writing where one voice can be answered by itself in inversion, whether strictly or loosely. I also allow for the possibility that the use of contrary motion carries with it a rhetorical or symbolic meaning, such as that depicted in Wagner’s narrative of struggle. In the chapters that follow, I will examine four different varieties of counterpoint in contrary motion: 1. passages that are entirely oppositional but not thematic, like octave scales and arpeggios moving in the opposite direction against each other; 2. strictly mirrored counterpoint, when a motive or theme is accompanied simultaneously by its inversion; 3. short passages of three to five notes that are self-contained and clearly oppositional, because they repeat in extended passages (e.g., sequences), occur in outer voices, or have thematic/motivic significance, as in Brahms’s First Symphony; 4. short mirrored passages of three or four notes moving in opposite directions that may be interior filler designed to thicken a contrapuntal texture. Beethoven’s use of contrary motion in the Ninth encompasses two reasonably distinct stylistic types, both of which may grow out of eighteenth-century musical topics, the system of culturally defined musical signs, such as hunting calls, pastoral music, Turkish music, and dance types. As indicated in examples 0.1 and 0.2, the one suggests a topic appropriate in battle music, the other in Masses and sacred music, although by the time Beethoven applies them in the Ninth, they appear to have lost much of their topical significance and become more symbolic. The shift from sign to symbol is one that Kofi Agawu proposed: “whereas eighteenth-century music defamiliarizes ‘ordinary’ materials such as fanfares, hunt calls, brilliant style effects, and so on, therefore making them properly and self-consciously artistic, Romantic music, without abandoning this gesture, often prefers a break with the outside world by entering into private biographical realms.”14 While this transformation has been qualified by Raymond Monelle, who identifies several topics that survive into the twentieth century, the shift from easily recognized topic to more ambiguous musical symbol applies to Beethoven’s use of counterpoint in the Ninth.15 As I argue in chapter 3, judging from the changes in his counterpoint between The Flying Dutchman and Lohengrin, and between the first version of his Faust

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| Introduction

example 0.1. Passages in contrary motion representing conflict a. Beethoven, Wellington’s Victory (part 1, The Battle), mm. 174–80. Strings only

&

œ bœ bœ œ

& b œœ bœ

B bœ œ bœ ?

bœ œ bœ

œ nœ

œ ‰ n œœ

œœ ‰

bœ

œ nœ œ

bœ

œ nœ

œ

œœ

œ bœ bœ œ

œ nœ

œ ‰ n œœ

œ b b œœ

bœ bœ œ

bœ œ bœ

œœ

œ Jœ

œ bœ

‰

œ Jœ

œ bœ

bœ

œ nœ œ

bœ

œ nœ

bœ œ bœ œ

bœ

œ bœ

bœ

œ bœ

bœ œ nœ œœ

bœ œ nœ œ œ bœ œbœ œœ

bœ bœ

œ œ bœ œ œ bœ

œ œ

b. Wellington’s Victory (part 2, Victory Symphony), mm. 568–76, nine measures of a twelve-measure passage. Strings only

# œ œ & # œ œ œ#œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ cresc. poco a poco ## œ œ œ#œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ œ & œ œ œœ œ œ ‰ cresc. poco a poco # œ B # œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœœœ œœ œœ ‰ cresc. poco a poco ? ## • . ‰ œ œœ œœ ‰ . œœ ‰ cresc. poco a poco

œ œ œ œ n œ œ œœ œ œ œœ œ# œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ œ œ œ œ# œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ œœ œ œ œ œœ œ œ

œœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œ œœ œœœ œœ œœ œœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœœœ œœ œœ œ œ ‰ . œœ

‰ . œœ ‰ . œœ ‰ . œœ ‰ . œœ

‰ . œœ

Overture and the revised version, it took Wagner years to recognize Beethoven’s methods and to apply them in his own compositions. To demonstrate the two types of contrary motion and to establish their distinctive characters, a few examples in other works of Beethoven’s exhibit the styles and techniques he invoked in the Ninth and show that they had, at least for him, preexisting associations. For counterpoint associated with struggle, example 0.1 shows two passages taken from his so-called Battle Symphony, Wellington’s Victory, from part 1, The Battle, and from part 2, the Victory Symphony. Both are representative of passages in the Ninth Symphony. Although, as Monelle puts it, “the military topic has the longest history” of any musical topic, with centu-

Introduction | 9

ries of works that incorporate marches and trumpet signals of various kinds, there are no identifications of this kind of contrapuntal writing as a military topic.16 The first of the two excerpts shows an example that combines ascending and descending arpeggiations on the same triad but also in the last measures, descending octave leaps countering ascending triads. The second shows a different degree of contrary motion, exact mirroring which resembles the battle passage that follows the Turkish music in the finale of the Ninth. Whatever the obvious merits of two opposing lines for representing struggle or conflict, nineteenth-century German speakers had a distinct advantage over twenty-first-century English speakers for understanding the topical connection between counterpoint and battle. Principally, the English term contrary motion fails to capture a crucial element of its German counterpart, Gegenbewegung. In German this word is also the term commonly used in military treatises and histories to describe the strategic movement of columns and lines of troops against the enemy, according to the way war began to be practiced during the eighteenth century from Frederick the Great onward;17 in this context Gegenbewegung is expressed in English prose about military matters either as countermovement or countermaneuver. Similarly, oblique motion is a musical term, oblique movement a military one, while in German both are schräge Bewegung. An account of Napoleon’s battles in 1815 underscores the importance of Gegenbewegungen for an ability to respond to the enemy: “Like the plot of a drama, a battle has its beginning, its middle and its dénouement. The beginning brings the counter-movements [Gegenbewegungen] of the enemy, through which gaps in the line arise that one must overpower and these influence the last movements [Bewegungen] which decide the battle.”18 Comparable English-language texts of this period agree in the utility of countermovements and countermaneuvers for the same purpose. The lengthy article “War” in the 1824 supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica uses both terms interchangeably in discussing the offensive merits of an oblique order of attack: the beneficial effects offer “another advantage still more decisive, in bringing the half of the army constantly into action against the extremity . . . of the hostile army, which has no counter manoeuver to stop its progress;” and regarding other columns, these “will be more moveable, and not being intended for the first attack, they will nevertheless cover it against counter-movements of the enemy.”19 The art of “maneuver war” (Bewegungskrieg) was at this time an art of movement more than battle. In

10

| Introduction

the mid-eighteenth century, Saxony’s military doctrine declared that “a great general shows his mastery by attaining the object of his campaign by sagacious and sure maneuvers, without incurring any risk.”20 Napoleon introduced far more violence into his campaigns, but the principles of movement and countermovement were the same. Because eighteenth- and nineteenth-century battles were fought by opposing rows of troops, the interaction of two rows of notes and two rows of soldiers moving against one another could more readily be understood as metaphorically related. The lexical flexibility that allowed for two definitions of Gegenbewegung thus grew out of the different nature of war before the static trench warfare of World War I. For Brahms, who played with toy soldiers his entire life, the connection between counterpoint and war may have been stronger than for most. According to his friend Albert Dietrich, young Brahms loved to play with toy soldiers: “arranging them and forming them in different rows served the boy to stimulate his musical fantasy.”21 For Beethoven to employ contrary motion in the first movement as a musical representation of battle required an awareness of the military that was commonly available in newspapers and periodicals such as August von Kotzebue’s Literarisches Wochenblatt, the Wiener allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, and the Oesterreichischer Beobachter, general encyclopedias such as the Conversations-lexicons of the day, and scores of books on Napoleon. In fact, it required little more than an adolescent boy’s knowledge of toy soldier formations and in that regard is not more learned than the Turkish music in the finale. Wagner, by discerning representations of battle in the first movement, made an important connection between the outer movements of the Ninth. The Turkish music and the instrumental fugato which follows it do not intrude into the finale from out of the blue; according to Wagner they are motivated by events present already in the first movement. The other type of contrary motion present in the Ninth, certainly, but also in the music of Wagner and Schumann, involves longer, at times seemingly unending, lines moving in opposite directions by step or by thirds. While the patterns suggest circular motion, a common symbol of infinity, Beethoven employs them in the Missa solemnis in contexts that suggest the power or majesty of God. In the Credo Beethoven indulges his mimetic tendencies at every opportunity. At “et ascendit” the lines rush upward; at “descendit” they leap downward; lively loud music emerges at “vivos,” a hushed stillness at “mortuos,” and excessive repetition at “cujus regni non erit finis” (whose reign shall have no end).

Introduction | 11

All of this is the conventional musical rhetoric of Mass composition from the sixteenth century onward. Example 0.2 presents three examples of contrary motion: one from the Benedictus at the words “qui venit” (from “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”), with an expanding wedge formed by steady motion outward to far distant registers; the second at the beginning of the Credo, illustrating “Patrem omnipotentem” with outward-moving triads; and lastly at “et vitam venturi, Amen” (life in the world to come), potentially endless movement outward in repeating cycles of thirds against sequential scales upward, as if to suggest eternal life. A preliminary example from the Ninth Symphony of the first type of contrary motion can indicate the type of varied repetition that suggested to Wagner his narrative of an intensifying struggle between two combatants. An excerpt from the first movement of the Ninth—the descending D-minor theme as it appears successively in the exposition, development, and recapitulation—illustrates the trait that I believe Wagner interpreted as growing resistance against a malevolent force (example 0.3). The theme first appears in unison, without resistance; when it returns at the start of the development section, there is contrary motion but it is scored quietly, as if two opponents were tentatively probing for the other’s weaknesses. In contrast, the return of this idea in the recapitulation is not in any dramatic sense recapitulatory. Passionate resistance from the upward-moving contrapuntal bass voice appears to hold its own, at least for the moment. Wagner’s insight into this poetically suggestive application of contrary motion is one that we will trace in his own music, initially to determine when in his development as a composer this occurred, later to provide a means of comparison with the music of Schumann. And while the attempt to say how and when Schumann and Wagner applied the techniques they gleaned from Beethoven’s Ninth can contribute unexpected insights into their individual developments as composers, my larger aim is to use this information to demonstrate how significantly they influenced one another. If counterpoint was one of the lessons Wagner and Schumann learned from studying the Ninth, another is what I will term “thematic dispersion,” the preparation for a moment later in a work by planting varied, anticipatory forms of a musical idea earlier. This is related on the one hand to Wagner’s comments about the “spreading net” of a “thematic image” in The Flying Dutchman, and, on the other hand, to his description in Opera and Drama (1851) of Beethoven’s technique of “shattering” the Ode to Joy theme into parts that were presented and developed

example 0.2. Passages in contrary motion representing spiritual power and glory a. Beethoven, Missa Solemnis, Benedictus, mm. 191–93

Vln. S.

S. S.

T. S.

B. S.

&

. . œ. œ. œ. œ. œ œ “ œ . œ Ç. . œ . œ . . # œœœ

# œ. & Œ ‰

cresc.

qui

ve

ve

-

? # œ œj œ.

nit

&

œ.

-

œ.

ve

in

no

œ.

?# œ ‰ œ ‰ œ

qui

‰œ

cresc.

œ.

nœ.

-

œ œ J

œ. Ç. œ. Ç.

nœ. œ œ œ œ œ. J J Ç.

nit, qui

‰ œ.

Œ

Do - mi - ni,

Org., Vc.

œ œ œJ Ç .

œ.

# œ.

œ œ œ. J

-

-

œ œ J nit in œ.

-

œ.

œ œ œ . œ . œ œj œ j œ œ œ n œ œ Jœ J œ J J -

mi - ne,

-

no

-

‰ œ ‰ œ ‰ œ œj œ j œ ‰ œ ‰ Œ ‰ œ ‰ œ -

ve

nit in

-

no

mi - ne

b. Missa Solemnis, Credo, mm. 19–22

Fl.

Vln.

S.

&

bÇ bb

nÇ

b bœ œ nœ œ & b @ @ nœ œ @ @ nÇ b bÇ &b -

A.

-

b & b bÇ

nÇ

-

Vc. Db.

œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ !! @ @ Ç œ -

Ç

-

? bb n œ # œ nœ œ

œ œ

œ œ œ. œ œ

ƒ œ œ œ œ œ œ !! @ @ @ @ ƒ ƒ œ w ƒ w

œ

œ

œ

-

-

œ œ. J

œ œ œ. ƒ

-

w

-

mni - po - ten

œ bœ

w

-

mni - po - ten

-

œ œ . œœ œ J‰ œ œ œ œ œ @ @ @ !!

œ ‰ J

œ œ. J

j œ œ.

c. Missa Solemnis, Credo, mm. 352–56. Vocal parts only

b bœ œ bœ œ œ œ bœ Œ Ó bÇ &b men, a

b &b Ó

-

men,

Ó Ç

cresc.

Ç

et

Ç

Ç

bÇ

Ç bÇ

bÇ

bÇ

Ç

bÇ

bÇ

vi - tam, et

Ç Ç

Ç

bÇ

Ç

b œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ bœ bœ bœ œ œ œ bœ bœ œ œbœ œ & b bœ œ œ ? bb Ç

et

-

vi - tam ven - tu -

-

-

men, a

bÇ œ œ Ç -

-

men, a

Ç bœ œ Ç -

-

ri, ven - tu - ri, ven

-

men, a

-

-

men,

-

et

Ç bœ œ bœ œ

tu - ri, ven-tu - ri

Œ b œ bœ œ œ n œ bœ

b Ç œ b œ bÇ bÇ bœ bœ Ç -

j œ

f Ç

Ç

vi - tam,

vi - tam, et

-

Ç nœ œ -

a

-

cu - li,

-

Introduction | 13 example 0.3. Comparison of first theme statements in the Ninth Symphony, mvt. 1 a. Exposition (violins 1 and cellos), mm. 16–21

œ œ œ .. œ œ .. RÔ ® b œ œ. œ œ & œ ƒ œ ? b ® RÔ œ œ .. œ œ .. œ œ. œ œ œ ƒ

œ. œ. œ œ. œ. œ. œ. œ . • J œ . R S œ. œ. œ. œ œ. œ. œ. œ. J • œ . S

b. Development (violins 1 and basses), mm.197–203

œ œ œ .. œ œ .. j œ œ .. b œ œ œ .. œ œ .. j R . Ô Œ ‰ • œœ • nœ œ • b • œ œ œj ‰ ‰ J & j œœ œ p œ pizz. œ Jœ J j œ œ ?b j ‰ ‰œ ‰œ ‰ J ‰ j ‰ n œj ‰ œ ‰ Jœ ‰J ‰J ‰ ‰ ‡ œ œ J J p

c. Recapitulation (oboes, violins 1, basses, and cellos), mm. 314–18

n ÇÇ

&b

œ RÔ ® b & ?b

œ nœ

œ

ƒ

œ ..

œœ

œœ ....

œ œ œ œ ƒ

œ .. œ ..

œ .. n œ œ .. æ œ œ . œ œ œ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ

œ .. œ œ

œ ..

œœ

œ œ .. œ œ .. œ œ . œæ œ

œæ œ œ. œ œ.

in the preceding movements (discussed in chapters 1 and 2). The importance of this technique still remains in Music of the Future (1861), where he describes Beethoven’s preparatory presentations of fragmentary ideas: “I cannot resist drawing your attention to the structure of a Beethoven first movement. What we see is a dance-melody split into its tiniest fragments, each one of which—it may amount to no more than a couple of notes—is made interesting and significant by a pervasive rhythm or significant harmony. The fragments are continually being reassembled in different formations—coalescing in a logical succession

14

| Introduction

which here pours forth like a stream, there disperses as though in a whirlwind.”22 Wagner then explains how his aim is to apply this “instrumental technique” not to symphonies or even music for choir and orchestra but to drama. This attempt necessarily requires a new kind of operatic text, with “a dramatic poem itself providing a counterpart to a symphonic form.”23 While with Wagner the fragmentation and dispersion applies to music and text, the application of this concept to the symphonies of Schumann and Brahms is easily justifiable, both because Wagner had found his inspiration in Beethoven’s symphonic practices and because the ways in which Schumann and Brahms also followed the examples of Beethoven’s Ninth have been noted from the very first critiques. I have elected to call this process “thematic dispersion,” rather than one of several other possible terms, such as thematic unfolding, adumbration, or foretelling, because each of those words describes the process from the standpoint of the perceiver, of the listener or analyst who encounters fragments of a theme along the way to a complete and climactic combination of them late in a work, there reassembled as a theme. The benefits of the word dispersion are both that Wagner’s use of the verb zerteilen—translated above as “disperse”—suggests this, and that it operates from the standpoint of the composer, who having devised a central theme, then sets about preparing it by disassembling it into small units. These dispersed units can be either musical as in a symphony, poetic as in a play or book, or at once musical and poetic, as in an opera or a music drama. In order to provide a context for discussing the impact of the Ninth Symphony on Lohengrin (discussed with the Faust Overture in chapter 3), I begin in chapters 1 and 2 by comparing the poem and then the music of The Flying Dutchman, the work for which Wagner abandoned his Faust Symphony, to Beethoven’s Ninth, and also to the passages from Goethe’s Faust that Wagner chose to explicate the Ninth. Wagner’s interpretation of the Ninth, as he described it in his 1846 program, functions remarkably well to describe several scenes in The Flying Dutchman, including elements of scene structure, rhythmic pacing, harmony, and motive. Whether Wagner selected the quotations from Goethe’s Faust as he prepared the 1846 performance, or, as I suspect, already as he began composing his D-minor Faust Symphony in late 1839, the four passages from Goethe have a strong resonance with several scenes in The Flying Dutchman. The two performances of Beethoven’s Ninth, first in Paris under Habeneck and then his own in

Introduction | 15

Dresden, were followed by the composition of two operas, operas that together allow us to trace Wagner’s deepening understanding of Beethoven’s symphony. With chapter 4 the focus turns to Schumann, to his Symphony no. 2 in C Major and the Finale of the Ouverture, Scherzo and Finale, op. 52. He drafted his C-Major Symphony quickly in the last two weeks of 1845, having met with Wagner several times during the preceding months, attended two performances of Tannhäuser, and listened to Wagner read a draft of his poem for Lohengrin. This symphony has attracted considerable attention for Schumann’s use of thematic transformations to build up gradually to the arrival of the main theme—his allusion to Beethoven’s song-cycle An die ferne Geliebte—in the finale. His application of contrary motion suggests he was well aware of what had motivated Wagner’s conflict narrative in his program for the Ninth. The chapter closes with a review of his interactions with Wagner during this year. I continue in chapter 5 to examine how Schumann and Wagner veered toward each other stylistically in the years that followed Lohengrin and the Second Symphony, taking special note of the influence of Bach on both of them. Tristan und Isolde seems particularly indebted to late Schumann—including the Second Symphony—as well as to Bach. Although Wagner credited Liszt with introducing him to the wonders of Bach’s music, an introduction that biographers have variously placed in the 1860s or late 1850s, musical and biographical evidence points to Schumann’s role already in the mid-1840s. In chapter 6 I pose the question of whether or not the application of contrary motion and thematic dispersion is evident in the music of the composer who was most likely to have understood the musical insights of Wagner’s Faustian program, Johannes Brahms. His First Symphony demonstrates his awareness both of Beethoven’s techniques and of Wagner’s and Schumann’s responses to them. Though his symphony was dubbed “Beethoven’s Tenth” largely because of its finale, the title is also warranted by the formal and contrapuntal debts of his first movement to Beethoven’s. And Brahms’s sustained use of counterpoint in contrary motion exists as well in his First Piano Concerto, which indicates that by the mid-1850s he was already aware of the insights that Schumann and Wagner had discovered in 1845–46. The final chapter works its way toward the question of who influenced whom, and in what ways. Schumann initially seems to have been the better prepared to understand Beethoven’s counterpoint, Wagner the thematic dispersion, but there is a case to be made that it was Wagner

16

| Introduction

who also made the discovery about contrary motion. Because Wagner’s deepening appreciation of Beethoven’s Ninth, both regarding counterpoint and thematic dispersion, has implications for how he composed, the chapter begins by reviewing his methods as a composer. His application of formal schemes derived from Beethoven’s Ninth, his expanded use of contrary motion in Lohengrin, and his awareness of Beethoven’s pre-finale preparation of the Ode to Joy—each of these gives new meaning to his insistence on the notion of opera as symphony. But most important of all for determining his contribution to the conversations he had with Schumann are his views about the relationship of words and music in the process of composition. Contrary to Wagner’s subsequent representation of their discussions, Schumann and Wagner must have shared their insights into Beethoven’s Ninth with each other, and in so doing forever altered the way each composed.

chapter 1

Wagner’s Faustian Understanding of Beethoven’s Ninth

With The Flying Dutchman Wagner came of age as a composer of German opera. The first to make this assertion was Wagner himself, but it is also a viewpoint accepted by generations of scholars and critics since. Several years and a few operas after The Flying Dutchman, Wagner described this juncture of his career as “a crucial turning point of my artistic evolution,” and, echoing the language that Beethoven had used at the onset of his middle period, as a “new path” (eine neue Bahn).1 In his essay A Communication to My Friends (1851), Wagner revealed that the story of the flying Dutchman was the first popular myth [Volksgedicht] to penetrate my heart and compel me, as the creative artist, to reshape it and interpret it in artistic form. From this point my career as a poet begins, while that as a mere maker of opera libretti ceases. . . . The phenomena that might have served as examples for my new path were nowhere to be found. My procedure was new; it was indicated to me by my own inner state of mind, impressed upon me by the need to communicate this state of mind. In order to liberate myself from within (that is, to communicate with like-minded people out of a need for understanding) I had to set out in a new direction as an artist, one not suggested by my prior experience. . . . The form of the “Flying Dutchman” poem was, like that of all my subsequent works, conditioned in every particular, down to the last detail of its musical execution, by the material itself, as this had become part of a distinctive personal frame of mind [Lebensstimmung], and as I continued to acquire a capacity for artistic formation along the lines of my newly chosen path, through practice and experience.2 17

18

| Chapter 1

The French-influenced operas of the 1830s, constructed conventionally as number operas with stand-alone arias and choruses, yielded to operas in which the music flowed more continuously, with motives that carried symbolic significance. Rienzi in the late 1830s was followed quickly by The Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser in the early 1840s. One aspect of the compositional change that has been discussed repeatedly is national, or, nationalistic; namely, that Wagner returned musically to his cultural roots, to German musical models rather than French or Italian. As Thomas Grey described the change, “it is fair to regard Der fliegende Holländer as a new beginning for Wagner, drawing on a newly rediscovered enthusiasm for his German Romantic roots.”3 The importance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which Wagner repeatedly said he heard in Paris in 1839, has also been recognized.4 Wagner credited the chance to attend F.-A. Habeneck’s rehearsal of the first three movements of the work with inspiring him to write a symphony of his own, a symphony which was to have taken the story of Goethe’s Faust as its subject matter. This project floundered after Wagner completed the first movement, a movement he eventually published by itself as his Faust Overture. The pivotal importance of Beethoven’s Ninth is evident in a chronology of his compositions and musical projects during these years (table 1.1). Although some of the change in his style certainly resulted from Wagner’s turning away from French and Italian influences, the influence of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was particularly significant. An important and underutilized record of Wagner’s musical understanding of the Ninth Symphony is his 1846 program for that work, based on quotations from Goethe’s Faust for each movement that he surrounded with his own narrative.5 Even though he published it five or six years after composing The Flying Dutchman, there are reasons to believe that Wagner had already chosen the quotations from Goethe’s Faust. His program provides a key to recognizing not only Wagner’s understanding of musical processes in his last symphony, but also the pervasive debt of The Flying Dutchman to the Ninth. Wagner described the musical genesis of The Flying Dutchman in A Communication to My Friends: I recall how, even before I set about writing the Flying Dutchman as a whole, I sketched Senta’s Ballad in the second act, working out both the verses and music for it. In this piece I unconsciously set down the thematic seeds of the whole opera: it contained the condensed image of the entire drama, as this

Wagner’s Faustian Understanding of the Ninth

|

19

table 1.1 wagner’s operas, 1837–1846, in the context of other musical events and projects (Opera titles are in boldface) Operas, musical events and projects

Dates

Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen

text 1837–38, music August 1838– November 1840

Reorchestration of Carl Maria von Weber’s Hunting Chorus from Euryanthe Attended rehearsals and performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Paris Eine Faust-Ouvertüre (J. W. von Goethe) ( = symphony fragment) Der fliegende Holländer

Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg Conducts Eine Faust-Ouvertüre twice in Dresden Trauermusik, on motives from Weber’s Euryanthe An Webers Grabe (‘Hebt an den Sang’) Lohengrin Conducts Beethoven’s Ninth in Dresden at the annual Palm Sunday concert Lohengrin

January 1839 December 1839–March 1840 December 1839–January 1840, attempts to compose other movements cease text May 1840–May 1841; music of Senta’s Ballad, Song of Scottish Sailors, Song of the Dutchman’s Crew May–June 1840; all other music July–November 1841 text 1842–43, music 1843–45 July and August 1844 November 1844 November 1844 text summer and fall 1845 5 April 1846 first draft of music May–July 1846

existed in my mind. And when it was time to give a title to the completed work I had a mind to designate it a “dramatic ballad.” When I eventually came to compose the rest of the opera, the thematic image [contained in the Ballad] spread itself quite naturally across the entire drama like a complete net [vollständiges Gewebe]; all that remained to do, with no further conscious effort, was to develop further and more completely the various thematic seeds contained in the Ballad according to their own tendencies.6

Here again Wagner’s account has been disputed by some of the leading Wagner specialists of the past generation. Carl Dahlhaus was the first to criticize this claim for trying to impose Wagner’s later ideas about musical coherence on what was still a work written in an earlier style. As John Deathridge later put it: “no impartial listener could describe [Senta’s Ballad] as the musical plasma from which the rest of

20

| Chapter 1

the opera grew.”7 Yet Grey has defended Wagner, pointing out that Senta’s Ballad is indeed of central importance and that various motivic ideas do in fact crop up elsewhere in the opera. I will offer my own support of Wagner’s claim that Senta’s Ballad was a “condensed image of the entire opera” that “spread itself quite naturally across the entire drama like a complete net.” As a point of departure, I have assembled in appendix 1 references from Wagner criticism to moments in The Flying Dutchman that appear indebted to other works. The appendix identifies nineteen potential allusions or models treated in numerous books and articles. Most of the studies fall in the decades between 1960 and 2000, but several of them are part of a continuous tradition of such citations that extends back to critics and partisans who wrote while Wagner still held court at Bayreuth. This is not to be taken as a comprehensive list and especially not for late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century accounts. In compiling it I have not included every claim, only those that seem to have credibility, either because a comparison has been made by a reputable author, or because a claim in my admittedly subjective estimation has merit. To begin with, only six composers have been mentioned, and they are indeed primarily German: Beethoven, Boieldieu, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Marschner, Meyerbeer, and Weber, plus one folk song. Moreover, most of these have plots that deal with the supernatural, notably excepting Beethoven. Ten studies mention Marschner’s Der Vampyr and eight Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable, and in most cases the writers note not just musical similarities but also dramatic. Two of these are shown in examples 1.1 and 1.2. The first compares a Schwabian folk song to the nearly identical tune Wagner wrote for the chorus of the Norwegian sailors. In this chorus the young women of the town sing triadic entreaties to the silent sailors on the Dutchman’s ship: “Hey sailors! Wouldn’t you like some cool wine? You must really be thirsty!” to which the Norwegian sailors reply, “They don’t drink.” The Schwabian folk song expresses this exactly, as three women’s voices sing, “Now I’m going to the Brünnele [a public fountain], but I won’t drink.” In example 1.2 the comparison is between an aria for Max in Der Freischütz and Erik’s cavatina in The Flying Dutchman. Max and Erik are both hunters, an identity that, as Arthur Groos proposed, Wagner highlighted by beginning Erik’s aria with the identical intervals for the first five notes. Alexander Rehding concurs and identifies additional parallels of instrumentation, form, and harmony.8

example 1.1. Comparison of motives from Max Chop, Ähnlichkeiten und Gleichklingendes in der Musik, 19: Wagner, The Flying Dutchman, excerpt from Norwegians’ chorus; and Schwabian folk song of the three Röslein.

&œ

He!

&œ

Jetzt

œ œœ œœœ œ

See - leu - te,

œ œœ œœœ œ

gang' i

ans

œÇœ ..

j œœ œœ œ

œœœ

œœ œ

œœ œ

ÇÇ Ç ..

œ

j œœ œœ œ

ihr

nicht

fri - schen

Wein?

Brün - ne - le,

trink

a - ber

net,

wollt

œœÇ ..

œœ œœ œœ .. œœj œœ œ œ œ œ Œ œ

example 1.2. Comparison of the beginnings of a. Carl Maria von Weber, Der Freischütz, act I, no. 3, Max’s aria

M.

b &bb Ó

r Œ œj. œ n œ œ Ç

Œ b Ç & b b œ Œ Óœ

Durch die Wäl - der,

œ œ œ œ ? b b œœ œ œœ œ b Œ Œ

œ. œ œ J R Ç

durch die Au - en

œ œœ œœ œ œ œ œ

Œ œ Œ

œ œ œœ œœ œ Œ œ

b. Wagner, The Flying Dutchman, beginning of Erik’s cavatina

E.

&b c Ó

œœ œ Jœ n œ œ œ œ Jœ # œJ . œR œ J J

Willst je - nes

Tags du nicht dich mehr ent - sin - nen,

œ œ œ œœ œ œ œ œ œ Œ J ‰ œ œœœ œ Œ œ ?b c œ œ ‰ Œ Ó œ J & b c œœ œ

œ J ‰

œ œ œ ‰ J œœ ‰ J

‰ Œ œ

nœ œ œ œ Œ

22

| Chapter 1

Senta’s Ballad has several distinguished forerunners. The operas of Boieldieu, Marschner, and Meyerbeer that are understood to have influenced this strophic song were each in their ways successful, indeed, wildly successful. Supernatural characters inhabit them all, and the central tragic tale of each opera is presented in a narrative song, performed by a character who does not then realize that he or she will soon be swept up fatally in the very story that unfolds in the song. Wagner unquestionably knew of these precedents. He had conducted Der Vampyr in Würzburg in 1833 and had even revised one aria for the occasion. Thus when he arranged for the Dutchman to enter shortly after the conclusion of Senta’s Ballad, he was likely emulating the entrance of the vampire shortly after Emmy’s song. Moreover all of Senta’s references to the “pale man” and the “sad look” (the “bleicher Mann” and the “trauriger Blick”) recall the same phrases sung repeatedly by Emmy.9 The musical and textual debts of Senta’s Ballad to Marschner and Meyerbeer gain more importance because of Wagner’s own account of how he composed The Flying Dutchman. However influenced he may have been by his own sea journey, when it came time to put notes on paper, he turned, as any ambitious young opera composer would, to successful models. Yet as Wagner began composing The Flying Dutchman, two of his potential sources were not operatic, but symphonic and literary. In early 1840 Wagner was steeped in both Beethoven’s Ninth (which he had just heard in rehearsal in Paris) and Faust (he was composing a Faust symphony). Aspects of both the Ninth and Faust have been detected in Dutchman. Klaus Kropfinger and John Deathridge have heard echoes of Beethoven’s Ninth in the overture’s open-fifth beginning and the Dutchman’s theme that uses only two notes a fourth and fifth apart (example 1.3).10 Others have commented on Faustian aspects of The Flying Dutchman. Dietrich Borchmeyer termed the story “the maritime equivalent of Faust,” because of its subject matter: a sea captain falls prey to the devil because of his short-sighted, strong-willed ambition.11 In deciding to base his program note on the meaning of the Ninth on Goethe, Wagner may have known that one of Habeneck’s musicians, the violinist and violist Chrétien Urhan, had published a guide to the Ninth in 1838 based on quotations from Dante’s Divine Comedy.12 Wagner’s debt to both the Ninth and to Faust is far more substantial than previously realized. His program for the Ninth Symphony functions remarkably well as a description of the basic themes in The Flying

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example 1.3. Comparison of the beginnings of a. Beethoven, Ninth Symphony, mvt. 1, mm. 1–5. Strings only

‰ • . ÔRœ œ ‰

rK ‰ •. œ œ

Œ

‡

‡

Œ

‰

Œ

‰

Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso

Vln. I

& b 24

& b 24 œ œ œ œ œ œ œ@. œ œ œ œ œ œ œ. ‰ ‡ B b 24 6

Vln. II

Vla.

Db.

6

? 2 œ œ œ œ œ œ œ@. b 4 œ œ œ œ œ œ œ. ‰ ? 2 ‡ b 4 6

Vc.

Œ

‡

6

œœ@.. œœ@..

œœ@.. œœ@..

œœ@.. œœ@..

œœ@. œœ@. . .

œœ@. œœ@. . .

œœ@. œœ@. . .

‡

‡

‡ œœ@.. œœ@.. sempre ‰ • . œR œ Œ Ô ‰ œœ@. œœ@. . . sempre ‰ •. œ œ Œ RÔ ‰

b. Wagner, The Flying Dutchman, Overture, mm. 1–5 Allegro con brio

ÇÇ@. ÇÇ@. Ç .. Ç .. 6 b & 4 www ... f ? b 46 ‡

ÇÇ@. ÇÇ@. Ç .. Ç .. ww .. w.

Ó ŒŒŒ

p ÇÇ . Ç .. @

ÇÇ . Ç .. @

ÇÇ . ÇÇ . Ç .. Ç .. @ @

Ç. œ Ç. Ç œ Ç œ

f

ÇÇ . ÇÇ . Ç .. Ç .. @ @ Ç

œÇ œ

Dutchman. The published version of his program notes for Beethoven’s Ninth did not serve directly as a blueprint for his opera; the opera was after all written some five years before the program. But as I argue in the analysis which follows, it is highly likely that, having written The Flying Dutchman soon after hearing the Ninth in Paris and after he had begun composing a Faust symphony, Wagner already associated Faust and the Ninth Symphony, and that these both influenced his opera. A Faustian interpretation of the Ninth provided Wagner with a metaphor that he could then elaborate in his opera. When he later had occasion to write program notes explicating Beethoven’s Ninth, he did so in a way that actually expressed how similar were the underlying premises of the two works.

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The possibility of a connection between Goethe’s Faust, the Ninth Symphony, and The Flying Dutchman is best demonstrated by quoting extended segments of Wagner’s program notes for the Ninth, contributing my own gloss along the way to point out elements shared by The Flying Dutchman. Because Wagner quotes Goethe at length, there are three voices in the pages that follow: my own, Wagner’s (indented), and Goethe’s as quoted by Wagner (indented twice). My analysis begins with a comparison of texts; a discussion of musical events that support the textual parallels follows in chapter 2.

wagner’s program for the ninth In his programmatic account of the first movement, Wagner constructs a drama that depicts a soul’s struggle against an oppressive, malevolent force and a longing that is eternally doomed to failure and despair. Movement by movement, his description works as well for the Dutchman and his endless wanderings as it does for Faust.

First Movement At the basis of the first movement there seems to be a struggle, conceived in the grandest sense, between the soul striving for joy [Freude] and the oppression of some inimical power interposing itself between us and earthly happiness. The great principal theme heard at the outset, naked and powerful as if emerging from behind some uncanny concealing veil, could perhaps be translated (in a sense apt also for the entire musical poem [Tondichtung]), through Goethe’s line: Renounce you must, you must renounce! [Entbehren sollst du / Sollst entbehren!]

Opposing this mighty force we discover a noble defiance, a virile energy of resistance that increases, in the center of the movement, to a state of open battle against its opponent: two powerful combatants who prove equally invincible, so that each finally desists from the struggle.13

Now Wagner, first in his own words, then in Goethe’s, describes a cyclical pattern of yearning, hope, and loss that easily applies to the Dutchman’s seven-year cycle of searching, hoping, and failing: During a few fleeting moments of light we can perceive a bittersweet smile of happiness, seeking us out (as it seems)—that very happiness toward which we have been struggling, but which our crafty, powerful antagonist has prevented us from finding; now his darksome wings eclipse the desired goal such that we sink back in brooding until roused again to defiance, to renewed

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struggle against that demon bent upon robbing us of all our joy. Thus the never-ending motion of this astounding musical work is composed of elements of force, resistance, surging combat, yearning, hope, near achievement, renewed loss, renewed searching, and renewed struggle. Throughout, the struggle is reduced now and again to a more sustained state of despondency such as Goethe evokes in these lines: In very terror I at morn awake, Upon the verge of bitter weeping, To see the day of disappointment break, To no one hope of mine—not one—its promise keeping That even each joy’s presentiment With willful cavil would diminish, With grinning masks of life prevent My mind its fairest work to finish! Then, too, when night descends how anxiously Upon my couch of sleep I lay me: There, also, comes no rest to me, But some wild dream is sent to fray me.

At the end of the movement this somber, joyless mood swells to huge proportions, as if encompassing the whole world in its terrifying, sublime majesty: this world that God had created—for joy.14

Goethe’s verses about the futility of sleep, the lack of rest, and days without hope are answered in Senta’s Ballad with references to the man who keeps watch through the night (“wacht ohne Rast”) and the only unchanging words of the refrain: “without rest, without peace.”

Second Movement Act III of The Flying Dutchman begins with the Chorus of Norwegian sailors who are celebrating loudly with local women while the Dutchman’s ship remains dark and quiet. Wagner’s notes for Beethoven’s scherzo serve these festivities as well: Upon hearing the first rhythms of this second movement we are instantly seized with wild abandon: we enter a new world, or rather, we are swept up in a delirium, a frenzy. As if driven by despair, fleeing from it, we seem to be constantly, unceasingly chasing after some new, unknown happiness—since the old one that had earlier radiated its distant smile is now quite thoroughly lost to us. Goethe expresses something like this impulse in these lines: But thou hast heard, it is not of joy we are talking. I take the wildering whirl, enjoyment’s keenest pain [dem schmerzlichsten Genuss]! Let us the sensual deeps explore, To quench the fervors of glowing passion

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With the appearance of the Trio a scene of earthly pleasures, amusements, and contentment is suddenly disclosed to us: a certain coarse merriment is expressed in the simple, much repeated theme, a naiveté and self-satisfied cheerfulness which calls to mind Goethe’s description of such simple cheer: Here, for the folk, each day’s a holiday: With little wit, and ease to suit them, They whirl in narrow circling trails.

Yet we are not inclined to regard such narrowly circumscribed pleasures as the true goal of our tireless pursuit of happiness and noble joy; our view of this scene becomes clouded, we turn away and yield once more to that unceasing drive that had chased us ever onward in hope of achieving a happiness that (alas!) is never truly to be found in this manner. And so, once again, at the end of the movement we are driven toward that scene of pleasurable contentment previously encountered [i.e., the truncated return of the trio], and which, no sooner have we recognized it again, we thrust from us with hasty impatience.15

Wagner followed exactly this strategy at the end of his ensemble of competing sailors’ chorus. His model for the conclusion was Beethoven’s brief recall and rejection of the D-major trio theme in 44 at the end of the minor-mode and 43-time scherzo. After the sailors on the Flying Dutchman finally begin to sing in B minor and 86, the Norwegians attempt to sing again, as before in C major and 42; they are promptly stifled, though out of horror rather than impatience. Fourth Movement Beethoven’s finale begins with the famous dissonance that Wagner eventually called the “terror fanfare” (Schreckensfanfare) in 1873, but which in this program was a “harsh outcry” and also a “wild, chaotic outcry of unsatisfied passion.”16 This moment of negation and shock is matched in The Flying Dutchman by the Dutchman’s outburst at the moment he discovers the earlier attachment between Senta and Erik, even, as we shall see, to the extent of employing the same chord. The Dutchman cries out “Verloren! Ach verloren!” (Lost, ah! Lost!), accuses Senta of having deceived him, and returns to his cursed ship to set sail yet again. The transition from the third to the fourth movement, which begins with a kind of harsh outcry, we might suitably connect with Goethe’s lines: But ah! I feel, though will thereto be stronger, Contentment does not yet flow from my breast.17 How grand a show! But, ah! a show alone. Thee, boundless Nature, how make thee my own? Where you, ye breasts? Founts of all Being, shining,

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Whereon hang Heaven’s and Earth’s desire, Whereto our withered hearts aspire,— Ye flow, ye feed: and am I vainly pining?18

The image of “vain pining” for something to quell a thirst is particularly apt at the analogous moment of The Flying Dutchman, because the Norwegians have just been taunting the Dutch sailors to come out and drink. When the harsh outcry returns (in m. 208) after the instruments present the Ode to Joy and variations on it, Wagner depicts the orchestral rebellion as a nautical event: But the unbridled element seems incapable of submitting to any constraint, rearing up like a storm-tossed ocean and sinking back, until the wild, chaotic outcry of unsatisfied passion again strikes our ear even more forcefully than before.19

In the ensuing description of the finale, Wagner includes Schiller’s verses about the need to find a wife, a description that summarizes the Dutchman’s quest: He who has attained a fair wife, Let him join his cry to ours! Yes,—whoever calls but one soul His upon this [round] Earth [Erdenrund]! And who never has been able, Let him steal away and weep.20

Returning to his oceanic metaphor, Wagner concludes his program for this movement with a moralistic account of how even the sea contributes to joy on earth: Following the calm happiness of joy there ensues its celebration:—thus do we press the world to our breast, jubilation and cheer fill the air like the thunder of heaven, like the roaring of the sea—such things as animate the earth through constant motion and beneficent awe, preserving it thus for the joy of humankind as God gave it to be lived upon, happily.21

Third Movement I have saved the third movement until last, because the correspondence between Wagner’s program for Beethoven’s slow movement and the extended scene in which the Dutchman and Senta meet is more complex than for any of the others. The entire duet, in Grey’s estimation “the longest, most ambitious number of the opera,” shares several details of narrative and structure with the text that Wagner read into Beethoven.22 In order to clarify the extent of the correspondence, I have assembled in table 1.2 key phrases of text and stage directions from Wagner’s pro-

table 1.2 comparison of wagner’s program for the slow movement of the ninth symphony, the text of the duet in act ii of the flying dutchman , and the french prose draft (1840) Wagner’s program for Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9, slow movement

Flying Dutchman, act II, Duet for Senta and Dutchman

Key

French Prose Draft of Flying Dutchman (1840)

Awakening “How differently these tones speak to our heart!” “It is as if a memory has been awakened . . . of some pure happiness enjoyed long, long ago.” [re: 2nd theme] “With this memory we also experience a sweet yearning . . . the yearning of love” Answered by the “hopeful, sweetly calming first theme.” The two themes “Love and Hope embrace each other”

Dutchman deeply moved.

e

[D:] How like a voice from the distant past . . . as I’ve dreamed for an eternity

The stranger, profoundly moved . . . Her appearance reminds him of times long past.

The dull glow that I feel burning, shall I call it love? No . . . the yearning is for redemption . . . from such an angel [S:] I will bring you salvation. [D: repeats opening verses as S sings] [Section concludes with Senta’s theme in A]

E

[D:] Will you not follow your father’s choice? [S:] I am obedient. . . Could I but comfort you! [Section concludes with Senta’s theme in CG] [D:] You are an angel

e

Might she be the one who could remain faithful to him until death?

E

Assent

E to fG

She declares that she knows but one kind of loyalty, namely that unto death.

Hesitation [Goethe:] “Why, here in dust, entice me with your spell, Ye gentle, powerful sounds of heaven?” [RW:] “Our still palpitating heart gently resists this balm, yet its calming power is greater”

[D:]Ah, if you realized the fate that you would then share with me . . . You would shudder [S:] Take heart unhappy man . . . In the utmost purity of my heart, I know what loyalty demands: True love till death.

b

He attempts to test her . . . which captivates her all the more.

B

Triumph “Thus overcome, we throw ourselves into the arms of these fair messengers of purest happiness.” [Goethe:] “Sound on, ye hymns of Heaven so sweet. . . My tears gush forth, the Earth takes back her child!” [RW:] “Yes, our wounded heart seems to convalesce, to recover strength and resolve.”

[stage direction: D collapses before Senta. Senta stands over him like a sublime angel] [S:] Here his ship rests in a safe harbor. [D:] I have found my salvation. [D:] A holy balm for my wounds . . . strengthen now this heart in faith.

E

Swept up by a vague emotion . . . She resolves to fulfill the promise made by her father.

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gram, his opera, and his first prose draft of the opera, the French prose draft of 1840. The phrases are grouped in the order in which they appear according to four thematically appropriate categories: awakening, assent (irrelevant for Beethoven’s Ninth), hesitation, and triumph. As is visible in the column that lists the tonal centers for each section of the duet, the textual groupings are supported tonally, with each of the first three groupings beginning with the Dutchman singing in minor mode. Both poetic texts start with an awakening that progresses from recollection of happiness in the distant past to awareness of something comparable in the present. Wagner begins his interpretation of Beethoven by commenting on the stark change in character: How differently these tones speak to our heart! How pure, with what heavenly calm they resolve the defiance, the wild press of the soul driven by despair, into a feeling of gentle resignation! It is as if a memory has been awakened of some pure happiness enjoyed long, long ago.23

Wagner’s duet for Senta and the Dutchman commences with much the same message, when the Dutchman, suddenly quiet, motionless, and “deeply moved” by the sight of Senta, intones: “As from the long distant past, the vision of this maiden speaks to me.” Wagner continues: With this memory we also experience a sweet yearning, so beautifully expressed in the second theme of this movement, to which these lines of Goethe might provide an appropriate caption: A sweet, uncomprehended yearning, Drove forth my feet through woods and meadows free, And while a thousand tears were burning, I felt a world arise for me.

It appears as the yearning of love.24

Having wandered through not woods but oceans, the Dutchman considers his own newly awakened feelings, and wonders whether the “dull glow” he feels burning within might also be a yearning for love. He rejects this diagnosis, recognizing instead that “the yearning is for redemption.” Senta’s parallel lines in this duet conclude with her description of her longing and her wish that she might be the agent of his redemption. As Wagner progresses in his program, he labels Beethoven’s two themes as representations of hope and love, respectively, and observes that in the alternation of the themes and their variations, the hopeful, sweetly calming first theme [is] now adorned with a more mobile expression. Thus when the second theme returns it is like the embrace of

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love and hope, their gentle powers now dispensed upon our tormented spirit.25

The next segment common to both Beethoven and Wagner I have termed “Hesitation.” In his program and in this duet, Wagner identifies a momentary halt in the forward momentum of the drama, a “testing” as he described it already in his French prose draft, during which the anxious, skeptical protagonist attempts to verify whether the unexpected good fortune can be trusted. Looking ahead in both works, this moment of caution serves the same dramatic function: it prepares both the triumphal music that immediately follows the hesitation, when the agent of love and redemption proves trustworthy; and also the climactic rejection that subsequently occurs in the finales of both works. To describe the loud rhythmic outburst in Beethoven’s Adagio (the only candidate is the martial figure which enters first at m. 121 of 157 measures), Wagner invokes Goethe before he describes the heart yielding in the face of this heavenly music: Why, here in dust, entice me with your spell, Ye gentle, powerful sounds of Heaven?

Our still palpitating heart gently resists this balm [i.e., the solace of the love and hope themes], yet its calming power is greater than that of our now relenting defiance.26

At an analogous point, well past the middle of the duet, after Senta has professed her love and eagerness, the Dutchman tests her resolve, warning her and offering her a chance to reconsider (“Ah, if you realized the fate that you would then share with me . . . You would shudder”), to which she responds, “Take heart, unhappy man . . . in the utmost purity of my heart, I know what loyalty demands.” The duet concludes with music that easily merits the designation “triumphal” (see table 1.2). Senta professes her love and fidelity and proclaims the end of the Dutchman’s maritime wanderings: “Here his ship has a safe harbor.” Wagner had also heard the conclusion of Beethoven’s slow movement as triumphal (or “almost-triumphal”—not a characterization likely to occur to modern critics), as a return to solid ground. He quotes Goethe one last time: My tears gush forth: the Earth takes back her child!

Yes, our wounded heart seems to convalesce, to recover strength and resolve; this we can hear in the almost triumphal passage toward the end of the movement.

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This corresponds directly to the Dutchman’s sense that he has been healed. He calls Senta’s love “a holy balm for my wounds,” and prays to the angels to “strengthen now this heart in loyalty.” More than with any of his other movements, Wagner in this case manipulated the material he derived from both Goethe and Beethoven. Unlike his handling of the other Goethe quotations, Wagner rearranged the verses he chose to represent his interpretation of the slow movement. The twelve lines he selected for the first movement appear unaltered just as they do in Faust; for the scherzo, he chose ten verses but then prefaced them with three additional verses that appear several lines later, an alteration of verse order that he repeated for the verses from Goethe that he selected for the Finale.27 But in the slow movement passages, as detailed in table 1.3, Wagner began with twenty-three verses of Faust and omitted six verses near the beginning and four more near the end; he then divided them into smaller groups and inserted the first three lines (those that convey the moment of hesitation) in the midst of the remaining verses.28 The result was a program able to express verbally, segment by segment, the meaning of two musically diverse compositions: Beethoven’s serene Adagio and Wagner’s emotionally charged duet. My claim for comparability here is not that the musical moods are similar—they obviously are not— but their structures (as Wagner understood them). They progress from one pair of comparable events to another and then yet several others; fit together, each set of events comprises a self-contained dramatic segment that prepares the pivotal climaxes of the symphony and the opera. Wagner’s connection of the Ninth with a tormented sea captain spilled over into his characterization of Beethoven and the Ninth when he wrote The Artwork of the Future in the summer of 1849, having in the space of a few months conducted his third Palm Sunday performance of the Ninth in Dresden and then fled to Switzerland—for him a “secure harbor”—when revolutionary battles broke out in May: Thus, the Master pressed onward through the most unheard of possibilities of absolute music [Tonsprache] . . . until he reached the point where a seafarer will begin to measure the ocean’s depth with his sounding-lead; where above the broad outward-stretching beaches of the new continent, he touches on the rising heights of solid ground; where he has to decide whether he will turn back to face the bottomless ocean, or cast his anchor on the new-found shore. But it was not a raw love of sea-adventure that had spurred the Master to so far a journey; he needed and wanted to land in this new world, for toward it alone had he set sail. Staunchly he cast his anchor out, and this anchor was the Word. Yet this Word was not that arbitrary and senseless one which the modish singer chews from side to side . . . but the necessary, all-

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table 1.3 passage from goethe’s faust chosen by wagner to represent the slow movement of beethoven’s ninth symphony Order of lines as quoted by Wagner

Goethe’s Faust, Part I, lines 762–84 (verses in italic were omitted by Wagner)

Line numbers in Faust

9 10 11

Why, here in dust, entice me with your spell, Ye gentle, powerful sounds of Heaven? Peal rather there, where tender naatures dwell.

762

[Wagner inserts commentary here]

1 2 3 4

Your messages I hear, but faith has not been given; The dearest child of Faith is Miracle. I venture not to soar to yonder regions Whence the glad tidings hither float; And yet, from childhood up familiara with the note, To Life it now renews the old allegiance. Once Heavenly Love sent down a burning kiss Upon my brow, in Sabbath silence holy; And, filled with mystic presaage, chimed the church-bell slowly, And prayer dissolved me in a fervent bliss.

765

770

[Wagner inserts commentary here] 5 6 7 8

A sweet, uncomprehended yearning Drove forth my feet through woods and meadows free, And while a thousand tears were burning I felt a world arise for me.

775

[Wagner inserts commentary here]

12 13

These chants, to youth and all its sports appealing. Proclaimed the Spring’s rejoicing holiday; And Memory holds me now, with childish feeling. Back from the last, the solemn way. Sound on, ye hymns of Heaven, so sweet and mild! My tears gush forth: the Earth takes back her child!

780

powerful, and all-uniting word into which the full torrent of the heart’s emotions may pour its stream; the secure harbor for the restless wanderer; the light that lightens up the night of endless yearning; the word that the redeemed world-man cries out aloud from the fullness of the world-heart.29

This “necessary, all-powerful, and all-uniting” word was of course Freude and the fearless sea captain was Beethoven in the guise of someone very like the flying Dutchman; not the Dutchman of Wagner’s Faustian opera but the redeemed Dutchman that Senta had saved by her

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opera-ending plunge into the sea. Since the utility of the Ninth as a model for his opera had only taken Wagner as far as the Schreckensfanfare chords, the emphasis on the word Freude is rich with layers of meaning. It casts Wagner as the redeemed world/man, the redeemed Dutchman and disciple of Beethoven, the figure able to steer the word through the sea of music and fulfill his mythic destiny. Wagner was the one prepared for the new world; Schumann and soon Brahms were those who chose to “turn back to face the bottomless ocean” of absolute music. Just as Wagner’s perceptions of the dramatic character of each movement of the Ninth make an impression on the drama of The Flying Dutchman, so too the music, to which we now turn.

chapter 2

The Impact of Beethoven’s Ninth on The Flying Dutchman

Several musical references to Beethoven’s Ninth within The Flying Dutchman support my assertion that there is a relationship between Wagner’s Dutchman poem and his Goethe-inspired interpretation of the Ninth. These range from the motivic—such as the similarity between the beginning of the Ninth and the beginning of the overture and the Dutchman’s theme shown in example 1.3—to the harmonic and structural. Most generally, there is the key scheme, which moves from D minor to D major, with important emphasis on BH along the way. Of thematic relationships, the theme Wagner wrote to represent Senta and her redemptive love is the most striking. The elegiac second theme of Senta’s Ballad lightly varies the first theme of Beethoven’s slow movement, the theme that Wagner had described as possessing a “heavenly calm” able to “resolve the defiance, the wild press of the soul driven by despair” (example 2.1). They have the same key, deliberate tempo (one-half measure = 30 in one and 33 in the other), contour, and register, not to mention most of the same notes, starting on D, moving down an octave and then up a tenth. When Wagner stopped work on a Faust symphony in 1840 to begin composing The Flying Dutchman, he had completed the Faust movement of this symphony and had sketched at least one theme for the second movement, which was to represent Gretchen, the pure-hearted, redemptive prototype of Senta. As Wagner described it a few years later, “It was only in the second part that the woman would actually materialize; its subject was to be Gretchen, just as the subject of the first 35

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example 2.1. Comparison of themes for a. Beethoven, Ninth Symphony, mvt. 3 Adagio molto e cantabile ( q = 60 )

b &b c Ç

mezza voce

Ç

Ç

œ.

j œ œ

œ

œ.

œ œ œ

œ œ J

Œ

b. The Flying Dutchman, Senta’s Ballad, 2nd theme Più lento ( e = 100 )

b . & b 68 œ p

œ

œ J

œ ‰

j j œ œJ œj œ œ

j j œ œ œ œ J J

œ

‰

œœœ

‰

movement was Faust. I had already found the right theme and atmosphere; but then I gave it all up and—true to character—started work on the ‘Flying Dutchman.’”1 (Indeed, a sketch in the Nationalarchiv der Richard-Wagner-Stiftung in Bayreuth records two themes. The first, intended for the Faust Symphony, Wagner marked “Gretchen,” and the second “Senta?” The latter is the G-minor melody that Wagner incorporated into the opera just as Senta shows the Dutchman’s portrait to Erik.)2 Regarding the influence of the Ninth, it therefore appears that Senta’s Ballad, likely his first musical effort in this new project, derives its two principal ideas from the Ninth Symphony: the D minor, open-fifth motive for the Dutchman, and the sweeping BH-major lyrical theme for Senta. Beethoven’s finale influenced Wagner’s finale particularly through its dissonant opening chord and in the more densely dissonant reiterations of it that soon follow. That Wagner was well aware of the increasing levels of dissonance in Beethoven’s repetitions of this chord is clear in his program for the Ninth, where he describes the third blast of the “wild, chaotic outcry of unsatisfied passion” as sounding “more forcefully than before.”3 Shortly before the trio in the act III Finale, at the precise moment the Dutchman cries out in betrayed horror that all is lost, Wagner summoned the exact chord that Beethoven had devised to begin his Finale: an inverted D-minor triad topped by a dissonant high BH, with notes distributed over five octaves (example 2.2a and b). Wagner retains much of Beethoven’s instrumentation—the horns, rolling timpani, and high woodwinds—but tellingly replaces trumpets and trombones with strings. In his essay “On Performing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony” from 1873, Wagner later criticized Beethoven’s scoring of this passage because the

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example 2.2. Comparison of the first Schreckensfanfare chord a. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, mvt. 4, m. 1, as arranged by Liszt for two pianos

´ “ œ . œ´ œ´ œ ´ œ´ œ´ œ´ œ œ œ. œ œ œ œœœ ´ ´ ´ œ´ œ´ œ œ . œ´ œ´ œ œ

œ & b 43 œ ƒ ? 3 œ b 4

Presto

& b 43 œœœ œ ƒ ? 3 œ œ b 4 œœ œœ

œœœ .. œ œ œ œ œ .. œ œ œ œ ÇÇ ..

Ç.

œ´ œ œ´

‰œœ Ç.

ÇÇ ..

b. Wagner, The Flying Dutchman, act III finale, mm. 6–10, at the moment the Dutchman feels he has been betrayed

H.

?b

Ó

Ç

. . n œœœœ .... n œ b œ n œ bœ J &b ƒ wæ w ? b # n ww #œ Œ Ó #œ

E

Ç

œ. œ Ç J

œ. œ. n œ. b œ œ œ n œ b œœœ Œ Ó -

Ç

wig ver - lor - nes

# b œœœ Œ Ó #œ Œ Ó #œ

‡ ‡

Ç

Ó

“œ œ œ œœœ œ œœœ œœ j œœ .. œœ œœ .. œ. œ œ. œ. œ œ. œ. œ œ. J ƒ

Heil!

œ œ

‡

j œœ œ œ œ J

œœœ œœ œœœ œœ j œœ .. œœ œœ .. œ. œ œ. œ. œ œ. œ. œ œ. J

œ œ

j œœ œ œ œ J

trumpets overpower the woodwinds, a situation he avoided in Dutchman.4 Given his reorchestration of this chord for the Dutchman’s cry already in 1841, this criticism likely dates from the performances he had heard in Paris. Transpositions of the chord appear at related moments of the drama. The chord first materializes in C minor, in second inversion spread over six octaves with dissonant high AH and rolling timpani, in the introduction to the Dutchman’s first aria, “Wie oft in Meeres tiefsten Schlund” (example 2.3). After the Dutchman recounts his various failed attempts to break the curse by killing himself, the chord returns, subdued, at the end of this aria, as the Dutchman sums up his lot, singing “Dies der Verdammniss Schreckgebot!” (This is the horrible imperative of the

38

| Chapter 2 example 2.3. The Flying Dutchman, act I, no. 2, mm. 29–31, the chords preceding “Wie oft in Meeres tiefsten Schlund.”

?Ÿ w p &

‡

&

‡

?

‡

Ÿ w f b b ÇÇÇ bÇ b wÇ f b Çæ Ç b b ÇÇÇ æ f æ Ç f

ÇÇ Ç Ç ÇÇæ ÇÇ ÇÇ æ æ Ç

Ÿ w Ó Ó Ó

doomed). Near the end of the opera, in the trio that follows the Dutchman’s cry of betrayal, transpositions of Beethoven’s chord return twice in succession as Senta desperately attempts to counter the Dutchman’s accusations: “Do you doubt my faithfulness? Unhappy one, what blinds you?” Her line ascends twice to GH (at “Treu-e” and “Un-sel’-ger”), for which Wagner lets the notes of BH minor with dissonant GH sound across five octaves, with F lowest and GH highest. This moment had been prepared in the very first notes of act I (example 2.4). Senta’s line in the act III trio then continues to peak on the still more dissonant chord that Beethoven had used to begin the intensified second outburst of his Schreckensfanfare (m. 17), a dominant minor ninth (example 2.5a). As the Dutchman denounces Senta and God (“Ich zweifl’ an dir, ich zweifl ’ an Gott”) and Senta ascends to high BH (at “Un-sel’-ger”), Wagner transposed Beethoven’s chord down a step and lets the dominant seventh on C with added DH resound in the violins for two full measures (example 2.5b). As they had in the first Schreckensfanfare excerpt shown in example 2.2, the violins oscillate back and forth into the dissonant note. The quotation from Goethe that Wagner had selected to explain Beethoven’s orchestral shriek aptly captures the Dutchman’s sense of betrayal: “However I hold my spirit willing / There is no balm yet from the breast. A beautiful dream—but ah, an illusion!” Wagner’s harmonic vocabulary for the dénouement of his opera reflects the poetic theme he had read into Beethoven.

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example 2.4. The first notes of The Flying Dutchman, act I, no. 1. Strings only

b & b C ‰ b œ! œ! œ! œ! œ! b œ! ! œ F b ‰ ! ! ! &b C Ó œ œ bœ F B b b C ‰ b œ! œ! œ! œ! ! ! ! œ bœ œ F ! ! ! b œ! ? b C b Ç@ œ œ œ F ? b C b Ç@ Ç@ F

‰ b œ! œ! œ! œ! ! ! ! œ bœ œ

Ó

cresc.

‰ ! ! ! œ œ bœ cresc.

‰ b œ! ! œ! ! ! ! ! œ œ bœ œ œ Ç@

! ! ! b œ! œ œ œ

Ç@

Ç@

cresc.

There are also extended and diverse musical references to the Ninth Symphony scherzo in the Chorus of Norwegian Sailors, beyond the already noted formal device of rejecting the recall of an earlier theme at the abrupt conclusion. Motivic, gestural, and tonal similarities underscore the resonance between Wagner’s text for his opera and his program for Beethoven. This choral scene was, along with Senta’s Ballad, the first music that Wagner composed in 1840. For this reason, and because the opening motive of this scene appears elsewhere in the opera, Thomas Grey concluded, “Wagner might well have cited this number as constituting, along with the Ballad, the ‘kernel’ from which the rest was to grow.”5 Describing the scherzo, Wagner mentions Beethoven’s “simple often-repeated theme,” terming it an expression of a “certain boisterous bluntness” and “a naïve, self-contented mirth,” and quotes Goethe to describe people who make “each day a feast.” The influence of the Ninth may show in the opening theme of the chorus, which like Beethoven’s is built on repetitive and interlocking sequences of stepwise thirds that ascend and then return: Beethoven with the notes DEF, EFG, EFG, FED, FED; Wagner with EDC, EDC, FED, FED—G G G G— FED, EDC (and the four Gs are ornamented with FG–G–A turns).6 Both pieces feature much repetition of motives, many passages with strong accents on weak beats, and a pervasive alternation of distinct musical forces. Wagner’s many oppositions of competing forces—choirs of Norwegian men and women, of Norwegian and Dutch sailors, of

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| Chapter 2

example 2.5. Comparison of the second Schreckensfanfare chord a. the second statement of Beethoven’s Schreckensfanfare, as arranged by Liszt for two pianos, mm. 15–19

&b

j ? b œœ œ . œ œ œ Œ œ. œ œ œ J p dim. Œ Œ œ ‡ &b œ ƒ ?b Œ Œ œ œ ‡ œ œ

bœ Œ Œ bœ ƒ

Œ Œ Ç Ç Ç.

#œ #œ ƒ

œ . œ´ œ´ œ´ œ œ. œ œ œ œ #œ #œ #œ ´ œ´ œ´ œ œ # œ

œ. œ.

œœœ œ b # œœœœ œœœœ .... œ œ œ œ # œ #œ Ç.

Ç.

Ç.

Ç.

b. The Flying Dutchman, act III finale, mm. 76–78, the climax of the trio

S.

b nÇ & b bb

Ç. bbbb

Œ

dich?

E.

H.

&

? bb b b

Au

w

-

w

œ Un

nœ

ge

-

Ç

sel'

trau'n,

œ

œ -

nœ

œ

muß

œ

>œ w œ . œ >œ . . œ b b b n œœœ .... n œJ b œ œ. œ. n œ. œ w œ . œ œ b & Í f w ? b b b b n wwwÇ œ œ œ œ n ww œ œ b Œ œ . . . f p dir,

ich

-

zweifl'

-

œ œ J J

ich dem

œ

œ. œ.

an

Œ

œ œ

œ

œ. Ohr,

œ

>œ œœ œ

dir,

ÇÇ œ œ

nœ

-

œ

nœ œ. J

ger,

dem Au

œ

œ

Un

-

œ

-

œ J

ge

ich zweifl' an > œœœ ... œ œ œ . œ œ. œ œ œ. œ

Œ

n ÇÇ ÇÇ œ

Œ

instrumental families—emulate Beethoven’s repeated jumps between various orchestral groups, mostly strings and winds. Usually the alternations were phrase by phrase, but in each there are extended passages in which the rhythm of exchange shrinks to a pace worthy of a pingpong match: three measure shifts between sections in the ritmo di tre battute of the scherzo (from mm. 210–31); two measure shifts in the molto vivace of the Norwegian sailors’ chorus (mm. 397–422); and

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rapid-fire measure-by-measure alternations for eighteen remarkable measures in the middle of the scherzo, and sixteen measures in the Dutch sailors’ chorus in which the winds play every other measure (mm. 501–16, 529–35, and 577–89). In the midst of the scherzo and the choral scene, the antiphonal leaps become tonally unstable, with Beethoven working around the circle of fifths from EH to A major and Wagner progressing unpredictably in the tonal equivalent of inebriation: back and forth from C major in various directions, including E minor, B major, and a modally mixed AH. The primary nontonic goal in each is a step removed: the D-minor scherzo to C major, and the C-major choral ensemble to B minor. Wagner appropriated one striking gesture of Beethoven’s scherzo almost literally. Five times in the scherzo, Beethoven brings the music to an abrupt halt followed by dramatic silence: three in close proximity (mm. 147, 155, and 176), two more in the repeat of the scherzo (m. 384, m. 395). Wagner duplicated this effect on the three occasions when the chorus of Norwegians cries out to the men aboard the Flying Dutchman (mm. 164, 245, and 253). The three increasingly urgent calls (on “Antwortet doch!” and “Wacht doch auf!”) resound into an ominous silence, into a “Grosse Stille” as Wagner specifies in the score. Example 2.6a and b compares the first such moment in the scherzo with Wagner’s first pause, both of them introduced by a rush up a scale. Beethoven wrote a D-minor triad for winds, followed by nearly four measures of rest; Wagner a C-major chord for women’s voices, followed by the “Grosse Stille,” broken only by a muted CG-minor foghorn scored for damped horns. Moreover, Wagner replicated Beethoven’s intensifications at the successive breaks in the scherzo. At each recurrence Beethoven raised the pitch, so that silence follows chords on D, EH, and G; Wagner noticed, moving from C to a diminished seventh built on E, and then one on F. In both pieces the repetition that happens a half step higher occurs in close succession, just eight measures after the preceding pause. Although he did not provide an interpretation of these moments in his program for the Ninth, Wagner nevertheless saw in their dramatic impact a device he could use to support the operatic action. His appropriation of ideas from the scherzo and the Finale of the Ninth shows an attention not only to a musical detail but also to the broader context of that detail. Wagner understood that the impact of the abrupt pauses and the dissonant chords depended on Beethoven’s varied and intensified repetition of each moment, an analytical awareness we have already detected in the heightened dissonance of the chords he took from the

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example 2.6. Comparison of moments that use silence to interrupt the musical flow a. Ninth Symphony, scherzo, mm. 139–50, in Liszt’s transcription

œ œ nœ & b œ œ nœ ‰œ œ œ œ ? b œ n œœ œœ

“ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ nœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ nœ œ œœ n œ œ œ œ œ œœœ n œœœ œœ œ œ œ œœ œœ n œœ œœ œœ œ

œ. j œœ ‰ œ œ œœ œœ . œ. œœ œœ. œ. œœ ‰ œ œ Œ Œ J œ œ. œŒ Œ

œœœ Œ Œ . œ. ‰ œœœ œœœ. œ J

œ. j œœ œ œ œ ‰ œœ œœ œœ Œ Œ . . .œ œœ Œ Œ ‡

3

..

3

..

b. The Flying Dutchman, act III, no. 7, mm. 161–67

œœ & J

‰

noch! œ ? œJ ‰

œœ œœœ œœœ œœœ & œœ ?

œ #œ œ œ (cresc.)

fÇ

Mädchen.

f

He!

&

Ç

ÇÇæÇ Ç

œ œ

Ç

See - leut!

He!

œ œ

ÇÇÇ Ç æ

Ç

j œœœ # œœœ œ bb œœœœ nn œœ œ #œ œ

œ # œ œ #œ œ bœ n œ œ œ #œ œ # œ œ œ # œ œ #œ œ bœ n œ œ œ #œ œ #œ œ

œœ œ œ œ J œR Rœ Jœ ‰

Ant - wor- tet doch!

œ J œ. œœ J ƒ œœ. œœ J

œœ œœ œœ ‰ R R J

‡

‡

‡

‡

‰

Œ

‡

‰

Œ

‡

U ‡

Große Stille.

U ‡

U ‡ ‡ ˆ U # # ÇÇÇ ÇÇÇ

finale of the Ninth for his own finale. He emulated not just events but also the dynamic intensification between repetitions of the events.

contrary motion Nowhere in his program for the Ninth is Wagner’s analytical skill more evident than in his discussion of the first movement. Twice in My Life he had voiced a particular affinity for the first movement. The first encounter stems from his youth, and likely refers at the latest to months in 1829 or the first half of 1830: On first looking through the score, which I obtained only with great difficulty, I was struck at once, as if by force of destiny, with the long-sustained perfect fifths with which the first movement begins: these sounds, which played such a spectral role in my earliest impressions of music, came to me as the ghostly fundamental of my own life. This symphony surely held the secret to all secrets; and so I got busy over it by painstakingly copying out the score.7

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In the second account he refers to himself as Royal Saxon Kapellmeister, and further, to his preparations for conducting the Ninth. It thus likely dates from late 1845 or early 1846, since he conducted the work on Palm Sunday, 1846 (that year on 5 April): It is simply not possible that the heart of a pupil has ever been captivated with such rapturous force by the work of a master as mine was by the first movement of this symphony. Anyone who came upon me by surprise with the score open before me, as I went through it thinking how best it could be performed, would have been startled to hear my wild sobs and see my crying, and would no doubt have asked themselves in some amazement whether this was proper behavior for a Royal Saxon Kapellmeister.8

Several sentences in Wagner’s Faust program are particularly suggestive musically. He describes the first theme as a force that prevents the soul from experiencing joy, while acknowledging that “during a few fleeting moments of light we can perceive a bittersweet smile of happiness, seeking us out (as it seems).” These are likely the occasional moments in major modes, such as the various components of the second theme group. But the key sentence (one misleadingly translated by William Ashton Ellis in the English edition of Wagner’s prose works) describes a determined resistance to the “inimical power interposing itself between us and earthly happiness,” a resistance that builds until it erupts in mid-movement into open combat: “Opposing this mighty foe we discover a noble defiance, a virile energy of resistance that increases [sich steigert] into the center of the movement to a state of open battle against its opponent.”9 Wagner’s portrayal of the conclusion indicates that the resistance had ceased, that the dark power now seemed stronger than ever: “at the end of the movement this somber, joyless mood swells to huge proportions, as if encompassing the whole world.” Because of his eye for drama and impulse to narrate, Wagner saw in Beethoven’s first movement a musical detail that no subsequent analyst or critic concerned with themes, structure, or Schenkerian levels has noted. The possibility that Beethoven depicted this defiant opponent of evil with a theme is not credible. The opening theme simply does not “increase” to an “open battle” with any other theme or motive, nor is there a conflict between tonal centers or orchestral forces that could explain Wagner’s insight. What then might Wagner have meant? Wagner makes it clear that the oppositional elements attempt to counter the opening theme, the stark D-minor textures that begin the work, and further, that resistance steadily increases “into the middle of the

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movement” (bis in die Mitte des Satzes), breaking out into the open in the middle of the movement, before yielding at the end. Tonal resistance may exist in the low FGs that creep upward underneath the descending fourths and fifths at the beginning of the development section. Although they become vigorously insistent at the recapitulation, they by themselves do not seem capable of generating Wagner’s longer narrative. They do not amount to resistance that constitutes prolonged struggle. Second and more plausible, given the uniformity of the melodic line at the outset, often unison over a pedal, the measure-by-measure antiphonal effects (mm. 55ff.) that commence already at the repetition of the first theme certainly add contrast. Andreas Eichhorn has suggested the antiphonal double chorus writing at the appearance of the main theme in the recapitulation as a possibility.10 But again, these moments fall short, at least by themselves, of Wagner’s depiction of a “virile energy” engaged in a steadily building resistance. Moreover, they do not occur frequently enough, and they do not connect with comparable events in the finale, a crucial trait given the narrative continuity of Wagner’s program and his insistence that the finale is the culmination of events initiated in the first movement. In view of the preponderance of downward motion evident at the beginning and end, a third possibility exists: motives that reverse this direction, motives such as the bursts of sixteenth notes that bubble up under the second theme, or the 32nd-note passages in the closing section of the exposition. While these in no way can be heard to break into “open battle” in the middle of the movement, this idea of contrasting motion brings us closer to a technique that fits all of Wagner’s criteria: it first emerges after the principal theme has run its course just before the bridge, it engages the principal theme directly, it builds consistently all the way to the beginning of the coda, and it is by definition oppositional. Wagner’s metaphorical description of two antagonistic forces in this movement aptly depicts Beethoven’s extensive use of contrary motion, known in German as Gegenbewegung. In order to measure the changing density of contrary motion in the first movement, appendix 2 chronicles Beethoven’s use of inversion and voices moving against each other. To calculate the presence or absence of contrary motion, I include all of the four types of oppositional possibilities that I enumerated in the introduction, proceeding measure by measure. My intent in recording each occurrence of voices moving simultaneously against each other is to be as consistent as possible about what I identify as contrary motion. Even if a passage is incidental or potentially without motivic or thematic significance, it is included in the calculations. This is warranted because

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table 2.1 percentages of contrary motion in the first movements of beethoven’s symphonies nos. 3–9 Symphony Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine

Percentage 21 3 7 8 11 13 32

such passages are counted throughout the movement and the symphony, and thus the small amount they contribute to the overall count is consistent in all movements compared. By limiting the identification to simultaneous contrary motion, I exclude other kinds of opposing motion, such as thirds moving against octaves or imitative contrary motion. The tallies err in the direction of artificiality to minimize judgment calls, and they make it possible to compare the relative percentages of contrary motion between different formal sections of the movement (exposition, development, etc.), different movements of a symphony, and different symphonies. All passages deemed contrary motion are identified in appendix 2. Contrary motion indeed gathers momentum throughout the first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth, from a mere 10 percent of measures in the exposition, to 30 percent in the development and 40 percent in the recapitulation, to 52 percent of the coda (the entire first half of the coda). At the end, after the final sets of contrary thirds marked ritardando in measures 506 and 510, contrary motion and any hint of resistance disappear altogether from the last thirty-seven measures. This absence fits Wagner’s characterization of Beethoven’s conclusion as a representation of the joyless power expanding to “encompass the whole world.” The overall percentage of measures that contain contrary motion is 32 percent, a figure far beyond that of any of Beethoven’s other symphony first movements (the percentages for the first movements of Symphonies no. 3–9 are given in table 2.1). For the Eroica movement, which comes closest to the Ninth in the kind of contrary motion it employs, this percentage is only 21 percent (145 of 691 measures); and in contrast to the Ninth’s steady expansion, the distribution of this counterpoint in the Eroica from exposition to development, recapitulation and coda is mostly static: 23, 18, 25, and 19 percent.11

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Beethoven’s use of contrary motion evolves within the first movement of the Ninth in a way that suggests conscious use for dramatic effect. There are at least two distinct ways to pose this assertion: that Beethoven manipulated his counterpoint strategically, as he normally did with motives and harmony, to create musical drama; and, that this is what Wagner understood Beethoven to have done. Evidence exists for both. My claim for the former is based on the counterpoint itself and on its relation to the finale; for the latter, on how aptly Wagner’s program depicts the progression of Beethoven’s counterpoint and how he emulated it in his own compositions. A few examples will indicate the extent to which Beethoven’s counterpoint could suggest a struggle that breaks into the open in mid-movement. The first occurrence, shown in example 2.7, is the simple stepping up and down (against down and up) the tritone between the pitches CG and G that emerges after sixty-three bars of mostly unison writing. Except for the fact that it is marked “ben marcato” in all parts, it would be unobtrusive. This brief scale introduces three traits at once: (1) several instances of this counterpoint are scalar, many of them stretching to two octaves and more; (2) many involve tritones, as can be seen in appendix 2 under the heading “ambitus”; and (3) in many cases the upward-moving line is played by basses and cellos, often one of them alone against the orchestra, possibly representing Wagner’s “virile energy of resistance.” A few phrases after this brief tritone scale, the first of four extraordinary sets of two-octave 16th-note scales arrives, grandiose upward and downward moving lines that, in the first two occurrences, begin softly, gather momentum, and crescendo as they cross over each other on the way to fortissimo fanfare-like chords. Wagner’s “open struggle” and Beethoven’s opposing voices begin in earnest a quarter of the way into the development section (m. 197). This is when the double meaning of Gegenbewegung as contrary motion and as military countermaneuver begins to seem credible. The D-minor double-dotted principal theme descends through two octaves played by violins and violas, while the basses, supported initially by bassoons and clarinets, move the same distance upward (shown in example 0.3b). With this, the resistance has moved from ancillary positions within the exposition to a direct confrontation of a principal idea. Beethoven’s deployment of contrary motion in the development includes numerous three- or four-measure units in which the opposing voices articulate a series of thirds while they switch positions. These take two forms (example 2.8a and b): first, one voice expands to fill a tritone by means

example 2.7. Ninth Symphony, mvt. 1, mm. 64–67 in Liszt’s transcription. The introduction of contrary motion.

. œ g & b gggg œœ

. . œœ # œœ œ œ ƒ . . ? b #œ œ œ œ œ œ #œ œ œ

. . œœ # œœ œ œ . . œœ œœ œ œ

. œœ œ . œœ œ

¯j ¯j œ . . œ ggg œœ .. • gggg œœ .. • gg œ gœ .S . r œ œ. •œ œSœ œ. •œ #œ. . œ. #œ. J J

. œœ œœ . . œœ œ œ œ œ

. œœ œ

j # œœœ ... • Œ œ< . S œ œ. œ œ. œ. œ œ œ œ œ R

example 2.8. Contrary motion passages in the development of the Ninth Symphony, mvt. 1 a. mm. 218–21. Strings only

œ &b J f &b Bb ?b

œ.

j œ S

œ.

œ

j œ S

j œ

œ

œ b œ.

j œ S

j œ

œ

œ J

• • œ œ bœ . . . œ. œ. n œ. œ. œ n œ œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ œ œ. b œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. b œ œ œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. f ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ • • œ f

. . œ b œ. œ. œ. œ n œ

œ.

œ. œ

œ œ. . œ nœ

b. mm. 253–58

&b ?b

. œœœ œ œ œ œ œœ p . . . œ œ œ œ œ œ. œ. œ. œ. œ.

& b œœ

. œ n œœ

. œœ œ

. # œœœ

nœ œ œ n œ. œ. œ.

œ œœ œ. n œœ. œœ.

j • œ œ œ œ ? b . œ. œ. œ. œ. . . . J ‰ •

. œ # n œœœ œ œ œ œœœ œœ . . . . più p œ œ œ œ œ nœ œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. n œ . . . œ # n œœ œ œ œ œœ œ œœœ r . . . . œ . œ. œ. . . . . œ œ nœ œ •

. . œœ œœ œœ œ œ œ J œ œ œ. œ.

œœ œœ. n œœ œœ . .

• œ œ r œ œ. n œ. œ. œ. œ. . . œ. J ‰

. œœœ # n œœœ œ . ‰ œ. œ œ . .

œ .

œ .

. . . œ œ œ œœ œ œœ œœ . . . . n œ. œ œ nœ œ œ . . . . .

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of three descending thirds stepping progressively lower (f to d, eH to c, and d to bJ); at the same time the other part moves in the opposite direction, rising through the same three thirds (b to d, c to eH, d to f). Appearing sooner or later in all registers, this nondescript exchange contributes  to a contrapuntally unstable context full of shifting voices, invertible counterpoint, and octave or two-octave leaps from one accented offbeat to another. This forte segment eventually leads to a section with a second group of opposing thirds, distinguished from the first by stepwise motion and piano scoring. These again involve the b–f tritone: d–e–f, d–c–b against f–e–d, b–c–d, and accompanying parallel thirds. If the antagonists began the struggle in the development, proceeding gingerly at first as if probing for weaknesses, in the recapitulation they counter each other with full force, in measures that have always inspired critics to descriptive extremes: “catastrophic,” “an escalation, not merely a restoration,” and “the most violently sustained fortissimo in the repertory.”12 The sense of intense conflict is shattering. Against the falling open fifths that began the movement, the doublebasses and cellos now sound a fortissimo FG, or rather, three FGs in successively higher octaves as the upper strings descend two octaves by open fifth and fourth (the first measures are shown in example 2.9). At each successive descent of the violins and violas, the lower strings respond loudly with consecutive octave jumps upward. Of all instances listed in appendix 2, the beginning of the recapitulation is the freest, the only one to avoid any overlapping pitches;13 but it is also the most fiercely contrarian, perhaps because the joyless “naked” fifths (as Wagner personified them) sound profoundly threatened by this major mode incursion, as if this were an attempt by “the soul striving for joy [Freude]” to convert the open fifths forcibly to D major and thus to a key and mode capable of expressing joy. This resolution, of course, looms three movements in the future. For the time being, the disturbing start to the recapitulation spills over into the D-minor principal theme— what had been the scene of the tentative initial confrontation in the development—which now returns fortissimo, as basses and cellos push against the rest of the orchestra (mm. 314ff., shown in example 0.3c). In order for counterpoint by contrary motion in the recapitulation to expand beyond that in the development, Beethoven necessarily had to undertake a thorough revision of the less confrontational counterpoint

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example 2.9. Ninth Symphony, mvt. 1, mm. 301–7, contrary motion at the beginning of the recapitulation

Timp.

Vln.

Vc. Db.

?

œ œ œœ æ æ ææ ƒœ œ œ & b œ Œ Œ ‰ • . RÔ ƒ #œ œ ? b # œæ œæ æ æ ƒ

œœœœœœœœœœœœœœœ œ œ œ ææ ƒœ œ Œ œ ‰• . œ œ Œ RÔ œ ƒ #œ œ # œ œ ææ æ æ # œæ œæ ƒ œœ ææ

œœ ææ

œœ ææ

œ œ œ . Œ ‰ • RÔ ‰• . RÔ

#œ œ ææ

#œ œ ææ

that he had written in the exposition. The very first mirrored diminished-fifth scales (example 2.7) are replaced in the recapitulation by an extended sequence of five stepwise sixths crossing over each other (mm. 329–38), cellos alone in their ascent while upper strings trade with winds in descent. Further, Beethoven’s changes include telling alterations to two passages of lines moving in opposite directions that had previously appeared in the exposition but there with disparate intervals; that is, in the exposition the pianissimo sighing voices that conclude the second theme group (mm. 120–29) consisted of descending tritone figures accompanied by rising thirds and sixths, and descending sixths by rising fourths and fifths. In the analogous passage in the recapitulation (mm. 387–98), tritones counter tritones, and sixths rise up against sixths. Most dramatic in this regard is Beethoven’s revision of the beginning of the closing section (shown in example 2.10), so that instead of upward-leaping tenths being met by downward-jumping octaves (mm. 132–37), tenths confront tenths (mm. 401–5).14 Instruments cross into each other’s territory, as it were; lines are breached, with bassoons reaching over oboes, and cellos and doublebasses climbing over violas. Beethoven’s contrapuntal transformations of the exposition in the recapitulation all enhance contrast: they either add new oppositional counterpoint to passages in which the notes had initially moved in the same direction (the opening measures and the ensuing Dminor theme), or they intensify three preexisting moments of contrary motion. The coda brings the dénouement. With a sudden one-measure decrescendo from forte to piano, Beethoven leaves the martial conclusion of

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example 2.10. Ninth Symphony, mvt. 1, recapitulation, mm. 401–5, opposing jumps of a tenth

Fl.

Ob.

Bsn.

œ œ œ &b J f S œ &b J œ f S œ ? œ œ. b

œ œ œ œœœœœœœœœœœœœœœœ J œ J S œ œ œ. œ œ œ. J J œ œ S S œ œ œ œ œ. j J œ œ. œ f S S S

œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ œ #œ œ œ#œ œ œ œ œ œ J œ J œ œ œ. J œ S œ j œ œ œ . S

œ J

j œ

œ J

S œ œ. œ œ J S œ j œ œ. n œ S

the recapitulation and returns, not to the beginnings of the exposition or development, but to the particular moment in the development when the main theme was first opposed by a voice in contrary motion. As in that first encounter, the basses and cellos move quietly upward, pizzicato, but this time Beethoven extends this struggle over an extraordinary twenty-six measures in which a series of converging motivic wedges gradually contract. After one statement of the main theme on the tonic triad, Beethoven’s first transformation is to present it in arpeggiated dominant sevenths and then diminished sevenths (example 2.11); after thirteen measures the motive shrinks further and a crescendo begins; at eighteen measures, the motive settles into a diminished seventh on CG– E–G–BH; and in the final notes (mm. 451–52), the motive collapses to G–E–CG in the flutes and BH–CG–E–G in the basses and cellos, returning to the tritone that first introduced the idea of oppositional counterpoint. The pulse-quickening 26-measure crescendo climaxes in the third set of extended crossing scales, which this time, exceptionally, begins fortissimo. Wagner’s characterization of the first movement drama as the struggle of a soul “striving for joy” against a joyless enemy of course derives considerable meaning from Beethoven’s finale, where the joyful apotheosis is made explicit in the verses of Schiller’s Ode an die Freude. Wagner’s program builds from the premise that the conflict at the beginning of the symphony is a conflict that will resolve in the last movement. But Wagner was also aware of musical connections among the movements, and his analysis of the finale identifies a section that explicitly supports my contrapuntal interpretation of the first movement. In general

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example 2.11. Ninth Symphony, mvt. 1, coda, mm. 441–51, eleven measures from twenty-six of contrary motion

Fl.

Cl.

Bsn.

Vln.

Vc. Db.

œ œœ nœ œ œœ •. •. J ‰ & b •.

?

b

œ œ. œ œ œ œ œ • . • .œ œ • .œ œj ‰ œ œ œ bœ. œ. œ n œ œ j ? b ‰ n œj ‰ œ ‰ Jœ b œ œ ‰ œ ‰ œJ ‰ Jœ ‰ J J

Cl.

&

Vc. Db.

Œ

&b

&b Œ

Vln.

‡

Œ

‰ •. j • œ œ®œ œ • . œ œ • . ‰ œj ‰ œj ‰ n œ œ œ # œ œ œ œ œj œ œ ‰J ‰ J ‰J ‰ J œ œ nœ ‰ J œœ œ œ œ œ •. œ • . œ œ • . j ‰ •œ œ œ ‡ Œ • ® œœ

# œ • . œ œ • .# œ • . j ‰ & œ œ œ ‰ Jœ ‰ J ‰ Jœ œ‰ œJ

Fl.

Bsn.

‡

œœ #œ œ œ œ bœ • . œJ ‰ ‰ • . RÔ • . • .

œœ œ #œ œ œ • ® •. J ‰

# Œ • œ œ ®œ #œ •. œ j ‰ œ ‰ # œ ‰ œJ ‰œ ‰ œ J J J œœ ? # œ •. œ œ ‰ Œ • ®œ J b j & b # œ •. œ œ ‰

? b ‰ œ ‰ Jœ J

Œ

•

Œ

‰ •œ œ® •. # œ # œ œ œj œ œ ‰J ‰ J ‰ œ ‰ #œ J J œœ œ • .œ j ‰ Œ • ®œ #œ Œ

‰ Jœ

œ ‰ J

Œ

•

œ

œ œ. œ ® RÔ

œ ‰ Jœ ‰ J

j ‰ # œ ‰ œJ

œ œ #œ #œ œ œ •. J ‰ • ®

œœ œ œ œ ® • . # œJ ‰

#œ œ ‰J ‰ J

œ œ œ. œ. œ

œ

Œ

•

œœ

j ‰ # œ ‰ œœ #œ J

®

œ

œ • .œ j ‰ #œ

œœ œ œ œ ® • . # œJ ‰

œ #œ ‰J ‰ J

œ ‰J

#œ ‰ J

Beethoven’s counterpoint in the finale avoids contrary motion. Parallel thirds, sixths, and tenths abound, and when voices move in contrary motion, the lines usually involve disparate intervals, such as steps in one direction against leaps in the other. The one significant exception to this occurs in the second segment of the Turkish music, the breathless instrumental fugue played “sempre fortissimo” (mm. 431–516). Eighty-six measures of fugal writing contain some thirty-four measures of stepwise mirror counterpoint (40 percent). Following immediately after the tenor soloist sings “Joyous, like a hero off to victory” (Freudig, wie ein Held

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example 2.12. Ninth Symphony, Finale, mm. 517–24, octave jumps on FG

œ œ. ## œ œ œ . & œJ S ƒ j œ. ? ## œ œ . œœ œ

œœ œ œ œ. J œ. œœS œ œ œ. J œ.

œœ œ œ œ. J œ. jS œœ œ œ œ. œ.

œ œ œ œ

j œ. œ œ. œS j œ. œ œ. œ

œ. œ œ œ. œœ JS j œ. œ œ œ. œœ

œœ œ œ œ. J œ. œœS œ œ œ. J œ.

œœ œ œ œ. J œ. jS œœ œ œ œ. œ.

j œ. œ œ œ. œœ S j œ. œ œ œ. œœ

zum Siegen), this music suggested to Wagner a military fight: Schiller’s verse leads into a joyous combat, expressed by instruments alone: we see those youths courageously hurl themselves into a battle whose victorious issue will be joy. Here once more we are inclined to cite Goethe’s verses: He only earns his freedom and existence, / Who daily conquers them anew.

The victory, which we had never doubted, has been fought and won.15

In his autobiography Wagner reiterated this interpretation: “In the wake of these encouraging verses, which seemed to be preparing for combat and victory, I conceived this fugato really as a determined but joyful war-song [Kampfspiel], and I had it played at a consistently fiery tempo, with the most intense energy.”16 The culmination of this section also draws on a crucial first-movement event: at the arrival of the whole orchestra on FG (as V of B minor), the doublebasses and cellos invoke their gesture from the apocalyptic beginning of the first-movement recapitulation, jumping repeatedly from low FG up one octave and then a second (mm. 517–25). This time, however, the barrage of resistance they had encountered in the first movement is completely absent. All other voices join in; the strife is finally over (example 2.12).17 Here in the finale, we learn the full import of this FG. After nine measures of orchestral FGs, the horns sustain theirs for a further sixteen measures, a sonic bridge between conflict and the climactic entrance of the chorus on the now familiar melody, singing “Freude.” Twice Beethoven seeks a path back to the tune, inserting over the horns’ FG a fleeting attempt in B major and then another in B minor, before settling with a euphoric rush on D major. The strident FG in the first-movement recapitulation (see example 2.9) may never have been merely a means of enforcing a D-major tonality. Beethoven’s entrusting

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example 2.13. Ninth Symphony, mvt. 1, beginning of the recapitulation, mm. 301–8, as they appear for cellos and double basses in the autograph manuscript

?b ?b ?b ?b

#œ. œ ƒ

# Çæ ƒ

#œ. œ ƒ

# Çæ ƒ

#œ œ. œ

#œ œ. œ

#œ

#œ

œ. œ

#œ œ. œ

#Ç æ

œ. œ

#Ç æ

#œ œ. œ

#œ

#œ

œ. œ #Ç æ œ. œ #Ç æ

#œ œ. œ

#œ œ. œ

#œ

#œ

œ. œ

#œ œ. œ

#Ç æ

œ. œ

#Ç æ

#œ œ. œ

#œ

#œ

of this note to the lower strings so dramatically in the first movement can be heard as the foundation, the “promissory note,” for the responsibility that would finally fall to them near the beginning of the finale, namely, to introduce the joy theme by themselves.18 In the manuscript copy of the Ninth, Beethoven made explicit the connection between this FG passage and the first-movement recapitulation, by assigning the cello the same dotted rhythms in the first movement that appear in this passage in the finale (example 2.13).19 Once again, traces of Wagner’s musical analysis of the first movement survive both in his narrative program and in The Flying Dutchman. At the conclusion of the opera, Wagner appropriates Beethoven’s harmonic and melodic pivot on FG. He converts a sustained FG from its role as the fifth degree of B minor to the third of D major, the third that then becomes the first note of the melodic goal, in Wagner’s case, Senta’s redemption motive. Wagner sustains the FG across fourteen measures in high strings and woodwinds, measures that include the Dutchman’s theme sung by the chorus of Dutch sailors, doubled on horns. While Beethoven undermined the harmonic context of his FG by his trial-anderror searching for a tonal path back to the Ode to Joy, Wagner does so by shifting the FG from an open fifth into a diminished seventh, followed by Senta’s final words, which mix FJ with FG, and by six measures of diminished seventh before the arrival at D major. Wagner had planted

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the seed for this gesture already in Senta’s Ballad. Midway through the ballad, Senta pauses on an E-major chord (V of A minor), thereby setting up the C-major melody by emphasizing the melodic beginning note E, in the same manner that the finale’s lengthy FG later prepares the first note of the D-major melody. Even this preparatory statement in another key has a counterpart in Beethoven. The very first four-measure glimpse of the Ode to Joy takes place in A major in the introduction of the Finale (mm. 77–80). The doublebasses and cellos conclude their preceding phrase of recitative with a half cadence in CG major, thereby preparing not only the beginning of the theme (here on CG, the third degree in A major), but also the method of introducing the Ode at the climactic entrance of the choir. Like Beethoven, Wagner establishes the sense of FG as a long-term melodic goal, an arrival that satisfies because of the obstacles encountered along the way. Wagner’s initial “promissory” note is enharmonic, the dissonant GH that begins the introduction to act I (see example 2.4), set in an inverted BH minor triad that adumbrates his later transposition of the Schreckensfanfare chord. Wagner carefully prepared the impact of this GH in the last phrase of the overture, particularly in his revision, the final melodic notes of which are D–E–G–FG. Because act I starts and finishes in BH and emphasizes other flat keys (excepting Daland’s G major), there are several opportunities for prominent GHs, generally in contexts that require them to resolve downward to FJ. An exceptional, but revealing, moment for FG occurs at the first citing of the Flying Dutchman ship and the introduction of its motive in B minor; but after just sixteen measures, this FG is countered by a diminished seventh spelled with GH. Although a low FG timpani roll soon returns as preparation for the Dutchman’s first aria, it behaves like a GH, “resolving” downward to the EG that begins the aria. Sharp keys prevail at the beginning of act II, but FGs receive almost no emphasis. The one exception is Mary’s B-minor response to Senta’s first lines (“Den Kopf verliert sie noch darum”), when she prefigures the motive Erik will use in recounting his dream.20 The contrasting pulls of FG and GH become starkly evident in the two duets that Senta sings after her ballad in act II, first with Erik, then with the Dutchman. With Erik she gravitates to the key of GH major, with the Dutchman to FG and B (minor and major). As soon as Erik confronts Senta, prominent GHs emerge, while FGs often do not resolve or they step down chromatically to FJ or EG. In the first half of their duet Erik is more likely to sing FGs and Senta GHs, but when she questions how he

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can compare his suffering to the Dutchman’s (with FGs that do not resolve), Erik shifts. He cries out for God to protect Senta on an impassioned GH, which is the dissonant member of the Schrekensfanfare chord in BH minor; and in his dream narration that follows, GHs are ubiquitous. How different the next duet! In the whole of the lengthy encounter between Senta and the Dutchman, Wagner wrote a single GH. It occurs in an exchange about the possibility of redemption, in which they have virtually the same words: he sings “Ah, if redemption were still a possibility for me,” with GH on “Erlösung” (redemption), while she sings “Ah, if redemption were still a possibility for him,” with FG on the same word, just as the music settles briefly into FG major (establishing V of B minor). There are no GHs in the E-major trio and none until well into act III. When Erik confronts Senta, the most heated words are sung to sustained high GHs: for Senta’s declaration that they are finished, and for Erik’s response that she is lying. Once the Dutchman interrupts them in horror, the F-minor trio turns frequently to GHs (as, for example, below in example 2.14). At the final fourteen-measure pedal on FG before Senta throws herself off the cliff, Wagner distills the enharmonic conflict that has played out over three acts by having the Dutch sailors sustain their FGs against Erik and the Norwegian villagers, who scream out “Senta, Senta, what are you doing?” on GH. The harshest example of enharmonic discord thus immediately precedes the moment of redemption. But the crux of Wagner’s first-movement analysis was his battle narrative. While the FG promissory note leads to a moment of jubilation at the cessation of open struggle, the conflict itself was expressed by counterpoint in contrary motion. In view of Wagner’s seeming eagerness to apply Beethovenian ideas in The Flying Dutchman, evidence that he recognized Beethoven’s symbolic use of counterpoint should emerge in his own application of this technique. Yet such evidence is at best equivocal. Moments of contrary motion of any kind in The Flying Dutchman are surprisingly rare, especially when compared to Beethoven’s Ninth or to Wagner’s own later works. Wagner is more likely to let successive rather than simultaneous motives counter each other, as when the Dutchman’s motive (the note A leaping up to E) introduces Senta’s Ballad, which begins with a descending A to E. Oppositional voices appear sporadically in the drama (they are listed in appendix 3). None has greater psychological tension and physical strife than the trio in the third-act finale, where Erik pleads with Senta to return to her senses, Senta implores the Dutchman to stay, and the Dutchman, leaving,

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example 2.14. Contrary motion in The Flying Dutchman, act III, Finale, trio, mm. 71–74

S.

b bw & b bb

Ç

b & b bb w

Treu

E.

. Œ œ œ

-

e?

? b b b œ . b Jœ n œ œ n œ œ Ç b Ohr,

H.

Fort

auf

Œ œ

das

b b œœ .. œ n œ b œ n œ b œ & b b b b œœ .. œ n œ b œ n œ b œ J f F ? bb b j b œ. bœ nœ œ nœ œ œ. bœ nœ œ nœ œ

Un - sel'

œ w J

-

Ó

j œœ Œ œ j œœ Œ œœ

Ç

œ.

ger,

was

Œ Ç

œ . b œJ n œ œ n œ œ Ç

dem Au - ge trau'n,

Meer

œ. œ. p œ. œ.

bw

treibt

b œœ .. b œœ ..

es mich aufs

œ nœ bœ nœ bœ œ J nœ bœ nœ bœ f F j œ . b œ n œ œ n œ œœ œ. bœ nœ œ nœ

muß

œ e!

œ J

œ œ J J

ver -

ich dem

Œ

neu

-

œ. œ. p œ. œ.

j œ œ Œ œ œ

j œ œ Œ œ

curses his fate. Near the end, upper and lower strings play at cross purposes for ten measures, alternately by step and triadic skips, while Senta and the Dutchman sing lines that counter each other (example 2.14). Wagner heightens the tension by tightening the intervallic spans: the Dutchman progresses from a fifth (f to c and back), a fourth (f to bH), a third (bH to dH), and then a second.21 Beethoven’s influence on this passage also extends to both of the Schreckensfanfare chords, the first under Senta’s two GHs and also the second, under her high BH. Beethoven’s symphony looms over another instance of counterpoint that may be described as moderately oppositional. In the Dutchman’s first aria, “Wie oft in Meeres tiefsten Schlund,” the accompaniment consists largely of the undulating motive that Grey suggests represents the Dutchman’s “endless and aimless navigation of the world’s oceans.”22 Consisting of an ascent through an octave, a sinking back, and then a rising arpeggio up an eleventh, the motive derives from the Dutchman’s motive, which it occasionally accompanies. Over this accompaniment the Dutchman sings a melody that reverses the direction of the accompaniment. As the aria begins, both the Dutchman and the undulating accompanimental figure outline a C-minor triad, while in the repeat of the text, after a brief transition, the Dutchman and the accompaniment replace minor triads with diminished sevenths. It is this diminished version that Wagner previews in the Overture, stretched out

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example 2.15. The Flying Dutchman, Overture, mm. 151–58, presenting motives from “Wie oft in Meeres tiefsten Schlund”

f œ Ç. Ç n œ b # wwww ... . n œ n œ ? b n œ œ œ œ œ Œ n œ œ œ œ œ # œ œ œ n œ n œ œ œ œ œ Œ œ œ œ œ œ bœ nœ œ bœ bœ nœ #œ #œ #œ œ. . # œ ÿ ÿ œ & b œœ Œ bœ

œ- Ç nœ bÇ.

Ç

bœ bÇ Ç & b œœ Œ b œ b Ç œ Ç . bœ bÇ. Ç œ œœ cresc. poco a poco p espress. œ bœ œ œ bœ ? b œ œ bœ bœ œ Œ œ œ. œ. œ œ œ œ b œ n œ b œ n œ œ œ œ b œ œ Œ œ œÿ

f n# wwww ....

#œ œ œ œ œ œ œ #œ œ œ œ # œÿ

over an extra octave in doubled note values (example 2.15). Particularly with the diminished triads, Wagner alludes to the version of Beethoven’s double-dotted triadic main theme, as it occurs in the coda. There Beethoven states the D-minor theme with oppositional counterpoint and then commences his lengthy series of contractions on diminished sevenths (see example 2.11). In the overture Wagner’s motivic span is the same (descending octave plus tritone, rising tenth), both progress from one diminished seventh to another; Beethoven marks the motive espressivo and accompanies it with sustained horns, and Wagner marks it “molto espressivo” with horns on pedal tones. Both in the Overture and in the aria, Wagner emulates Beethoven closely in his use of dynamics. The falling and rising triads begin piano and then crescendo poco a poco (Beethoven over fifteen measures of 42, Wagner over nine of 46 in the overture and fourteen of 86 in the aria) to fortissimo. Are these moments sufficient for us to argue that Beethoven’s broad application of contrary motion in the first movement of the Ninth influenced Wagner? Or does the vastly smaller scope of such counterpoint in The Flying Dutchman suggest instead that, as with his references to a chord or musical gesture, Wagner’s allusions are to specific contrapuntal passages in the Ninth rather than to a systematic usage? There are no battle scenes in the opera such as the one Wagner conjured in his 1846 program for the Ninth. However passionate the trio preceding the Dutchman’s departure, it is an isolated moment of conflict; however debilitating the Dutchman’s plight, despair had long since replaced

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hope and struggle. Particularly regarding the diminished sevenths in the Dutchman’s aria, it is easily imaginable that Wagner was inspired narrowly by the passage in Beethoven’s coda because of its powerful musical impact, rather than by a desire to signal his awareness of Beethoven’s symbolic use of contrary motion. Wagner’s counterpoint in the Faust Overture and in the operas he composed after The Flying Dutchman can help resolve the uncertainty. So, too, can his notion of thematic dispersion.

chapter 3

Wagner, Thematic Dispersion, and Contrary Motion

The connections detailed thus far lend ample support to Wagner’s claim that when he “eventually came to compose the rest of the opera, the thematic image spread itself quite naturally across the entire drama like a complete net.”1 The “thematic image” in this sense derives from his interpretation of Beethoven’s Ninth, and it does indeed spread out over his opera, drawing on his reading of Goethe and on some musical features of each of Beethoven’s movements. Motives from the first pieces he composed—Senta’s Ballad and the sailor choruses—appear dispersed throughout the opera, as Thomas Grey and Werner Breig have argued.2 But other ideas, such as the dissonant finale chords of the Ninth, the FG preparation, and the scherzo pauses, all deepen the opera’s connections to the Ninth and thus contribute thickening strands to the weave of Wagner’s thematic net. Some of these strands arguably extend beyond the confines of The Flying Dutchman to both the Faust Overture and to Lohengrin. In Wagner’s various sources for The Flying Dutchman, one can trace something of how the influence of the Ninth evolved. While his chief textual model was Heinrich Heine’s “The Fable of the Flying Dutchman” in Aus den Memoiren des Herren von Schnabelewopski (Hamburg, 1834), he also added much not present in Heine’s exceedingly ironic fable and did so already in his earliest efforts. Wagner began with a detailed prose draft in French, a draft remarkable for the extent to which it already approaches the final version. This is also when he composed Senta’s 59

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Ballad, and the choral ensemble music for sailors. Sometime during the next year, Wagner wrote out a longer prose draft in German, which survives only from the act II meeting of Senta and the Dutchman.3 Aside from setting the tale in Scotland and calling Senta, Anna, and Erik, George, the drama is invariably the same as in the completed opera, often to the wording. Several of the moments in Wagner’s drama that did not exist in Heine’s fable seem likely to have been suggested to Wagner by his interpretation of the Ninth Symphony. Three passages ring with particular dramatic weight: from the slow movement, the Dutchman’s reaction to first laying eyes on Senta (the beginning of the act II duet); from the scherzo, the abrupt ending for the celebration of the sailors and townspeople; and from the finale, the Dutchman’s desperate outburst at the moment he confronts Senta and Erik (the beginning of the act III finale). Each of these was part of Wagner’s conception from the outset; that is, they were already in the French prose draft. Thus, while they may help us to link Wagner’s opera to the Ninth, they offer no evidence of an evolving awareness of the Ninth, or of the expansion of its influence in The Flying Dutchman. For that, elements from The Flying Dutchman that first appear in the German prose draft provide a means of gauging the progress of Wagner’s net, as it extends the influence of Beethoven and Goethe. Of several possible details, perhaps most revealing is the sudden interjection of the word angel. Completely absent in Heine’s version and in the French draft, this image—so important to Wagner—emerges only in the German prose draft (likely from spring 1841). All five of its references to angels occur in the duet that Senta and the Dutchman sing at their meeting. This compares to eleven invocations in the completed opera: three in act I, seven in act II, and one in act III. Most are voiced by the Dutchman, progressing from his barely kindled hope that the Angel of God would help him, to wondering if Senta were to be his angel, to him proclaiming her so, and finally to Senta, who, with her last breath at the precipice, apostrophizes herself as his “angel.” By far the largest concentration of the word Engel are the four in the duet for Senta and the Dutchman, the duet that shares a formal plan and some phrasings with Wagner’s program for the slow movement of Beethoven’s Ninth. Tellingly, the passage from Faust that Wagner selected to interpret Beethoven’s Adagio is a response to Goethe’s Chorus of Angels; indeed, in these verses (shown in table 1.2), Faust responds to the angels, addressing them in wonder: “Why, here in dust, entice me with your

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spell, / Ye gentle, powerful sounds of Heaven?” and “Sound on, ye hymns of Heaven, so sweet and mild!”4 Wagner thus mined Beethoven’s Adagio for three distinct elements: the melody for Senta’s redemption theme, the structure of the Adagio (as mediated by Goethe’s verses) for the shape of the duet, and, directly from Goethe’s verses, inspiration for the moment of the opera at which Senta and the Dutchman both recognize her to be his redeeming angel. As Wagner elaborated his poetic ideas in the German prose draft, he may also have decided on the musical device of marking the structure of the duet in part by recalling Senta’s theme at the conclusion of the first two sections (designated “Awakening” and “Assent” in table 1.2). A supporting allusion to Beethoven occurs when Senta replies to the Dutchman’s hesitation by pledging that she will remain true “until death.” Grey described the high pulsating woodwind accompaniment for Senta as illuminating the passage with a “celestial radiance.”5 This orchestration is precisely the one Beethoven called for in the Ninth: high woodwinds as the choir sings “über Sternen muss er wohnen” (he must dwell above the stars). Among Wagner’s most significant musical debts to the Ninth is a technique that he applied liberally in The Flying Dutchman: interruptions of the musical and dramatic flow. If interruptions are a “genre marker” that places “the opera in the tradition of the Romantic Schaueroper or horror-opera, with its emphasis on the disruptive intrusion of the supernatural into the natural world,” the extent of Wagner’s interruptions in Dutchman is nevertheless unprecedented.6 He wrote one into the very first section he composed, Senta’s Ballad, from where they proliferated, from the first scene to the last. To recount just a few: a large wave and narcolepsy silence the helmsman’s song; the spinning chorus is interrupted after each verse and then yields to Senta’s Ballad; her ballad halts abruptly when Senta, suddenly inspired, realizes she wants to be the redeeming angel; the Dutchman barges in on both of Senta’s duets with Erik; and so on. The agents of the interruptions vary (sleep, nature, Senta, the Dutchman, the Dutch sailors), as do the moods (boredom, impatience, worry, and fear). Some are rejections. Wagner’s program and his opera leave no doubt that he recognized the many interruptions in Beethoven’s Ninth to be dramatically motivated. To summarize these briefly (with quotations from Wagner’s program): •

In the first movement, the fight is interrupted by “a few fleeting moments of light”; and the final resistance of the joy-seeking

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soul occurs when the two ritardandi near the end of the coda move toward a cadence that is deflected by a funereal new theme (m. 513) accompanied by a chromatic fourth ostinato. •

•

•

The scherzo—all of its timpani interjections aside—ends for the first time with the abrupt entry of the middle section, when “earthly pleasures” are “suddenly disclosed.” When the theme of this middle section then pops up unexpectedly in the conclusion of the scherzo’s repeat, this intrusion is rejected (“we thrust [it] from us with hasty impatience”). Near the end of the slow movement, militaristic chords intervene, recalling the struggles of the first movement; to Wagner this is the “still palpitating heart” dismissing the solace of happier themes. Beethoven’s finale eclipses all previous interruptions: the first chord sweeps aside the tranquility of the slow movement; then come three rejections of earlier ideas, one truncation of the Ode to Joy, the culminating rejection of instrumental music (“O Freunde! Nicht diese Töne”), the intrusion of Turkish music and instrumental “battle,” and finally the long sustained FG with two false starts on the choral entrance of the Ode to Joy.

Often, as Lydia Goehr observed for Dutchman, the interruptions create “a movement between different levels of narrative,” particularly, between “the fantastical and the real.”7 In Wagner’s interpretation of Beethoven’s usage, as we perceive from his program, the interruptions in the first three movements are not between levels of narrative, but rather, between competing personae within a narrative. However, in the finale they appear at first to shift between the present and the remembered past, and then ultimately between different modes: the “mode of infinite and indistinct expression” and “the clear, secure expression of language.”8 No interruption mattered to Wagner more, or is more crucial to the impulse to explain the Ninth (metaphorically or not), than the admonition that ushered in the “victory” of texted music: “O Freunde! Nicht diese Töne!” This banishment of the vanquished tones leads to the addition of Schiller’s verses on the meaning of Joy.9 In creating his musical-poetic answer to the Ninth, Wagner did not overlook this juncture, emulating it for the final rejection of the Spinning Song in favor of Senta’s Ballad. At Senta’s interruption of the maidens, Wagner virtually parodies Beethoven’s rejection in the finale of the

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earlier movements, translating noble speech into mundane. Thus, “O Freunde! Nicht diese Töne! sondern lasst uns angenehmere anstimmen” (Oh, friends! Not these tones! Rather, let us sing something more pleasant) becomes “Oh! Macht dem dummen Lied ein Ende! . . . so sucht ‘was besseres hervor!” (Oh, put an end to this silly song! . . . seek out something better!). Wagner’s naive presentation of this exchange is to Beethoven’s elevated language as Beethoven’s scherzo is to his first movement: a translation of weighty matters into common—even, in Wagner’s view, into crude—terms. Yet the meaning is clear. The proposition “not that song, but this one” leads in both cases to statements of the central musical ideas. That Beethoven’s theme arrives at the end, and Wagner’s arrives squarely in the middle, does not prevent Wagner from preserving the D-major presentation of Senta’s redemption theme as his ultimate goal. Its introduction in Senta’s Ballad was planned to occur in C major, which allowed Wagner ample time to work his way toward the apocalyptic conclusion, twice recalling this theme in other keys (A and CG major), as if searching for the proper setting, much as Beethoven had done at the start of his finale. Beethoven offered precedents for tonal searching both in the various keys of the cello-bass recitatives, and in the last measures before the final Schrekensfanfare (mm. 203–6), in which a triadic motive appears in A major, B minor, EH minor, and then triumphantly in A major. When the Ode to Joy then appears, the orchestra attempts to start the melody on CG and then E, before the baritone sets them right on FG. The approach to the choral entrance is yet another instance of this purposeful meandering. Wagner’s awareness that a thematic image could be spread “as a continuous net” is itself a sign of Beethoven’s influence, and his remarks on the Ninth once again point the way. Years after completing The Flying Dutchman, Wagner described Beethoven’s compositional strategy in the Ninth in teleological terms. In Opera and Drama (1851), he identified the Ode to Joy as the point of origin for the entire symphony, and asserted that in composing the four movements, Beethoven “shattered” this idea “into its component parts” in order to reassemble them over the course of the four-movement symphony.10 This analytical insight—that a compositional starting point can serve as a goal—may have been one of the primary compositional lessons Wagner took away from his study of Beethoven. Some of the moments that best manifest the process of thematic dispersion also demonstrate Wagner’s efforts to write text and music that would motivate subsequent intertwining of text and music.

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table 3.1 comparison of musical and textual parallels between senta’s ballad and the dutchman’s first aria, “ wie oft in meeres tiefsten schlund ” ( All pitch references in Senta’s Ballad are to the original version in A minor.)

Senta’s Ballad Senta tells Dutchman’s story Form: clearly delineated AB Key of A section: A minor Begins with Dutchman’s motive Descending triadic theme (× 2) Phrase 1 ends on GG Phrase 2 ends on B Phrase 3 = descending 8ves E to DG then down one 8ve Over tritone 16th-note chromatics G to CG Phrase repeats A section ends on E Major chord B section: C Major Text: “Doch kann dem bleichen Manne” Melody zigzags down, then ascends Return to A section for 2nd strophe

Dutchman’s aria “Wie oft in Meeres tiefsten Schlund” Dutchman tells his own story Form: A with brief transition to A′ Key of A section: C minor Begins with undulating motive (derived from Dutchman’s motive) Descending, ascending triadic theme (× 2) Phrase 1 ends on G Phrase 2 ends on GH Phrase 3 = descending 8ves EH to D then down one 8ve Over same tritone 16th-note chromatics FG up to C Phrase repeats A section ends on B major chord (V of e) Transition to A′: diminished sevenths Text: “Doch ach! Des Meer’s barbar’scher Sohn” Melody zigzags down, then short ascent Return to A′ for repeat of first strophe Motives now diminished sevenths

Wagner applied this lesson to Senta’s Ballad, later composing the Dutchman’s first aria in such a way that it would textually and musically prepare the Ballad as a companion piece. The pervasive parallels are listed in table 3.1. Senta and the Dutchman both recount his plight, she in three well-formed strophes with a distinct AB structure, he in one strophe that after a brief transition is partially repeated in a highly varied form. What began as a C-minor triadic melody gives way to a series of diminished sevenths (inspired by the Ninth as shown in example 2.15) that depict his increased agony as he repeats his first lines. In the keys Wagner originally intended for Senta’s Ballad, A minor and C major, the melodic relationships of Senta’s lines to the Dutchman’s aria were a half or whole step higher in the ballad, a tonal relationship Wagner liked enough to apply in Lohengrin, distancing the themes of Lohengrin and Elsa by a half step. The third lines of poetry are set nearly identically, with octave leaps in the vocal line, sustained tritones in the winds, and a sextuple sixteenth-note chromatic tritone ostinato played by viola and cello (example 3.1). Senta

example 3.1. The Flying Dutchman, comparison of the third-line settings of a. act I, no. 2, the Dutchman’s aria, mm. 56–60

H.

? bb

b Œ

‰ Œ

ÇÇ .. bb b n ÇÇ .. & @

H.

œ.

œ J

œ J

œ.

nend

droht

œ

ÇÇ ... ÇÇ . @ p

Ver - höh

-

œ

œ œ R R

ich

dem Pi -

œœœ. œ ‰ J

‰

#œ J

> r r œ. #œ œ

œ #œ œ œ nœ nœ

p j ‰ ? b #œ ‰ ‰ œ Œ nœ b b #œ nœ nœ œ nœ œ œ œ bœ nœ œ #œ œ nœbœ nœ œ œ œ œbœ nœ œ #œ œ bœ nœ bœ nœ œ #œ œ œ nœ > œ. ? bb œ ‰ Œ ‰ b ra ten, >Ç . n ÇÇÇ ... bb b @ & # œ n œ n œ b œ œ # œ n œr • ‰ ‰ ? bb # œ n œ n œ b œ œ # œ n œ n œ b œ nœ bœ œ #œ œ nœ œ nœ œ b

b. act II, Senta’s Ballad, mm. 24–28

S.

&b

> ‰ œ.

b Œ

n ÇÇ . b # Ç .. b &

Hui!

Ç.

œ

# n ÇÇÇ ...

œ œ J

Und Sa

Ç.

-

œ J

tan

Í ? b b # œ # œ # œ œ # œ n œ œ œ œ n œ # œ œ # œ # œ# œ œ # œ n œ œ œ œn œ # œ œ S.

b & b œJ &

bb

‰

r r# œ . #œ œ

Jo ho he!

‰ œnœbœnœ#œ nœ nœ bœ œ #œ

Œ

Ç # n ÇÇ ...

> ‰ œ.

# n ## œœœœ J

hört's!

#œ #œ p

Hui!

Ç.

‰

Í ? b nœnœbœnœ#œ nœ nœ bœ b œ # œ n œ # œ # œ # œ # œ œ #œ nœ œ œ œ n œ # œ œ

Jo ho he!

•

œ#œn œ #œ œ #œ nœ nœ #œ p nœ n œ #œ œ # œ n œ n œ # œ œ#œ

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and the orchestra then pause at the end of the A section of her ballad, before shifting to major mode and the redemption theme with the words “Doch kann dem bleichen Manne Erlösung einstens noch werden.” At the analogous moment in his aria, the Dutchman also pauses, as does the orchestra except for the timpani quietly sustaining a low B, before beginning his contrary thought, “Doch ach.” While her line winds down and then soars up an eleventh, his only zigzags down the octave where it remains. Their texts relate through opposition as well: he, looking backward, proclaims in the past tense his failure to find death (“ich fand ihn nicht”); she, looking to the future and addressing his picture directly, asks when he will find redemption (“wann wirst du . . . es finden?”). Thematic dispersion is not restrained by the confines of a single work. The compositions that Wagner wrote immediately before and after The Flying Dutchman allow us to track the course of his deepening understanding of Beethoven’s Ninth and the long-term impact of Goethe’s Faust. Dating from the months preceding The Flying Dutchman, the Faust Overture has programmatic and tonal links to the Ninth; the Faust Overture and Lohengrin both contain clues to Wagner’s awareness of Beethoven’s contrary motion; and Tannhäuser provides an important perspective for evaluating Wagner’s compositional techniques in The Flying Dutchman. Most revealing is the Faust Overture, both the work he had composed in early 1840 as the first movement of a Faust symphony, and the 1855 revisions he made to what had long since become the Faust Overture. They contain two of the Beethovenian processes we have observed in The Flying Dutchman: the long-range concern about how to “correct” or transform an initial chromatic pitch, and, at least by 1855, counterpoint that makes significant use of contrary motion. Moreover, Wagner included a couple of prominent allusions to the first movement of the Ninth, as well as motivic links between the Faust Overture and The Flying Dutchman. These support a conclusion that Wagner had associated Beethoven’s music with Faust before he began work on his opera. While he was in Paris between 13 December 1839 and 12 January 1840, Wagner composed what was to have been the first movement of a four-movement symphony on the subject of Faust. As Klaus Kropfinger has argued, he likely began work on his symphony a week after hearing the first three movements of the Ninth rehearsed by Habeneck.11

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example 3.2. Comparison of the main themes of a. Wagner, Faust Overture (early version), mm. 33–38 Sehr bewegt

&b C

w p

w

bw

#œ nœ ‰ b Ç .. œj # œ n œ n œj

b. Beethoven, Symphony no. 3, mvt. 1, mm. 3–11, main theme

œ œ ? b b 43 Ç œ Ç œ .. œ b p

Ç œ

#Ç.

cresc.

Ç.

Ç. S

Ç œ Ç. p

Wagner eventually performed this single movement in Dresden twice in 1844 as his Faust Overture and then let it sit until 1855, when, spurred by Liszt’s Eine Faust-Symphonie, he revised it. The influences on this D-minor work have variously been identified as Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette and the Ninth;12 but Wagner begins with another reference altogether. The opening theme of the slow introduction (originally marked Sostenuto) and the main theme of the Molto agitato that follows take the same chromatic turn in the fifth measure (example 3.2). Both are patterned after the opening theme of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony; indeed, Wagner’s principal theme simply lifts the notorious move to CG from Beethoven, appropriating the same pitches in the fourth and fifth measures of the theme, while his slow introductory theme follows Beethoven’s sequence of intervals for two more pitches.13 In what is one of the most analyzed musical gestures of the whole century, Beethoven begins famously, and portentously, with cellos moving quickly in the first phrase to pause on a CG that resolves as expected, upward, a gesture that one critic likened to a military hero mounting his horse at sunrise and heading through the fog into battle.14 Then in the course of the movement, he prepares the unexpected enharmonic shift in the coda. There the CG is transformed into a DH that descends from EH down to C, to some nineteenth-century listeners a symbol of the nowdead hero’s victorious and tenacious will. In his Faust movement, Wagner showed his understanding of Beethoven’s transformation by attempting something similar, albeit in the very different tonal context of D minor. Wagner, however, reverses Beethoven’s long-range trajectory and

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example 3.3. Wagner, Faust Overture, mm. 419–40, final statement of theme at end

&b w œœ Œ Ó p ?b œ Œ Ó œœ # # ww & b # # ww ‰ #w ?b # w #w

www w

w w w

w

w

w

‡

‡

‡

ww ww

w w w

ww ww

w w w

w ‰ ‡ w # # www ‰ # # www # w

ww ww www w

w

bw

‡

‡ ww ww www w

b Ç .. œj ‡ p # >w ‡ ww ww www w

# www w ‰

‡

w

poco rallentando

‡

‡

w

w

# Çww Ç

œ œ œ œ œ œ œ # œ œ œ œ # œw œ œ œœ Ç . œ œw w

begins by pushing his CG downward, as the midpoint in a series of chromatic half steps that descend from EH down to B. Later, in the coda, rather than transforming the CG into a DH, Wagner retains the CG and then diverts it back to the tonic D (example 3.3). In this conclusion he first recalls an altered version of the main theme, played by the violins alone, softly. When they reach the CG, they break off (a pattern that emerges in the recapitulation), but the bassoons seize it and sit on it for twelve tonally ambiguous measures: four measures of solo sustained CG, four as the root of a CG-major triad with the other winds, and four as the fifth degree of an FG-minor triad, which then settles in to the concluding D-major triad.15 Wagner handles this CG very much the way he subsequently treated the FG (V of B minor) at the end of The Flying Dutchman, pausing dramatically to focus attention on the uncertainty about where it might lead. Wagner’s reversal of Beethoven’s trajectory doubtless had a programmatic impulse, one warranted by their significant differences in character: Faust and Beethoven’s military hero are antithetical figures. Not so, Faust and the Dutchman. The brief turn to D major at the end of the Faust Overture (and also The Flying Dutchman) provides a vision of redemption that Beethoven’s military hero did not need. After halting his composition of a symphony, Wagner tapped the slow-opening Faust theme for lines sung by the Dutchman. In his first aria the concluding section, “Nur eine Hoffnung soll mir bleiben,” begins with a version of the first measures of his Faust Overture (first version) transposed down

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a step. Both themes begin on the tonic, move up a diminished triad (2–4–H6), and then step down to arrive at G4 in the fifth measure. Wagner as much as acknowledged his efforts to write a symphony that built on the foundation of Beethoven’s Ninth with a poetic motto for the movement that he communicated confidentially in a letter to Liszt in 1855.16 Liszt in turn communicated this motto to his then sonin-law, the Wagnerian conductor Hans von Bülow, who soon publicized this information in his tract Ueber Richard Wagner’s Faust-Ouverture (1860).17 As shown in table 3.2, and as von Bülow himself divulged, this six-line quotation from Goethe’s Faust continues seamlessly from the verses that Wagner had earlier selected as a program for Beethoven’s first movement.18 Wagner associated both his and Beethoven’s movements with the same passage of Faust: Mephistopheles has just appeared in Faust’s study dressed as a noble dandy and invited Faust to come experience life with him. Faust’s despair allows him no energy for worldly temptations. His life is an oppressive burden, a “thing unblest”; only his art can sustain him, the God that resides in his heart. There is no shift in mood or tone between the verses he selected for Beethoven and for his overture. Von Bülow uttered the obvious explanation for why Wagner chose these verses for his own composition when he concluded that “Wagner’s Faust-Overture is . . . more or less rooted in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.”19 What Wagner communicated to Liszt, he had encoded (somewhat less privately) in his overture through a complex of allusions to the Ninth. Kropfinger identified a debt to Beethoven’s D-minor principal theme at the climactic moment immediately after the fortissimo repeat of the first theme (example 3.4); and Tovey considered this theme to be proof that Wagner had begun “to plan his overture after hearing a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.”20 Wagner adapted Beethoven’s scoring, with most of the orchestra playing in unison over a D-minor pedal. But unlike in the Ninth, in the original version of the overture this theme returns closer to the end of the movement with no alterations, that is, without Beethoven’s oppositional counterpoint. Fifteen years later, one of Wagner’s most involved revisions was to rewrite this passage, extending the allusion to cover Beethoven’s contrapuntal treatment of the repeat. When Beethoven brought this theme back in the recapitulation, the struggle had been at its most furious, with the majority of the orchestra pitted in descent against the upwardrising cellos and basses. Wagner replicates each detail (example 3.5): the cellos and basses counter everyone else, covering the same registral

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table 3.2 passage from goethe’s faust chosen by wagner to represent the first movement of beethoven’s ninth symphony and as motto for his faust overture ( Wagner selected the verses that appear below in roman type for his program for the first movement of the Ninth Symphony, and verses in boldface as the motto of the Faust Overture. He omitted the verses in italic. This is from the 1870 verse translation of Goethe’s Faust by Bayard Taylor, from the Modern Library edition [New York, 1912].)

Goethe’s Faust, Part I, lines 1544–71; Faust (replying to Mephistopheles): This life of earth, whatever my attire, Would pain me in its wonted fashion. Too old am I to play with passion; Too young, to be without desire. What from the world have I to gain? Thou shalt abstain—renounce—refrain! Such is the everlasting song That in the ears of all men rings,— That unrelieved, our whole life long, Each hour, in passing, hoarsely sings. In very terror I at morn awake, Upon the verge of bitter weeping, To see the day of disappointment break, To no one hope of mine—not one—its promise keeping:— That even each joy’s presentiment With willful cavil would diminish, With grinning masks of life prevent My mind its fairest work to finish! Then, too, when night descends, how anxiously Upon my couch of sleep I lay me: There, also, comes no rest to me, But some wild dream is sent to fray me. The God that in my breast is owned Can deeply stir the inner sources; The God, above my powers enthroned, He cannot change external forces. So, by the burden of my days oppressed, Death is desired, and Life a thing unblest!

1545

1550

1555

1560

1565

1570

ground, while the timpani pounds away on its mid-register D. He continues on, conflating this moment with the beginning of Beethoven’s coda, in which the opposing voices move through a series of converging motivic wedges that culminate in the arpeggiated diminished seventh CG–E–G–BH (shown in example 2.11). This complex allusion thus includes motive, orchestration, counterpoint, key, and formal variation:

example 3.4. Wagner, Faust Overture (both versions), mm. 75–80 in earlier version

Vln. I

Vln. II

Vla.

Vc.

Db.

œ &b ‰ J ƒ œ &b ‰ J ƒ B b ‰ œœ J ƒ ? ‰ œœ b J ƒ ?b ‰ œ J ƒ

œ œ. œ. œ œ. œ . J J œ Jœ œ ‰ J ƒ œ œ. œ. œ œ. œ . J J œ Jœ œ ‰ J ƒ œ . œ œ œ. œ œ. œ œ J œ. œ . œ œ . œJ œ . œ œ ‰ J J ƒ œ .. œ œ .. œ œ .. œ œ œJ œ . œ œ œ œœ œ œ ‰ J J J ƒ œ œ. œ. œ œ. œ œ. œ œ ‰ J J J J ƒ

œ œ. œ œ. œ œ J J J œ Œ œ Œ œ Œ œ œ . œ œ . œ J œ Jœ œ Œ œ Œ @ J Ç œ p œ #œ œ œ. œ œ. œ œ Œ œ Œ @ J ÇÇ œ J J œ p œ œ. œ œ. œ œ Œ J œ Œ @Ç J J p œ . œ œ . œ Œ œ Œ œ Œ J œ Jœ J

example 3.5. Faust Overture (revised version from 1855), mm. 337–49

Vln. I

Vln. II

Vla.

Vc. Db.

Vln. I

Vln. II

Vla.

Vc. Db.

œ œ. œ œ J Jœ . Jœ œ . b ‰ & ƒ œ œ. œ œ .œ . & b œ ‰J J Jœ ƒ œ œ. . B b œ ‰ J Jœ œ Jœ œ . ƒ ? œ ‰ j œ œ. œ œ. b œ œ. J J ƒ

œ œ. œ œ ‰J J ƒ œ œ. œ œ ‰J J ƒ œ j ‰ J œ. œ œ ƒ œ œ J ‰ jœ. œ ƒ

œ œ. œ. œ œ œ. œ œ œ. J J J œ. œ œ ‰ J J J ƒ œ œ. œ. œ . œ œ. œ œ. œ œ Jœ œ ‰J J J J J ƒ œ . . j œ œ œ J œ . œ œ Jœ œ . J J œ. œ œ ‰ J œ ƒ œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. œ . J œ J J ‰ œ œ . Jœ J J ƒ . œ bœ. œ œ. œ nœ. œ œ. œ nœ #œ. bœ œ. œ œ. œ J J œ . œJ # œ . œ J J J J J J b & J œ. nœ #œ. nœ. œ œ. bœ. œ œ. œ. œ œ. œ bœ œ. œ œ J J J J J œJ J J J # œ . Jœ &b œ. œ œ. œ bœ. œ œ. œ nœ. œ œ. œ œ. nœ #œ. bœ œ. J J œ # œ . œj J J J J J J Bb J œ œ. bœ œ. œ nœ. œ œ. œ #œ. œ ? b œ. J J J J J J

œ #œ j œ . # œj œ . œJ . J nœ. œ

œ. œ œ. #œ J J immer ƒ œ. œ œ. J # œJ immer ƒ œ. œ œ. J # œJ immer ƒ œ . œ œ . œJ J immer ƒ

œ J œ J œ J œ J

œ

œ

#œ

#œ

bw ƒ bw ƒ

nœ œ bœ nœ ƒ bw nœ œ bœ nœ ƒ

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example 3.6. Comparison of ostinato passages at the conclusion of a. Wagner’s Faust Overture (revised version), mm. 395–99

&b

œ b œ # œ œ œ n œ œ. # œ. œ. b œ # œ œ œ n œ œ. # œ. . . . . . œ. . . . . . ? b jb œ œ n œ œ # œ œ bœ œ nœ œ #œ œ. . # œ. œ. . . . . . . # œ. œ. . . . .

ww. w p b œ. . . œ. n œ. œ. # œ. œ. # œ œ J

. ÇÇ .. Ç.

œœœ. œ

ww ww

œ. b œ. . œ. œ. n œ. œ. # œ. œ. b œ. . œ. œ. n œ. œ. # œ. #œ #œ

b. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, mvt. 1, mm. 513–15

&b Π?b

?

œ œ p

œ œ

. œ. œ • œ œ

œœ. • œ

œœ œ J

• & œœ œœœ . .

œ • œœ .

œ œ #œ œ nœ œ nœ œ bœ œ nœ œ #œ œ œ œ #œ œ nœ œ nœ œ œ œ # œ œ n œ œ n œ œ b œ œ œ œ œ œn œ œ # œ œ œ œ # œ œ n œ œ n œ œ ‰

in the expositions the downward motion is unopposed, in the recapitulations the resistance is at its strongest. The codas then wind toward the end with a chromatic ostinato assigned to strings, in the Ninth on the fourth between D and A, in the Faust Overture on the diminished fifth between GG and D, both for fourteen measures. Over each ostinato the woodwinds play a triadic melody that rises from A to D to F (example 3.6). In view of the absence of the contrary motion counterpoint in the original version of the Faust Overture and its presence in the revision, it seems likely that Wagner was not yet aware of this element of the Ninth’s first movement in 1840, either when he composed the Faust Symphony or The Flying Dutchman. Wagner’s analytical awareness dates at the latest from whenever he wrote his program for the performance of the Ninth Symphony on 5 April 1846. We can estimate this date from the “report” that he later wrote to accompany his program for the Ninth. He began: My chief undertaking this winter [1845–46] consisted in an extremely careful preparation of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony for performance on Palm Sunday in the spring. This performance brought me into many a conflict, and had most fruitful influence on my whole future evolution. . . . My first

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step was to draft a kind of Program, after the precedent of the book-ofwords for choral pieces; a guide to an emotional understanding of the work—not directed to a critical analysis, but purely to react upon the hearer’s feeling. . . . Further I anonymously inserted all sorts of brief enthusiastic jottings in the Dresden Anzeiger, to interest the public.21

Wagner biographer Carl Friedrich Glasenapp found these anonymous notices in copies of the Anzeiger dated 26 and 31 March and 2 April 1846.22 Although the program must be still earlier, it is clear from the report that Wagner’s study of the score, on which at least his awareness of contrary motion counterpoint depended, was from the winter of 1845–46. Wagner’s compositions point to the same year. Contrary motion counterpoint in the earliest version of Tannhäuser, which he composed over two and a half years between June 1842 and the end of December 1844, is much like that in The Flying Dutchman, which is to say, it exists here and there, but not systematically. The application of the counterpoint carries no consistent symbolic meaning. Wagner employs it variously in the Venusberg music as the dance “reaches a peak of wild tumult” (act I, sc. 1), again as “Tannhäuser wipes his hand across his eyes, as if trying to hold on to a dream” (act I, sc. 2), and as Tannhäuser sings: “Ah, beautiful goddess, farewell! I will never return to you!” (act I, sc. 2). Moreover, the early version and the revision he undertook for Paris in 1861 show the same pattern as the Faust Overture and its revision: the addition or intensification of counterpoint by contrary motion.

lohengrin Only with Lohengrin did Wagner begin to apply the contrapuntal lessons from his study of the Ninth Symphony. He completed a draft of the libretto between August and November 1845 and a first draft of the music from May to July 1846; that is, during the period before and just after he conducted the Ninth. Wagner’s renewed engagement with the Ninth is visible throughout the score, including yet another climax on the Schreckensfanfare chord. Twelve measures from the end, as Lohengrin becomes visible for the last time in his retreating barque, Elsa shrieks “Weh!” on a high BH and collapses, dead. For this moment Wagner directed all on stage to join in a “loud cry of pain” (Wehruf) while the orchestra plays a second-inversion D-minor triad with dissonant high BH (example 3.7). He had included another instance of this chord in his first compositional draft. In a segment he later cut from the final scene of the opera, he had Elsa beseech Lohengrin for mercy, “O Herr sei gnädig,” immediately after he had revealed her

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| Chapter 3 example 3.7. Wagner’s use of Beethoven’s Schreckensfanfare chord at Elsa’s death in Lohengrin, act III, twelve measures from the end of the opera

E.

K.

&

###

? ### ## & #

## & #

‡

König

‡

## & # ? ###

‡

Elsa

‡ w n www

‡

Ç ? # # # n ww Ç Ç Ç

bÇ Ç

Ach!

ƒn Ç Ç

Weh!

ƒn Ç Ç

Weh!

Weh!

Ç

(Sie sinkt entseelt in Gottfrieds Armen zu Boden.)

Ó

Ó Ó Ó Ó

ƒ bn ÇÇ Ç

œœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œbœ

n ÇÇ b Ç Ç

œœ œ

ƒ

n œœœ œ

guilt to the king and assembled crowd. The accompaniment is a second inversion D-minor triad with upper BH sustained for two measures underneath her plea. It is clear from the placement of the soprano’s BH in midregister and also from the crescendo symbol (rare in first compositional drafts) that this would have begun with a softer dynamic, much as with the earlier incarnations of this chord in The Flying Dutchman. Wagner intended this highly charged moment to be preparatory for that at the shattering instant of Elsa’s death.23 Within the final version of Lohengrin this chord connects to the moment in the preceding scene that precipitated Elsa’s demise: the pivotal climax that combined Elsa’s asking of the forbidden question and Lohengrin’s slaying of Telramund. Despite the confluence of central dramatic themes, Wagner avoided musical histrionics, marking the fatal blow with an unadorned second inversion D-minor triad, followed by a diminished seventh. Externally, the Schreckensfanfare chord invokes both the moment of betrayal in The Flying Dutchman (as the Dutchman cried out “Ewig verlor’nes Heil”) and its source, Beethoven’s

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“shrill outcry.” This musical link between Elsa and the Dutchman is matched by descriptive detail in the final scene that describes Elsa’s countenance in terms long associated with the Dutchman: “melancholy and pale” (Wie ist ihr Antlitz trüb und bleiche). Whatever other connections his use of this link may have been designed to signal, Wagner’s different placement of the Schreckensfanfare chord in Lohengrin underscores the contrast between this dark work and its more optimistic predecessors. In the Ninth and in The Flying Dutchman the shrieks bring discordant interruptions early enough in the drama that sufficient time remains for them to be answered. Beethoven’s joy and the Dutchman’s redemption are still attainable. But in Lohengrin the chord occurs at the very end (and in that sense, the timing of Elsa’s death still shows the powerful French influence of a work like Halévy’s tragédie-lyrique, La Juive). Opportunity to heal has passed; Beethoven’s chord “interrupts” nothing. For Wagner to have worked out a happy ending, as he briefly considered doing, would have required him to situate the chord much earlier; as for example, if he had wanted Lohengrin to react with horror rather than resigned sadness when Elsa insisted on asking the forbidden question. Indeed, Wagner’s treatment of these two moments is reversed from the strategy he had devised for Dutchman. In Lohengrin Wagner composed the moment of Elsa’s death with the identical dissonant chord he had used for the Dutchman’s betrayal (compare example 3.7 and example 2.2); while at the earlier moment of Elsa’s betrayal, he brought back the chords he had composed for Senta’s death (example 3.8). Two fortissimo measures of a second inversion minor triad (D minor in Lohengrin, G minor in Dutchman) are followed by three fortississimo measures of the same diminished seventh (GG, B, D, F) sustained by horns and winds while strings descend a chromatic scale. Wagner composed the same musical-dramatic elements for these two operas but reversed their sequence. New in this opera, however, and pervasive, are signs that Wagner had experienced an epiphany about Beethoven’s Ninth-Symphony counterpoint. Instrumental lines moving in opposite directions are everywhere, beginning in the very first measure of act I, scene 1, as King Heinrich sits beneath the Judgment Oak surrounded by nobility and soldiers, preparing to summon his Brabantine subjects to arms to defend Germany against Hungarian invaders. The primary association of this counterpoint is with struggle and battle. Thus when Lohengrin tells the king (act III, sc. 3) to “give the order for our fight” (ord’ne unsren Kampf!),

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| Chapter 3

example 3.8. Comparison of Wagner’s parallel treatment of deaths in The Flying Dutchman and Lohengrin a. The Flying Dutchman, conclusion of act III, Senta’s death

S.

&b Œ

Ç bis

&b

‡

?b

‡

#œ

Ç

Ó

sie stürzt sich in das Meer;

j b www œ . # œ! n œ! n œ! b œ! œ! w #œ nœ nœ bœ œ !J ! ! ! ! ƒ b wwœ w w w

zum Tod!

b œ! œ!# œ!n œ! œ!b œ! œ! ! bœ œ #œ nœ œ bœ œ #œ !! ! !! !! # œ! ww w w w

w n www œ #œ nœ œ bœ ! ! ! ! ! !œ #!œ n!œ Ï! ! !! n wwwœ # œ n œ œ b œ! œ!# œ!n œ! # ww #w

ww ww #œ nœ œ bœ ! !! ! # œ! n œ! œ!b œ! w w

b. Lohengrin, act III, sc. 2, mm. 759–64, Elsa’s betrayal and the death of Friedrich

E.

nœ # & ‰ Jœ

œ bœ ‰ J

‡

#œ œ nœ “ # b œ b œ n œ œ œ# œ œ n œ n ÇÇÇ ÇÇÇ Ç Ç & bœ bœ nœ œ œ ƒ j œ # œ œœœ ÇÇ Ç ÇÇ Ç ? # nœ. n œ Ç Ç œ #œ nœ. Dein Schwert,

dein Schwert!

‡ n ÇÇÇ ÇÇÇ n www Ç Ç w

‡ ww ww

ƒ . . n ÇÇ Ç ÇÇ Ç n œœ # œ œœ bb œœ œ œ n œ # œ n œ œ b œ œ # œ n œ œ œ Ç Ç # œ œ œ. œ. n œ. # œ n œ œ b œ . . . . œ. # œ. n œ. œ. œ .

n ww p j #œ ‰ # œ.

Wagner recalls Beethoven’s two-octave leaping FGs in the cellos at the recapitulation, with a two-octave ascent for cellos and basses up a GHmajor triad while violins descend nearly three octaves on the same chord. The fight itself pits Lohengrin against Telramund, with Lohengrin, who strikes first according to the direction in the score, represented by the upward moving cellos, basses, low winds, and trombones, against the falling scales in the upper strings (example 3.9). After three short rounds of battle, in progressively higher keys, Lohengrin smites Telramund, and the scales depict Telramund sinking down to the ground (to a low FG). Wagner turned to his symphonic model again early in the next act, as the wounded Telramund despairs over his fate, specifically invoking the series of two-octave FGs as they appear unopposed and syncopated in Beethoven’s finale. The second time Telramund laments that “My sword lies smashed, my coat of arms is broken,” Wagner gives the

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example 3.9. Contrary motion counterpoint in Lohengrin, act I, sc. 3, mm. 1059–64, at the beginning of the fight between Lohengrin and Friedrich

Vln. I

Vln. II

Vla.

& 34 3 &4 3 &4

? bb Ç b

U

‡

U

‡

U

‡

U

König Zweiter Schlag.

Vc. Db.

Vln. I

Vln. II

Vla.

Vc. Db.

Œ

B

œ. bb b C @ ƒœ . bbb C @ ƒ. œ bb b C @ ƒ

œ bœ œ œ œ !J ! ! ! ! !œ œ œ b œ œ!œ! œ! ! œ !! ! œ bœ œ œ !J ! ! ! !œ œ œ œ b œ œ!œ! œ! ! œ !!! ! œ bœ œ œ !J ! ! ! !œ œ œ œ b œ œ!œ! œ! ! !!! ! œ

Dritter Schlag.

C Ç

œ ? 34 Œ UŒ ‰ b œ b œ œ b b C œ. Œ Ó b ƒ Schnell. b &bb

. œ. ‰ ‰ œ œ œ œ b œJ ‰ nœ œ œ œ J

‡

Ó

( Sie beginnen den Kampf: Lohengrin greift zuerst an. )

Ç

ƒ

œ. œ œ. œ

œ! n œ!œ!b œ!b œ! œ! ! ! œœ œ! n œ!œ!b œ!b œ! œ! œ! ! œ jn œ œ b œ b œ! œ! œ! œ! œ! ! ! ! Ç

‡

Ç

. n œ. ‰ œ b œ b œ œ b œJ ‰ ‰ œ œ œ n œ J ‰

œ. . b œ. œ n œ n œ. ‰ bb b ƒ œ. ‰ ‰ œ œ œ œ b œJ ‰ ‰ œ b œ b œ œ J ‰ ‰ œ œ J œ œ & œ nœ J œ. ƒ . j n œ. B b b b œ œ œ œ œ. ‰ ‰ œ œ œ œ b œJ. ‰ ‰ œ b œ b œ œ b œJ ‰ ‰ œ œ œ n œ J ‰ . nœ ƒ ? bb ‡ ‡ b bœ. œœœ œ. œ nw ? bb J b

upper strings the same figure, more elaborately syncopated and fully triadic, but with first violins leaping back and forth a step below Beethoven (compare example 3.10 with example 2.12). Here as in Beethoven, the conflict is over, at least for the moment. Wagner writes downward- and upward-moving lines against each other whenever conflict flares, in memory of battles past, in hope of victories to come, or as Lohengrin and Elsa grapple with the forbidden question and later with the consequences of Elsa’s tragic curiosity. To list a few:

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| Chapter 3

example 3.10. Lohengrin, act II, sc. 1, mm. 138–42, Friedrich laments his defeat and broken weapons

Vln. I

Vln. II

12. Ç ### Ç . & @ f 12 ### # Ç . #Ç. & @ f Ç ? ###

trüm

Vc. Db.

Vln. I

Vln. II

-

# # œ3 & # J œ ## 3 & # œJ b œ

•

•

j3 œ œ œ

œ œ

3

3

Œ

j œ j bœ

œ n12Ç . œ nÇ. J @ f b12Ç . 3 3 3 j j # œ œ b œJ b@Ç . œ #œ œ f œ nÇ Œ Œ ‰ J j jœ œ œ œ œ 3

3

3

mein

#œ œ œ nœ bœ œ. œ #œ œ œ œ œ. 3 3 p n12Ç . œ 3 œ 3 nÇ. œ œ œ œ j J J @ œ f b12Ç . œ 3 3 œ œ bÇ. œ j bœ J @ J œ f œ nÇ. Œ ‰ J 3

3

-

Wap

œ 3 œ œœ J •bœ œ p œ 3 œ • œœ J p œ bœ J J

œœ œœ3 œœ œœœ 3

bœ. nœ J R

pen ward zer -

nœ.bœ bœ.nœ œ œ œ j ‰ bœ nœ ƒ p

3 • b œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ p 3

• œœ œœ œ 3

3

p

bœ

bœ. nœ œ bœ nœ bœ œ ‰ ? ### bœ bœ œ bœ bœ nœ. bœ . b œ œ n œ b œ œ J bœ. bœ 3 3 ƒ p p bro - chen,

•

œœ 3 J œ

mert liegt mein Schwert,

? ### n œ . œ œ . œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ #œ ƒ p

bœ ? # # # J b Jœ Vc. Db.

œ 3 œ • œœ œœ œœ œœ3 œœ J p 3 œ 3 œ •œœ œ œ œ J p œ pœ # œ . J J J nœ R

3

ver - flucht

mein

3

in act I, scene 2, after the Brabantine men assure Telramund that they will only fight for him, there are F-minor scales, two descending octaves against one rising; at Lohengrin’s arrival music, both to begin act I, scene 3, and within act III, scene 3. In act I the orchestra plays A-major arpeggios, with low strings and brass, and bassoons opposing other instruments, and then the contrary motion by step in measures 11–15 hints at the larger scales to come. In act III he enters to general acclamation, and the stage directions indicate: “Lohengrin, armed just as in the 1st act.” All expect he will lead them to a glorious victory; in act II, scene 3, when the talk is of going out to battle (“God sent him for the good of Brabant!”), Wagner reverses the direc-

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tion of the counterpoint and the motivic wedge diverges: the scales ascend two octaves at a time against low descending triads. •

in act III, scene 3, just after Lohengrin reveals his identity and Elsa staggers from the shock, as Lohengrin embraces her to tell her they must separate (“O Elsa!”), upper and lower strings move in opposite directions through a series of triads (AH, DH, F, D, A, and F).

Beethoven’s first movement evidently impressed Wagner with the expressive power of lengthy scales that simultaneously move up and down. The most striking example in the Ninth is the ten-measure gesture of rising and descending two-octave scales that appears four times, always slightly varied. Usually the gesture begins softly (piano) and then crescendos to fortissimo, but the reverse also occurs in the coda, a fortissimo beginning then diminishing to piano. There are four in all, two of them in the coda, and they have less the character of military maneuvers than they do of the kind of counterpoint evident in the Missa Solemnis used to express God’s omnipotence (as in example 0.2). Although it reduces the number of octaves in which the voices move, and thus the extent to which voices actually cross, Liszt’s piano transcription of these passages has the advantage of making the chiasmic contrary motion starkly visible. Example 3.11 shows the first of them to appear in the coda. These may have inspired Wagner to a gesture that had no precedent in The Flying Dutchman or Tannhäuser, lengthy opposed multioctave scales. As in the Ninth Symphony these last for up to ten measures, and they generally offer a sharp contrast in dynamics to what preceded or followed the scales.24 Among the more significant and frequently varied gestures in Lohengrin, they are broadly associated with reverence for supernatural power, because the first appears near the end of the Prelude (mm. 59–68), offering a sudden awed quiet in response to the fortissimo arrival of the Holy Grail motive (example 3.12). The upper line descends three octaves from A to A, while the lower steps up a ninth from FG to G, drops an octave and continues the climb up to E. Like Beethoven, Wagner briefly halts the motion before resuming. Wagner’s program for the overture explains the significance he attached to this gesture: The beholder “sinks on his knees in adoring self-annihilation [in anbetender Vernichtung]. The Grail pours out its blessing on those who are lost in the ecstasy of love. . . . The bright flames die down to an

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example 3.11. Ninth Symphony, mvt. 1, mm. 451–62, crossing voices in Liszt’s transcription

“ œ œ œ œ œ • œ # œ œ œ œ œ ®œ . œ • œ r œ®œ œ •. œ #œ œ œ œ & b œ # œœ œœ œ œ œ œ R • • #œ ggg œœœ #œ ggg # œœœœœ ? b ‰ ggg # œœœœœ ‰ gggg œœœ ‰ gg ‰ gg Jœ gg g J J J

œ. œ. ƒ ^ j & œœ œ n œœ œ

# œ n œ œ œ œœ # œ #œ nœ œ œ #œ J R œ œ #œ bœ œ #œ ? œœ œ œ #œ bœ œ J œ R

r j œ œ œ œ œœ. œœ. # œœ. # œ n œ œœ œœ œ œœ œœ œœ œ œ œ œ œœ œœ ‰ œœ œ . b R J œ. & œ œ œ #œ nœ œ œ .j p cresc. ƒ œ • œ œ œ œ œ #œ ? œ œœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ. œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ n œ # œœ œ œ #œ œ b œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ Jœ ‰ R &b

œ œ. œ J.

œ œ

bœ œ œ œ bœ œ œ œ œ œ

¨ œ œ œ œ b œœ œœ œœ ? b œ œ œ œ œœ œœ œ œ œ

œœ œœ œœ

& œœ

r œœ œœ ?

œ œ

œœ #œ œ œ œ œ œ > j # œœ œ. œœ œ J

œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

r œ œœ œœ # œœ œœœ œœ œ œ #œ

bœ œ œ œ œ bœ œ œ œ œ

#œ œ œ œ #œ œ œ œ r n œœ œœ œ œ . #œ bœ

œ œ œ # œœ œ œ œ œœ œœ œœ œ œ

ever softer glow that now spreads itself across the earth like the whiff of unspeakable joy and peace.”25 The reverential meaning of this powerful musical chiasmus is affirmed in the final scene, when the notes heard at the end of the Prelude return following a fortissimo playing of Lohengrin’s motive. This time the crossing lines depict the reaction of the king and assembled throng to Lohengrin’s hallowed secret: “ich—bin Lohengrin genannt” (I . . . am called Lohengrin). This moment of “adoring self-annihilation” is the response to a revelation that elicits astonishment from the king and crowd, because their Protector was the son of Parsifal (Elsa remains silent, stunned at her loss). In an early presentation of this gesture near the end of act I, Wagner prepared it musically and textually, planting a nascent form of these scales at the climax of the celebration of Lohengrin’s initial victory over Telramund. As the scales slowly close in on each other, Elsa revels in self-annihilating joy: “In you must I vanish, before you I fade away . . . take all that I am!” (In dir muss ich vergehen, vor dir schwind ich dahin . . . nimm alles, was ich bin!).

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example 3.12. Lohengrin Prelude, mm. 57–67, wedge depicting awed response to the Holy Grail

Vln. I

Vln. II

Vla.

Vc. Db.

Vln. I

Vln. II

Vla.

Vc. Db.

œ œ. œ œ œ. œ J ‰. R & p sehr ruhig œ œ. œ œ œ. œ ### . R J ‰ & p w Ç # # Ç B # ###

? ###

œ p

p

w

## & # œ œ. œ œ œ. œ œ.

œ. œ œ. œ œ J J # œ n œ . # œJ più p œ. œ œ. œ œ J J # œ n œ . # œJ più p œœ œ # ÇÇ œ ww ‰ nÇ œ œ . œ œ Ç J ‰

j œ œ . œj ? più p ### j . j & œ œ. œ œ œ. œ œ œ œ. œ ? più p # Ç Ç j # œ . B # w œ wœ # Ç . # Ç ? ### Ç ‰

Ç

#Ç

Ç

œ Ç

nœ

œ Ç

nœ

Çœ . n œ # œÇj œ . J più p nÇ Ç più p

n œ œ . œ œ . œj œ . œj œ # œ . œ nœ œ. œ œ. j œ œ . œj œ # œ . œ œ #Ç œœ œ # Ç Ç

Ç ‰ Ç ‰ n Çœ Ç

œ

Çœ n œ n Ç Ç

œ

œ #œ Ç

j œ. œ Ç j œ. œ Ç

# œ n ÇÇ

Ç Ç

Ç

Ç

j‰ Œ œ

j‰ Œ œ j œ‰Œ œ J j œ‰Œ

But these are just three of ten versions of the gesture. As table 3.3 shows, Wagner introduces it in a variety of contexts, invariably, as in the Ninth, marked by rapid dynamic shifts from soft to loud or the reverse. The first two instances in act I first appear in partial forms: the descending voice is missing in Elsa’s dream, and the scope of the motive is shorter when the crowd first greets Lohengrin (“Sei gegrüsst, du gottgesandter Mann”); both immediately precede the Holy Grail motive. In act II Wagner twists the meaning of this motive in the sinister duet between Ortrud and Telramund, as she promises to show “what a weak god it is that protects [Lohengrin].” There the gesture accompanies Telramund’s response in FG minor, not hushed from awe but “shuddering with fear,” as Wagner’s directions in the score prescribe and the pianissimo accompaniment so aptly depicts. This gesture may also be related to the next three occurrences in act II, in which the direction of the contrary lines reverses, so that the

table 3.3 occurrences of the musical chiasmus and its permutations in lohengrin ( This table identifies a stepwise wedge figure as it appears in various permutations throughout the opera. The final version of the wedge depicts a feeling of awe at the Holy Grail or Lohengrin identifying himself as the son of Parsifal. The column on the right indicates the direction of the wedge [inward or outward]. It also describes the dramatic context. In the third column, “Dynamic contrast,” the dynamic marking for the wedge is listed in boldface; a slash separates it from the dynamic of the preceding or following phrase.)

Location

Key

Dynamic contrast (wedge in bold)

Length (in measures)

1. Prelude

A major

ff / pp

10

2. act I, sc. 2

EH major

ff / p

4

3. act I, sc. 3

A major

ff / pp

5

4. act I, sc. 3

BH major

ff

8

5a. act II, sc. 1

FG minor

ff / pp

12

5b. act II, sc. 1 6. act II, sc. 3

same BH major

ff / pp

4 9

7. act II, sc. 4

EH major

p to f / ff

8

8. act II, sc. 5

C major

p to f / ff

9

9. act II, sc. 5

C major

p to f / ff

8

10. act III, sc. 3 A major

ff / pp

10

Wedge direction and span; dramatic association Inward; 3 octaves; awe at arrival of Holy Grail (follows Holy Grail motive) Ascending only; 2 octaves; Elsa’s dream (precedes Holy Grail motive) Inward; Ninth; Lohengrin greeted by crowd (precedes Holy Grail motive) Inward; Ninth; joy at Lohengrin’s victory (at “Heil deiner Fahrt!”) Inward; Octave; Ortrud’s magical powers (at “Du wilde Seherin”) same (follows 5a immediately) Inward; Octave + dim. 5th; Telramund excluded (at “Ihn soll der Reine scheuen”) Outward; Ninth; Elsa greeted by crowd (at “Gesegnet sollst du schreiten!”) Outward; Ninth; Elsa weeps (after Lohengrin confronts Ortrud) Outward; Ninth; Elsa greeted by crowd (at “Gesegnet sollst du schreiten!”) Inward; 3 octaves; awe after Lohengrin reveals his name

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melodic wedges diverge. At the same time the direction of dynamic change reverses; rather than a rapid decrescendo with the converging wedges, there are crescendos. In scenes 4 and 5 these sweeping lines accompany the wedding blessings from the crowd to Elsa (“May she be blessed. . . . May God guide her”), whom Ortrud has by this point successfully poisoned with doubt; they also convey musically the reaction to Elsa’s guilty tears, with Lohengrin’s faulty prediction that in the church they will become tears of joy. The symbolism of the outwardly spreading lines perhaps relates to the ominous nature of the drama at this point of act II. Elsa’s growing doubts prevent the proper spirit of self-abnegation prescribed by Wagner. This corresponds to the situation just observed with Wagner’s counterpoint that relates to battles. In actual fights, the lines converge on each other; for talk of going to war, they diverge. Beethoven’s influence is visible in several traits: the converging lines, their length—normally eight to ten measures—and the way they participate in an abrupt shift from loud to soft (or the reverse). One detects it also in a descriptive point present in both Wagner’s programs for the Lohengrin Prelude and the Ninth. This Beethovenian gesture is at the heart of what Wagner referred to when he described interruptions to the struggle in the first movement: “During a few fleeting moments of light [Lichtblicken] we can perceive a bittersweet smile of happiness, seeking us out (as it seems).” Light, the conveyor of love and happiness, is also the manifestation of the Holy Grail, which “sends out sun beams [Sonnenstrahlen] of the noblest love, like the brilliance of heavenly fire.”26 After Lohengrin reveals his name, the reaction, sung by all but Elsa within the span of the crossing scales, is of eyes burning with tears of joy. Only Elsa is completely incapable of seeing the light, responding in shock, “What night!” (Welche Nacht!). Similarly, the use of the motive in the nighttime duet of Telramund and Ortrud accompanies talk of eyes, seeing, and enlightenment. It first sets his verse, “Du wilde Seherin” (You wild [female] seer), and then hers, “The hour is ripe for my prophetic eye (Seherauge) to enlighten you.” As the score then specifies, when Ortrud begins to sing she points back at the palace, “in which the lights have been extinguished.”27 Wagner emphasizes the contrast between the ensnaring darkness of Ortrud’s vision and the radiance of the Grail’s power in numerous ways: a one-octave span instead of three, FG minor instead of A major, winds playing in mid-register instead of full orchestra playing from one end of the sonic spectrum to the other.

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The Beethovenian aspects of The Flying Dutchman, the Faust Overture, and Lohengrin have implications for evaluating how Wagner’s program for the Ninth Symphony records stages in his understanding of the Ninth. Wagner’s starting point was a renewed exposure to the Ninth in Paris, which certainly included study of the score in addition to hearing a live performance. This led him to begin work on a Faust symphony. From his working habits before and after, it seems unthinkable that he had not first thought out the dramatic program for all four movements of this symphony. One of the lessons he had learned from the Ninth was that events initiated in the first movement shaped later movements. Since the movement of the Faust Symphony that he did complete alludes both in key and motive to the first movement of the Ninth, it is probable that themes and gestures begun in the first movement would have precipitated ideas in the movements that followed, and that succeeding movements would in some fashion have related to patterns he found in the Ninth, likely with a D-major conclusion, such as that he would soon compose for The Flying Dutchman. The CG promissory note in the Faust Overture may have had repercussions in the finale (or possibly the GG in the first measures of the slow introduction), along the lines of the GH/FG ambiguity in The Flying Dutchman. Wagner’s published program for the Ninth Symphony likely preserves two separate stages of his attempt to represent the Ninth in words: the quotations from Goethe’s Faust and the programmatic narrative. He would have compiled the quotations while he was in Paris, first as an analytical statement expressing what he then thought about the Ninth, and only later as the basis for his own symphonic elaboration of them. The gathering of Goethe’s verses by December 1839 or early 1840, that is, before beginning The Flying Dutchman, is suggested particularly by the Faust passage that he chose (and manipulated) as a representation of Beethoven’s slow movement, both because of its formal impact on the duet for the Dutchman and Senta, and its association with angels. When in 1846 he decided to write the program note for the Palm Sunday concert, he then fleshed out Goethe’s verses with his own narrative. The story he devised must reflect many analytical insights already in place when he began to compose the Faust Symphony, along with other discoveries that were the result of renewed study that he undertook in the winter of 1845–46 as he prepared to conduct the symphony in Dresden. The dissonant chord, the FG preparation of the culminating melody, the interruptions—all of these and more were clearly in mind as he began composing The Flying Dutchman. The later revelations included chiefly

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Beethoven’s application of contrary motion, which was more intensely present and thematically focused in Lohengrin and the revision of the Faust Overture than it was before. Musical Gegenbewegung then suggested its military counterpart for his narrative. Wagner’s choice of motto for the revised Faust Overture supports the existence of an early layer in his 1846 program comprising the Faust quotations. To recount a final time: Wagner composed the first movement of his symphony as an elaboration of the Faust verses that he had initially chosen to represent Beethoven’s first movement. He could then hardly cite those verses in 1855 when he informed Liszt about his private motto for the revised overture, because he had meanwhile published them in his program for the Ninth. Instead, he quoted the very next verses. This had the added benefit of expressing symbolically the connection of his overture to Beethoven’s first movement: the music of the overture expresses a message similar to that contained in the Ninth, and the Faustian verses for his overture continued from those that he had selected long before for Beethoven.

chapter 4

Schumann, Thematic Dispersion, and Contrary Motion

Dresden in 1845–46 was a center of extraordinary musical activity. Wagner and Schumann were both residents, Mendelssohn paid several visits, and Ferdinand David and others also resided or visited there. As their biographers have long recognized, Wagner and Schumann experienced important growth as composers during precisely this year. Incorporating the findings of the preceding chapters, we can summarize Wagner’s growth as follows: conducting and studying the Ninth in the year that he composed Lohengrin, Wagner achieved a deeper understanding of the Ninth and became aware of the expressive potential of counterpoint by contrary motion; with Lohengrin he also developed a new way of composing, for the first time attempting and completing a throughcomposed draft of the whole opera. The new facility for combining motives evident in Lohengrin—itself a manifestation of his heightened interest in counterpoint—contributed within a few years to his mature style. And Schumann, who was already demonstrably aware of contrary motion, spent much of 1845 studying counterpoint and fugue; at year’s end he sketched his Symphony in C Major, the work in which he applied contrary motion in what was for him an altogether novel way. Sometime in 1845 Schumann underwent a profound compositional metamorphosis, discovering what he later termed a “completely new way of composing” (eine ganz andere Art zu Componieren).1 This phrase, intentionally or not, invokes Beethoven’s “wirklich ganz neue Manier” 86

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and his shift from an early to a mature style. Schumann described his own change in terms of technique: while previously he had composed at the piano, now he worked his ideas out in his head. More meaningfully, John Daverio identified the stylistic impact: “most significant of all, Schumann’s compositions of 1845 speak to a profound change in his notion of what constitutes a musical idea. Simply put, the linear development of a melodic entity begins to recede in favor of a rich web of simultaneously elaborated motivic combinations.”2 The turning point for Schumann, as many have noted, coincided with his intensive focus on counterpoint, marked by his study of J. S. Bach and his working through the counterpoint manual of Luigi Cherubini. From January to November 1845 Schumann immersed himself in contrapuntal studies and fugal composition, producing the Vier Fugen, opus 72, the Sechs Fugen for organ on BACH, and the canonic Sechs Studien, opus 56, for pedal piano. In this chapter I will examine several of Schumann’s works for evidence of his response to the Ninth, both contrapuntal and formal, before considering the biographical record of interactions between Schumann and Wagner.

contrary motion Schumann was well aware of the expressive potential of counterpoint in contrary motion. The first of his Nachtstücke, opus 23 (1839), exploits this technique heavily. Composed during his last weeks in Vienna, the ghostly set of piano miniatures was originally named Leichenphantasie (Corpse Fantasy) and the first piece Trauerzug (Funeral Procession), an image that he inexplicably represented with voices moving in opposite directions. Two measures of inward-moving voices alternate with two measures of voices expanding outward for the entire twenty-four-measure A section. More extravagantly, Schumann composed two extended converging wedges in his 1843 oratorio, Das Paradies und die Peri, both of which involve one part moving strictly in one direction against another that moves the opposite direction in segments. At the end of Part I, Peri rejoices that she has found a gift that will gain her entrance into paradise, a cup with the blood of a heroic fallen soldier. To conclude act I the choir sings “Heilig ist das Blut, für die Freiheit verspritzt vom Heldenmuth” (Holy is the blood that is shed for freedom).3 For this Schumann wrote a twenty-nine-measure wedge in which the bass line cycles up through four octaves, while the upper line descends by step in five discontinuous segments (shown in example 4.1). A page later the verse repeats to a second such wedge, this one filling twenty-three measures. Here the upper line

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example 4.1. Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, op. 50, no. 9, mm. 220–51. This example is taken from the outer voices of the piano four-hand arrangement issued by Breitkopf & Härtel (Leipzig, no date, Plate no. 8491)

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cycles continuously down through two octaves, and the lower voice ascends against it in three separate stepwise phrases. Because of their textual associations, it is easy to recognize the possibility of symbolic applications of contrary-motion counterpoint in Nachtstücke and Peri. By means of converging and diverging lines, Schumann represented something about whatever the text (or visual image) meant to him. A broader, more Beethovenian, conception of what this counterpoint could offer appears in the Second Symphony, Brahms’s favorite of the Schumann symphonies. Various ways in which Schumann’s Second was indebted to Beethoven’s symphonies were recognized in the first reviews. One critic called the finale “a synthesis of

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the spirit of Mozart’s ‘Jupiter’ Symphony and Beethoven’s Fifth.”4 Others heard a connection of the symphony to Beethoven’s Ninth. An anonymous reviewer in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik thought that Schumann had surpassed Beethoven’s achievement: “What the former [Beethoven] had announced has been further elaborated and brought to a higher organic fulfillment in the symphony of the latter [Schumann]. The great drama of the Ninth Symphony with all of its magnificent aspects appears here again.”5 Ernst Gottschald agreed, hearing the finales of both symphonies as kindred spirits, “artistic representations of universal love.”6 And many have remarked on the influence of Schubert’s Great C-Major Symphony, which Schumann had discovered in Vienna in 1838, and which had just been performed in Dresden a few days before Schumann began to sketch his own C-major symphony. Schumann attended the dress rehearsal and the performance. The different approach of the Second Symphony is plainly evident in the context of his other symphonies. Schumann’s symphonies reveal a notable increase in the use of counterpoint that involves contrary motion between the first two that he composed (Symphonies no. 1 and no. 4 in 1841) and those he wrote later, Symphony no. 2 in 1845–46 and Symphony no. 3 in 1850. Table 4.1 shows how significant the change was, with comparative percentages for first and last movements. The same intensification occurs in another group of generically comparable works from about the same span of years, the chamber music for piano and strings written in fall 1842 and again five years later in 1847 (table 4.2). Schumann’s Piano Quintet and Quartet have remarkably little oppositional counterpoint in their outer movements; indeed, the finale of the Piano Quintet has virtually none, just two measures out of 427. At the other extreme is the Scherzo of the Opus 63 Piano Trio, with 32 percent of its measures containing oppositional voices. But even though the percentages increase dramatically in the compositions from 1845–47, only one movement, the finale to the Second Symphony in C Major, approaches the kind of contrapuntal scheme evident in the first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth. The finale includes contrapuntal effects which doubtless impressed the young Brahms, such as the inversion of the second theme in the development, and its combination with an augmented rendition of the Bach-inspired theme of the slow third movement (mm. 211–19). Fully one quarter (25 percent) of the measures in Schumann’s finale involve contrary motion, but internally there are indications that he understood contrary lines as an attribute of the Ninth (see appendix 4). In a trajectory of intensification

table 4.1 schumann’s symphonies and the percentage of contrary-motion counterpoint in their first and last movements Symphony no. 1 in BH Major, op. 38 (1841) Movement 1 Movement 4

5% 5%

Symphony no. 4 in D Minor, op. 120 (1841) Movement 1 Movement 4

8% 4%

Symphony no. 2 in C Major, op. 61 (1845–46) Movement 1 Movement 4

22% 25%

Symphony no. 3 in EH Major, op. 97 (1850) Movement 1 Movement 5

16% 14%

table 4.2 schumann’s chamber music for piano and the percentage of contrary-motion counterpoint in their first and last movements Piano Quintet in EH Major, op. 44 (Sept. 1842) Movement 1 Movement 4

2% 0.8%

Piano Quartet in EH Major, op. 47 (Oct. 1842) Movement 1 Movement 4

10% 1.5%

Piano Trio in D Minor, op. 63 (June 1847) Movement 1 Movement 4

24% 8%

Piano Trio in F Major, op. 80 (Aug.–Oct. 1847) Movement 1 Movement 4

15.5% 19%

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that recalls Beethoven’s first movement, the percentage of measures with contrary motion expands steadily and then dissipates almost entirely in the recapitulation and coda: exposition—one fifth in contrary motion; development, part 1 (mm. 119–279)—one third; development, part 2 (mm. 280–393)—nearly one-half; recapitulation—9 percent; and coda—7 percent.7 Schumann starkly divides the movement at measure 394 in terms of how he structured his counterpoint. From measures 1–393 contrary motion counterpoint is present in one-third of measures, while from measure 394 to the end this figure drops to 8 percent. Schumann’s carefully planned arrival at his allusion to Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte in measure 394 thus marks an abrupt and previously unrecognized shift from a style that emulated the degree of opposition in Beethoven’s first movement (with 32 percent) to a triumphal style fully consistent with that in Beethoven’s finale, where parallel thirds and unopposed majormode scales assert themselves regularly. Passages in contrary motion range from contrary stepwise fourths and tritones (which are numerous), to octave scales moving in opposite directions. Relatively few involve motivic passages, as when Schumann feigned an accompaniment in inversion to the immediate predecessor of the An die ferne Geliebte theme.8 This phrase stands out in part because Schumann repeats it four times in succession (mm. 316–29), the last two of which begin example 4.2. In the seventy-eight measures between measure 316 and the arrival of the An die ferne Geliebte theme in measure 394, oppositional writing occurs in fifty measures, a density that exceeds what Beethoven wrote in his coda. Schumann also composed a mammoth wedge that begins in mid-register on D above middle C and then expands steadily outward for two and a half octaves in both directions over the course of thirteen measures (mm. 179–91), along with a two-octave wedge in measures 389–91. The first of these is shown in example 4.3. Schumann applies a rigor not evident in the wedges in Das Paradies und die Peri, composing lines that often involve four outward-moving voices rather than two, as indicated by the marked passages. Schumann’s writing here betrays the methodical study of Cherubini’s counterpoint treatise, the Cours de contrepoint et de fugue (Leipzig: F. Kistner, 1835), that he and Clara pursued in the spring, summer, and fall of 1845.9 Cherubini had several pages and examples

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example 4.2. Schumann, Symphony no. 2, mvt. 4, mm. 324–43. Strict passages are marked in boxes

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devoted to “Gegenbewegung” counterpoint. These include free imitation for two voices in contrary motion (“Imitation in der Gegenbewegung von den freien oder unregelmässigen Nachahmung in der Gegenbewegung,” pp. 65–67), strict imitation by contrary motion (“Von der regelmässigen Imitation in der Gegenbewegung,” p. 67), and also for passages in three or four voices (pp. 74–78). Example 4.4 presents an advanced set of contrary-motion scales to determine correspondences between voices, a set he includes for chromatic contexts. The greater complexity of chromatic half steps (as in F to FG being answered by FG to F) is a feature of these scales. Cherubini intends these scales not as lines to be played against each other, but as keys to help devise the proper corresponding motives for passages in contrary motion, and in his treatise he supplies various examples of how that would happen. Cherubini also treated the kind of contrary motion shown in example 4.3, with pairs of voices moving in opposite directions, in the last of his discussions of invertible counterpoint. Having discussed invertible counterpoint at the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth, Cherubini then indicates how to turn two-voice passages into three or four. His final example involves invertible counterpoint at the twelfth, and how to make four voices out of two or three. As shown in example 4.5, this passage could well have provided Schumann with a model for his double-line wedges.

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example 4.3. Schumann, Symphony no. 2, mvt. 4, mm. 179–90. The boxes indicate moments at which internal voices also move in opposite directions

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f f f œ œ œ œ œ œ #œ œ œ œ œ œ nœ œ œ œ œ œ # œ œ œ >œ œ œ œ œ œ >œ œ œ # œ œ œ œ œ œ

f f f œœœœœœ œœœœœœ œœœœœœ > B n œœ œœ œœ b œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ > f f f ? œœ œ œœœ bœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ #œ œ œ œ œ œ œœœœœœ œœœœœœ f > > f f > > ? Ç Ç Ç Ç w w bw w f f f However important counterpoint was to Schumann in his C-major Symphony, a few months before he began composing the symphony, he tried out his newly developed contrapuntal skills in a revision of an earlier work. The Finale of the Overture, Scherzo, and Finale, opus 52, is essential for connecting his use of this counterpoint with his awareness of what takes place in Beethoven’s Ninth. Although he had composed it in 1841 soon after he finished his First Symphony, Schumann’s persistent failure to find a publisher for the work caused him to revise it in October 1845. As he wrote Mendelssohn a few weeks later, “I have changed much in the Overture, Scherzo, and Finale, reworked the latter entirely—it now appears much better to me.”10 The manuscript for the

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example 4.4. Cherubini—Cours de contrepoint et de fugue, p. 74. Chromatic scales (by sharps and flats) as an aid to chromatic modulations

Soprano en zum

Basso

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Tenore

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example 4.5. Cherubini—Cours de contrepoint et de fugue, p. 95. Example to assist the transformation of two- or three-voice counterpoint into quadruple

& B

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earlier versions of the first two movements survives and shows clearly that the revisions to them were relatively insignificant; yet Schumann evidently discarded the earlier version of the reworked Finale.11 This formally intricate movement includes a stunning contrapuntal passage in the closing section that seems far closer in its ambitious intellectual heft to the C-major Symphony than it does to the first two movements of its own opus. The climax occurs at the conclusion of the most complex oppositional wedge that Schumann ever devised. Several events happen simultaneously: ascending parallel thirds move through a cycle of three octaves against descending parallel thirds that encompass two-and-a-half octaves. (Example 4.6 provides nine measures of a fifteen-measure pas-

example 4.6. Schumann, Overture, Scherzo, and Finale, from the Finale, mm. 82–90. Passage with contrary motion in four voices.

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example 4.7. Ninth Symphony, mvt. 4, mm. 509–17, fragmented wedge. As the first violin ascends by step from GG to FG the other instruments share a descent from D to E.

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j # #œ j j & # #œ œ. œ #œ #œ œ S ## œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ & S # # œ œ œ œ œ œ #œ œ œ nœ œ œ B # S œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ? ## S # œ œ #œ œ œ œ œ J & # œ œJ J J # & # œœœœœœ B ## œ œ œ œ œ œ ? ## œ œ œ œ œ œ

œœœœœœ œ

j œ œ

#œ

œ œ J

œ J

œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

nœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

œ #œ J

œ. œ œ œ J J ƒ S œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œj œ . ƒ S œ œ œ # œ œ œ œ œj œ . ƒ Sœ . œ œ œœ œœœ œ J ƒ S

œ #œ J

œ œ œ œ œ

œœœœœœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœœœœœ œ œ œ

œ œ J

œ œ œ

œ œ J

sage, with flute and oboe, bassoon and clarinet, first and second violins, violas, and cellos with doublebasses.) Cherubini’s didactic examples of contrary motion are adhered to scrupulously; indeed, Schumann appears to apply Cherubini’s scales for intervallic correspondence literally, so that, for example, the converging lines descend in the fourth measure of example 4.6 from B to AG as a rising line crosses from AG to B. At the same time Schumann includes two lines that strongly invoke Beethoven’s Ninth. Once again we encounter the oscillating leaps from FG to FG, up and down two octaves in upper and lower strings in the rhythm from the middle of Beethoven’s finale. Meanwhile the second violins wind their way down, using a figure that is exactly the same as the one Beethoven had included in the finale of the Ninth in the phrase (mm. 510–16) that directly precedes the FGs jumping up and down through two octaves

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(mm. 517–25). Beethoven’s contrary motion counterpoint is shown in example 4.7, as is the first measure of the multiregister FGs. The upwardmoving line in the first violins stands out plainly, while the downwardwinding counterpoint is broken up and distributed measure-by-measure between the lower strings. Beethoven’s descent emphasizes the pitches of a D-major scale; while Schumann descends on the notes of a B-major scale, before skipping back up an octave to continue the downward path. Both Schumann’s descent and Beethoven’s counter a line that rises step by step up to E. Unusually, Schumann’s closing section appears in the same key, B major, in both the exposition and the recapitulation, a feature that allows him to retain the pitch identity of this Beethovenian reference. Schumann’s choice to combine the telltale FGs with the wedge figure that leads into them suggests that his own study of the Ninth had shown the FG to have a special significance, one that connected the first movement to the finale; furthermore, it suggests that he understood this significance to be linked with a broader drama created by Beethoven’s application of contrary motion. Within months of revising the Finale, Schumann again demonstrated his understanding of these musical-dramatic devices in the symphony he then began to compose.

thematic dispersion In several respects, Schumann’s understanding of Beethoven’s processes in the Ninth paralleled Wagner’s. With regard to an association of Faust with Beethoven’s Ninth, Schumann may be the only composer other than Wagner to have connected the two in a work of his own that was explicitly about Faust (although Berlioz drew on both the Ninth and Faust in his composition of the Symphonie fantastique).12 To begin the Overture of his Scenen aus Goethes Faust, Schumann composed a D-minor triad with dissonant BH. Schumann retained Beethoven’s distribution of pitches—the BH is on top, and the triad is inverted—but the chord only occupies the lower half of the register and it is muted (example 4.8). Not a shriek, but a dissonant and quietly unsettling opening, it possesses little of the horror evoked by either Beethoven or Wagner. That emerges gradually in Schumann’s Overture to his Scenen aus Goethes Faust, as the chord returns three times with an expanding register and impassioned dynamics. Composed late in 1853, it was not only Schumann’s final effort on his long-stalled Faust Scenen, it was one of the last compositional efforts of his life.

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| Chapter 4 example 4.8. Schumann, Overture to Scenen aus Goethes Faust, beginning (strings and timpani only), a transformation of Beethoven’s Schreckensfanfare chord.

? c Ÿ~~~~~~ Ç œ p cresc. ^ &b c Ç #œ p cresc. ^ b c & Ç #œ p cresc. getheilt B b c Ç!æ. Ç. p cresc. ? c !æ b Ç. p cresc. ? c b Ç œ p cresc.

Langsam, feierlich

Timp.

Vln. I

Vln. II

Vla.

Vc.

Db.

œ • œ œ f f œ œ œ œ œ • œ œ œœ œ œ f f œ œ œ • #œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ f f œœ • œœ œœ f œ • œ f œ • œ f

f œ f œ

Œ Œ œ ‰ ! ÇÇæ ‰ Ç æ! ‰ Ç

f ‰

The symbolism of Schumann’s beginning a D-minor orchestral introduction to a choral work on Faust with this particular chord was not likely lost on Wagner; but what of the reverse: had Schumann noticed Wagner’s operatic applications of this chord? It is hard to imagine that he had not, especially that at the end of The Flying Dutchman. Wagner, before sending his opera off to be published, had lent Schumann the autograph manuscript for several days in January 1843, hoping in vain for some favorable comments. Whether out of jealousy or pique, Schumann completely ignored the Beethovenian influences, instead criticizing the score as “Meyerbeerian.” In his response to Schumann, Wagner’s anger—in this case, I think, amply justified—spills out.13 Schumann, like Wagner (and Brahms), also realized that the Ninth provided a model for thematic dispersion, showing how a final idea could be anticipated musically earlier in the composition by means of motivic fragments, seeds that would blossom later in the work. Wagner, as already noted, described in Opera and Drama (1851) how Beethoven had begun composing the Ninth with the Ode to Joy fully in mind, and then worked toward it throughout the symphony, breaking the idea

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“into its component parts” and then assembling the theme only at the end.14 While Schumann had long been concerned with cyclic coherence and with the establishment of logical connections between movements, he took a new tack in his Second Symphony. In earlier works such as Carnaval, opus 9 (1834–35), or his Fourth Symphony, individual movements could be linked by a common motive, varied or recalled; but with his Second Symphony the sense of a multimovement composition working inexorably toward a culminating theme was new. Schumann prepared his goal, the allusion to Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte, through a series of thematic transformations. In his brilliant study of Schumann’s Second, Anthony Newcomb traced the gradual creation of the final theme through transformations of melodic ideas in the preceding movements. He considered the “crucial matter” to be “not only the succession of thematic sections and movements as a formal diagram would present them, but also the manner in which one theme is generated by and interacts with another.” The thematic evolution is constructed so as to draw “together the threads of the entire symphony that has gone before.”15 Newcomb’s third musical example (“evolution of the theme”) demonstrates how the component motives arrive in their final transformations to create the theme that Beethoven had written.16 This is precisely the process that Wagner had discovered in Beethoven’s Ninth and applied already in The Flying Dutchman.

schumann and wagner in dresden, 1845–46 The music of Schumann and Wagner shows repeatedly that they had each come to important insights about what Beethoven had achieved in his Ninth Symphony. On the one hand, Schumann possessed the background in counterpoint to have worked out for himself the importance of Gegenbewegung. Contrary motion began to appear in his music in the fall of 1845, well before Wagner demonstrated a comparable awareness in his music for Lohengrin. On the other hand, nothing that Schumann had composed before the Second Symphony showed a level of awareness of thematic dispersion that could compare with Wagner’s distribution of musical ideas in The Flying Dutchman. The meetings that Wagner and Schumann had in the fall, winter, and spring of 1845– 46 deserve close scrutiny for indications of meaningful conversation between the two of them. Moreover, an examination of how their compositional styles changed in exactly this period also shapes our understanding of what they gave—and took from—each other.

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John Daverio’s assessment of Schumann’s new, more motivic and contrapuntal approach to composition—evident in the Second Symphony, his opera Genoveva, and the works that followed—functions equally well as a description of Wagner’s mature style. Indeed, already in Lohengrin, melody recedes in favor of “simultaneously elaborated motivic combinations” that Daverio perceived in the works Schumann began composing in 1845. In Werner Breig’s estimation, Lohengrin takes a step beyond The Flying Dutchman in the way that themes and motives “are not merely quoted.” To describe the process more precisely, he recalls Wagner’s own description of his later style: “Basic themes, as in a symphonic movement, are opposed, supplement and reshape one another, divide and combine: only that here the enfolding action establishes the laws of division and combination.”17 Wagner’s depiction of his style applies easily to Schumann’s Second Symphony, and in fact reiterates a basic point of Newcomb’s: “one theme is generated by and interacts with another.”18 As Newcomb demonstrated, this generative process took place even from one movement to the next. He further identifies a trait that generations of critics have associated with Wagner: “It is striking that this long finale . . . contains virtually no literal repetition. Each unit is changed slightly when restated, in a constant process of transformation and recombination.”19 In light of all that we have seen about Wagner’s developing an appreciation for counterpoint in 1845, his encounters with Schumann in 1845–46 loom as pivotal. Could someone without an appreciation of Bach have possessed the analytical skills to understand the counterpoint in the first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth? An attempt to answer questions of who influenced whom, and to what extent, can begin with Wagner’s self-serving account of their interaction in that year, as he reconstructed it two decades later in My Life: I had known Schumann in Leipzig: we had commenced our careers in music at approximately the same time. . . . [Years later, in 1843] he had been invited to give a concert of his Paradies und Peri in our theater; his quite extraordinary incompetence as a conductor on that occasion aroused my especially active sympathy for this profound and productive musician, whose work I much admired. Emphatic good will and trust prevailed between us. The morning after a performance of Tannhäuser that he attended, Schumann paid me a visit and expressed decided approval of my work, his only objection being that the stretto in the second act finale seemed too abrupt. This demonstrated to me his keenness of perception, and I was able to show him from the score how I had been compelled to make a painful cut that had produced the precise evil he had pointed out. We met from time to time for

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walks, and to the extent it was possible with this singularly laconic fellow, we exchanged ideas about music. He was delighted that he would soon be hearing the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven under my baton, after he had previously been obliged to suffer the performances of the same work in Leipzig, with Mendelssohn getting the tempo of the first movement all wrong. But beyond that I didn’t get any real stimulation from his company, and that he was too unreceptive to benefit from any serious views of mine was soon evident, particularly with respect to his conception of the text for Genoveva.20

In biographical accounts of Schumann and Wagner, this report figures very prominently, but with remarkably little scrutiny. Wagner’s condescension toward Schumann is tempered with a self-serving compliment about his musical acumen and the claim that the two showed each other “emphatic good will and trust.” One learns from this recollection much about Wagner’s impressions of their relationship (as described in the late 1860s): that the two were contemporaries who had known and respected each other for some time, since the years they had both lived in Leipzig in the mid-1830s; that Schumann, unable to restrain himself after hearing Tannhäuser, had appeared at Wagner’s door the morning after the performance; that on this same occasion Schumann and Wagner had conversed warmly and the two composers had flattered each other; and that although they subsequently took occasional walks, because Schumann was so taciturn, Wagner had gained little stimulation. Schumann bored Wagner. In fact, Schumann’s records of the dates on which they met give a different impression of their interaction during their years together in Dresden, and especially in this particular year. The jottings he made in his Haushaltbücher—notebooks in which Schumann listed his daily expenses, social and business meetings, and the pieces he was composing—reveal that it was not Schumann who initiated their meetings, but Wagner. Between fall 1845 and their last recorded meeting on 1 January 1849, they were together on at least twenty-four occasions, the overwhelming majority of them at meetings requested by Wagner. During the year 1845–46—more precisely, during the six months between 18 September 1845 and 16 March 1846—they met at least eight times in all, not counting the dress rehearsal for Beethoven’s Ninth in early April. In the months since the Schumanns had settled in Dresden (fall 1844), where Wagner was royal Kapellmeister, they had evidently only met once in November 1844, and then not again until the following September, 1845, perhaps owing to Schumann’s struggle with severe

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depression in the first months of 1845, and to the birth of Marie Schumann in March, as well as to Wagner’s absence during much of July and August. In April Schumann attended a performance of Rienzi, but there is no indication from either man that they met; and in mid-August Schumann wrote Wagner a letter about the “Weber Denkmal,” a monument Wagner was championing. This letter, like all of the eight that Schumann is known to have written Wagner, does not survive. Schumann kept records of all incoming and outgoing correspondence from 1834 onward. Ulrich Konrad considers it more likely that Schumann’s letters to Wagner were destroyed rather than lost. He further notes what is also true of the visits, namely, that Wagner was the initiator. Six of the eight letters that Schumann sent to Wagner between 1842 and 1848 were replies.21 Personal meetings between the two commenced on 18 September 1845, when Wagner went to visit Schumann. They met again the next day with two other acquaintances, and then also a week later on 25 September, when they took an evening walk. I have listed these and subsequent meetings along with their compositional activities in table 4.3. Of the six meetings they had together alone, contrary to Wagner’s account, only two were for outdoor walks; of the others, two were at Schumann’s, two at Wagner’s. Wagner was by far the busier of the two. While Schumann composed the last of his BACH fugues, revised the finale of his Overture, Scherzo, and Finale, opus 52, and a few weeks later completed his study of Cherubini’s counterpoint treatise, Wagner was only weeks away from the premiere of Tannhäuser, and in the midst of writing the text of Lohengrin. As we gather from Schumann’s reference (on 24 September) to the forthcoming concert in a letter to Mendelssohn, Wagner was also already thinking ahead to the spring performance of Beethoven’s Ninth. Regarding Schumann’s reaction to Tannhäuser, Wagner was not so much wrong about Schumann’s impressions as unaware. Schumann attended the unsuccessful premiere on 19 October and immediately wrote Mendelssohn of his disappointment, but after witnessing a much more polished performance on 22 November, his opinion changed. Rather than calling on Wagner the very next morning, he waited two days and then paid him an evening visit. Between this meeting and the next in mid-December, when Wagner read his draft text of Lohengrin to the Engelklub, Schumann attended rehearsals and a performance of Schubert’s C-major Symphony. He promptly began his Symphony in C in a whirl of activity that he noted

table 4.3 the calendar and activities of schumann and wagner from august 1845 to march 1846 ( Listed here are the compositional activities of Schumann and Wagner, their meetings with each other, concerts they attended, and Schumann’s meetings with Mendelssohn. Information quoted from Schumann’s Haushaltbücher is given in quotation marks. Wagner’s activities are presented in italics, Schumann’s in roman type. The eight meetings of Schumann and Wagner are in boldface type.)

3 August Mid-August 21 August

25 August 26 August August to November Early September 15 September 16 September 17 September 18 September 19 September 20 September

24 September 25 September 29 September 30 September 1 October 8 October 9 October 19 October 20 October 22 October 28 October 13 November 14 November

18 November 22 November

23 November 24 November

Wagner finishes prose draft of Lohengrin in Marienbad Wagner returns to Dresden from Marienbad Schumann writes Wagner about Wagner’s efforts to build a monument to Weber. In the Briefbuch he noted: “21.8.1845: Richard Wagner: Mit Auszug aus [Adolph] Henselts Brief wegen Denkmal für Weber” “Mid-day [visit from] Mendelssohn” “Mendelssohn to [morning] coffee;” “afternoon Mendelssohn” Wagner writes verse draft of Lohengrin Wagner begins rehearsing Tannhäuser “3rd fugue in G minor on BACH” “3rd fugue finished” “4th fugue . . . begun” “Visit from R. Wagner” “with Wagner, R. Schmieder and Krägen” “Letter to Mendelssohn” [“There is a great drum-beating inside of me, and trumpeting for several days (trumpet in C); I don’t know what to make of it.”] [Letter to Mendelssohn in which he mentions the plans for Wagner’s Palm Sunday Concert] “4th fugue almost finished;” “early walk with R. Wagner” “5th fugue in F” “5th fugue almost [?] finished” First extant musical sketches of Lohengrin (orchestral introduction) Mendelssohn sends Schumann a copy of his Six Sonatas for Organ “Begin to orchestrate last movement in E (Ouverture)” [Ouverture, Scherzo and Finale, op. 52] “Wagner’s Tannhäuser in the evening” [opening night] “finished with the finale for Orchestra in E” [op. 52] Schumann writes Mendelssohn to thank him for his Six Organ Sonatas “To the copyist for the last movement of the Sinfonietta” [op. 52] “6th fugue on BACH” [begun] “Cherubini finished” [the study of Cherubini’s counterpoint treatise, which had begun on April 8, the day he had finished his first BACH fugue.] “Worked on the 6th fugue” “Tannhäuser“ [for the second time in five weeks Schumann hears Wagner’s Tannhäuser, and this time, as he wrote Mendelssohn, he enjoyed it] “Finished the 6th fugue” “Thoughts about Tannhäuser“ “evening visit to R. Wagner about Tannhäuser” (continued)

table 4.3

(continued)

27 November 4 December 6 December 9 December 12 December 13 December 14 December 15 December 16 December 17 December

18 December 19 December 20 December 21 December 25 December 26 December 28 December 20 January 28 January 22 February 16 March

28 March 29 March

5 April 6 April 8 April

May

Wagner finishes verse draft of Lohengrin “evening concert” [includes Schumann’s Ouverture, Scherzo, and Finale] “early rehearsal of the Schubert Symphony” [Symphony no. 9 in C Major] “early to the rehearsal [of the Schubert Symphony]—Evening 3rd concert” [with performance of Schubert’s Symphony] “symphonic thoughts” [re: his Symphony No. 2 in C-major] “symphonic thoughts” “Symphoniaca” “Symphoniaca” “symphony” “1st movement almost finished” “Wagner’s Lohengrin” [Wagner read the libretto to the group that included Ferdinand Hiller, the Engelklub] “Scherzo begun” “Music–on the Scherzo” “on the Scherzo—busy” “on the Adagio—something” “Musical excitement in the last movement of the symphony” “Musical fortune [Glück]—nearly finished with the last movement” “Almost completely finished with the symphony” “R. Wagner to me” “evening at Wagner’s” [“bei Wagner”] “only a little progress on the symphony” “afternoon in the Great Garden with Wagner” [a frequent site of his walks, presumably the Great Garden (Grosser Garten) of the Schloss] [in his diary: “Monday the 17th of March in the Great Garden, a chance encounter with R. Wagner. . . . one cannot listen to him very long.” They discussed Wagner’s plans to make a program for the Ninth based on Goethe. “I could not agree with him.”] “evening visit from Mendelssohn” “early music at Bendemann’s—Mendelssohn’s prank—evening stupid melancholy” [Mendelssohn stopped in the midst of playing Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata and asked Clara Schumann to continue] Wagner’s conducting of Beethoven’s Ninth at the Palm Sunday concert “about 12:00 the baptism” [of Emil, born Feb. 8] “rehearsal of the Palm Sunday concert—2.—” [Palm Sunday was April 5, this date must therefore be erroneous; Schumann evidently didn’t go to the concert] Wagner begins to compose the music of Lohengrin

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with a one-word neologism that quite captures his creative flurry: “symphoniaca.” In an extraordinary burst of compositional activity, he went from “symphonic thoughts” on 12 December to a nearly complete draft on the 28th. Perfunctory entries in his Haushaltbücher chart the progress almost daily: the first movement was in hand by 17 December, the Scherzo three days later, the slow movement by Christmas, and the last movement in the next four days. In the new year Wagner evidently again took the initiative. He visited Schumann in late January, with the production of Tannhäuser successfully completed as well as a verse draft of Lohengrin finished and waiting to be fleshed out with music. His Beethoven concert was barely two-and-a-half months away, thus the Ninth must have been very much on his mind. Schumann returned the visit the following week, and then six weeks went by before they met again for a walk, just three weeks before the concert. By that point, rehearsals were well under way, and, to bring us back to our starting point, Wagner’s Beethoven program presumably written and ready to send to the printer. When Wagner informed Schumann of his program during a walk they took on 16 March (table 4.3), Schumann was dismayed—“I could not agree with him.” This disagreement likely lay not with the details of Wagner’s programmatic interpretation, but with the act of publishing a program at all. He had expressed himself on this point several years earlier in his review of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. Programs were fine for French audiences, but German “delicacy of feeling” and “aversion to public revelation” meant that German audiences ought to work out their own interpretations. He had for the same reason declined to write about Bach’s St. John Passion, feeling that for certain works, poetic interpretations should remain in the realm of oral tradition.22 Schumann’s unhappiness about the program could well have a deeper source. Given the contrapuntal preoccupations evident in Schumann’s own compositions in October, November, and December, it is possible that the narrative Wagner wrote to connect his quotations from Goethe was based on thoughts that Schumann had shared with him, either in one of the September 1845 meetings or those in January 1846. In the week after the two mid-September meetings, Schumann wrote Mendelssohn about Wagner’s plans to conduct the Ninth in April 1846. And the two January meetings—Schumann hosting the first, Wagner the second—happened soon after Schumann had fully sketched the C-major Symphony. Wagner had finished conducting Tannhäuser and managed to complete a verse draft of Lohengrin.

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Wagner’s interest in Schumann’s music did not cease with these visits in 1845–46. Indeed, it arguably increased after the two left Dresden. The extent of Wagner’s debt to Schumann’s compositions from this pivotal year and the years that followed requires a consideration of Wagner’s later works, especially Tristan and Isolde.

chapter 5

Late Schumann, Wagner, and Bach

That the similarities between Schumann’s music from 1845 and Wagner’s from Lohengrin onward are so little recognized is due in large measure to the obscurity that has shrouded Schumann’s later works. The scant attention from scholars, like the scarcity of performances and recordings, continued until recently because of the long-standing impression that Schumann had experienced a mental decline in his final years, a decline supposedly “proved” by the lesser quality of his later compositions. However wrongheaded and biased this view is—the rehabilitative efforts of John Daverio and others have had an impact—Wagner and his advocates worked for decades to promulgate it. In his final years Wagner habitually scorned Schumann and his music. Nevertheless, some have detected common ground, usually by identifying aspects of Genoveva that anticipate Wagner’s music dramas. Robert Gutman noted how Genoveva “was to go even further than Lohengrin toward the integrated form of the music drama,” and how “Schumann’s word-tone synthesis, albeit governed by stricter meters than Wagner’s, obviously provided him with an important model.”1 According to Elizabeth Paley, Schumann’s declamatory singing style “placed new emphasis on the text. In this sense Genoveva anticipated the arioso declamatory style of Richard Wagner’s later operas.”2 With regard to leitmotifs, as Thomas Grey argued, Genoveva “comes perhaps closest to Wagner’s mature leitmotif technique of any work up to that time. What distinguishes Schumann’s and Wagner’s technique from 107

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most others is not merely the higher incidence of motivic recurrence, but also the extent of motivic transformation and development in accordance with dramatic or psychological context and, consequently, overall integration.”3 Grey, Peter Jost, and Michael Tusa have identified Carl Maria von Weber as a crucial influence on both of them, and with good reason, but the stylistic leap from Weber’s use of reminiscence motives to the combinatorial and transformational processes evident in Schumann and Wagner is large.4 Jost also finds that, for all the differences in their approaches to drama, Wagner and Schumann were musically close to one another in Genoveva and Lohengrin, noting among other features Schumann’s “modern” use of a “knowing” orchestra to express underlying dramatic meaning.5 To assert that the mature Wagner and Schumann from 1845 invested motives with dramatic or psychological meaning and that they presented motives in a shifting variety of combinations is also to suggest something about their approach to harmony, counterpoint, and rhythm. Because motives have harmonic implications and rhythmic profiles, a composer’s choice of motives also determines much about the harmonic and rhythmic contexts: by the mid-nineteenth century, chromatic motives often implied chromatic harmonies, and syncopated motives provided opportunities for dissonance and delayed resolution. Although Schumann’s rhythms are occasionally “squarer” than Wagner’s, often enough the styles of the two composers are hard to distinguish; Wagner can be metrically uniform, and Schumann irregular and unpredictable. Anthony Newcomb forcefully objected to the established misperception, noting the “underlying metrical and rhythmic asymmetries” of the Second Symphony.6 Works of Schumann’s such as Manfred (composed 1848, published 1853) and Der Rose Pilgerfahrt (composed 1851, published 1852) show numerous stylistic traits usually associated with Wagner, as do many of his songs from these years. Of these, one that contains particularly striking “Wagnerian” moments is “Heiss’ mich nicht reden, heiss’ mich schweigen” (op. 98a, no. 5) from 1849. The final measures have previously been cited for their prescient foreshadowing of Wagner’s later style. In example 5.1 the climactic upwardresolving dissonant major seventh against a downward-resolving minor seventh in the seventh and eighth measures of this example, the lack of a clear cadence, the motivic rather than thematic character of the line— these are not unusual in Schumann’s later vocal works. Eric Sams noted other Wagnerian characteristics: “chromatic tensions have become the norm; so the contrasts are textural or dynamic. Keys or chords are used

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example 5.1. Schumann, “Heiss’ mich nicht reden, heiss’ mich schweigen,” op. 98a, no. 5, mm. 47–54

p

& bÇ.

nur

&

œ

ein

‡

nw

Gott!

p bÇ. ? b Çw. b œœ n n www bw w bw w

ÇÇ .... f ÇÇ .... w w

‡

‡ œœ ww J j œœ ww w w

ÇÇ .... f ÇÇ .... w w

p bbb Œ n Ç

Adagio

‡

‡ #7

œœ œœ Œ # ÇÇÇ #Ç J ß j œœ œœ Œ S n ÇÇÇ r œ ‰. œ œ œ b7

ÇÇ Ç ÇÇ Ç ß ww w 8

j j œ œ

Heiss' mich nicht

bbb

b n ww bb b ww b bw 6

impressionistically for their own sake, in isolation. Most notable of all is the novel and conscious use of leitmotifs.”7 In this chapter I will examine a few late works of Schumann to observe how close his style from late 1845 onward is to mature Wagner, in particular the D-minor Piano Trio, opus 63 (composed 1847, published 1848), his opera Genoveva (1847–48), and his Second Symphony. They share many aspects of the motivic-harmonic language of Tristan. Furthermore, I will suggest that one particularly unexpected work provided Wagner ideas for Tristan, namely the fourth of Schumann’s BACH fugues, which dates from October 1845, in fact, from the very week in which Wagner first came calling. The contrapuntal lessons of the Ninth were for Schumann either prepared or accompanied by his new and deeper appreciation of the music of Bach; for Wagner, the lessons of the Ninth and the example of Schumann’s engagement with Bach together provided a crucial introduction to a composer he had until then largely ignored. In the decades to come, Wagner’s elevation of Bach proceeded simultaneously with his denigration of Schumann.

tristan, schumann, and bach While Lohengrin warrants comparison with Genoveva because the two works are roughly contemporaneous and both make strides toward formal integration, none of Wagner’s operas shows itself to be more aware of Schumann’s late style than Tristan and Isolde. Begun within months of Schumann’s death, Tristan makes use of a leitmotivic technique that

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extends beyond anything he or Schumann had achieved in Lohengrin or Genoveva. And yet the localized treatment of motives, individually and in combinations, seems to have profited from a deeper exposure to a broad spectrum of Schumann’s music. Referring to a “meta-Bachian influence” on Schumann (as opposed to the influence of a specific work), Ludwig Finscher observed with characteristic insight that Wagner’s counterpoint in Tristan was “firmly rooted in Schumann’s poetic adaptation of Bach.”8 Even a work as distant in its generic conventions as Schumann’s first Piano Trio, opus 63, has several passages that one might retrospectively term “Wagnerian.” The development section of the trio’s astonishing first movement concludes with the second theme, a sequentially repeated motive with an upward-resolving chromatic appoggiatura. Schumann already begins to develop the theme at its initial exposition, when the theme repeats immediately, but varied so that the three rising motives are answered by a canonic echo. Throughout the expansive development section this idea returns three times for elaboration, reaching a climax the third time in measures 151–56 (example 5.2). The resemblances to what Wagner later composed for Tristan include the upwardresolving appoggiatura, the wavelike surges as the motive ascends sequentially, climbing to E and then F and on upward by half steps to the BH-minor ninth above the dominant pedal, and the avoidance of any cadential activity. The first appoggiatura (DG–E) accents scale degree G4, as in Tristan (example 5.3), but then because the root pitch A remains, the scale degrees of the appoggiaturas and resolutions rise with the ascending line. The closing section of the exposition (mm. 40–44) includes several traits that again foreshadow moments of Tristan. The proto-Wagnerian counterpoint features dissonant appoggiaturas (several involving G7 and G4), diminished sevenths, a syncopated ascending line, the arrival on a seventh chord of one kind or another, and widely spaced cadences. As in Tristan, the level of dissonance is elevated to the point that distinctions between consonance and dissonance blur. And David Brodbeck has proposed that Wagner’s melodic source for the “die alte Weise” motives shown in example 6.14a was the emotional climax of Schumann’s Manfred, at Manfred’s last words to Astarte, “Du liebst mich noch?” (You still love me?).9 If these examples demonstrate a degree of stylistic similarity with Wagner’s most adventurous work, others raise the possibility that Wagner actually drew on Schumann’s later works for inspiration. Since at least Hermann Abert in 1910, many have noted the striking similarity

example 5.2. Schumann, Piano Trio no. 1 in D Minor, op. 63, mvt. 1, mm. 151–56, upward-resolving chromatic appoggiaturas

&b œ ß œ ? b ß &b œ ß œ ? b

j > & b œj ‰ # œ n œ # œ œ ?

b

&b ?b

j > j ‰ nœ œ #œ œ #œ

> j j œ ‰ œ œ # œj n œ œ p >œ j j œ œ ‰ # œ œ # œJ p j> j œ œ œ œ # # œœ œ # # œœœ œ œ œ n œœ n œ œ œ #œ # œ nœ œ œ œ # œ #œ S œ œœœ œ ‰ œ œ œ# œ œ œ œ • œ œ #œ œ œ œ #œ J J J > œ œ œ œ #œ S œ œœœ œ S

j> j œ # œj ‰ n œ œ # œ n œ

molto cresc.

j œ œ >œ œ #œ œ J j œ œ

> nœ n œœ

molto cresc.

j œ œ J

œœ # œœ # œœ œ œ #œ œ œ J molto cresc. œ œ œœœœœœœ•œœœ œ #œ œ J J > j œ

j‰ œ nÇ œ fS > j ‰ nÇ j œ # œ # >œ œ œ œj # œ œ # œ œJ œ #œ œ œ #œ J J œ Ç J fS j j j j > bœ j # œ n # œœœ # œ œ œœ n œ œ # œ n œœ œœ # œœ œœ œ nn œœ œœ b œ • œn œ œ # œ œ œ œ œ n œ # œ œ œ œ œ œ # œ œ n œ œ # œ # œ œ #œ #œ nœ J • J J J f S œ œ œ# œ œ œ œ# œ œ# œ œ • œ œ œ œ# œ œ œ œ#œ œ œ œ œ œ • œ œ œ j ‰ n Ç œ J œœ J J # œœJ Ç J œ > > S

example 5.3. Wagner, Tristan and Isolde, beginning of the Prelude

> & 68 # œ . œ œ # œÇ .. œ J ‰J ÇÇ .. ? 68 ‰ ‡ Langsam und schmachtend

j j œ œ n # œœ . œ p # œœ ..

j œ ‰ ‰ œ J œœ ‰ ‰ J

112 |

Chapter 5 example 5.4. Comparison of opening themes of a. Schumann, Genoveva, mm. 3–5 Langsam

b &bb c Ç

j œ . n œœ œ ÇÇÇ

? bb c Œ Ç œ b œ œ œ p

Ç Ç

b n ÇÇÇ

œœœ ‰œ J

S ‰. œ œ bœ. œ œ œ. Ÿ œ w

b. Tristan, act II, Prelude, mm. 1–3

ww w

Sehr lebhaft

b & b 22

ƒ w ? b b 22 ww j œ œ

´ œ . œ b œœœ œ Œ œ . œ J bœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ´ ww b œœ ƒ w nœ Œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ÇÇ Ç

between the leitmotif in Tristan that represents “Day” and one of the important motives in Genoveva, the so-called Rittersmann motive associated with Golo (examples 5.4 and 5.5).10 Both Wagner and Schumann had used variants of this motive in earlier works: Wagner in Lohengrin, as the leitmotif associated with the forbidden question, and Schumann in his song “Auf einer Burg” (op. 39, no. 7) of 1840, where it is explicitly associated with a knight (“Ritter”). But in neither case is the rhythmic profile close. The resemblance between the motives in Tristan and Genoveva has attracted attention for a century, in part because of the strong similarities in plot between Tristan and Genoveva—a master entrusts his loyal aide with care of his wife/fiancée; the loyal aide then proceeds to fall in love—and in part because the presentations of the motive have a comparable prominence: in Genoveva, it is the first motive heard in the overture after a two-measure fanfare; in Tristan, it begins act II. These rhythmically identical four-note motives are then heard over and over again, with similar alterations. Example 5.5 shows instances of a tonally distant version of the motive introducing varied

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example 5.5. Comparison of opening motives in altered, tonally distant presentations in a. Genoveva, Overture, mm. 126–33

S # b Ç & b b #Ç ƒ

Ç Ç Ç Œ n ÇÇ

b nœ & b b n œœœ

# n œÇ . Ç ÇÇ

S

S

# œ. n # ÇÇœ . S

S Ç n œÇ.

Œ

j # œ œÇ

ÇÇ Ç

#œ J

j œ n œ Œ # nn œÇÇ. # œ n ÇÇÇ J œ n Çœ S

n # ÇÇœ . # œ. S j n n ## ÇÇœœ . nn œœ . S

j œ œ # œœ # œœ

b. Tristan, act II, sc. 2, mm. 1069–75

T.

&

#œ J

Ç ..

#Ç

j #œ

#œ.

Ç

Œ #œ

bœ

œ J b Jœ

´ ´ n n ## œœœœ œœœœ œœœœ œœœœ # œ œ´ œ´ # œ´ œ´ ´ ´ ´ # Ç j #œ œ œ # Ç #œ # œ # ÇÇ . œ. & Ç #Ç ‰ più p # œ œœ œ œœ œ ÇÇ . Ç . #œ œ œ œ œ #œ œ œ n œ n œ # œ œ œ Ç .. ? jn # œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œ # Ç # Ç Ç Ç #œ # w n œ 6 12 # œÿ T.

Ge - heim

tief

& nÇ. Ta

& nÇ ? #Ç # w

-

#œ.

#Ç

œ

ges

œ.

Lü

j œ nœ. f nw nw

-

œ œ Œ J gen,

‰ Œ

œ

-

Ç.

œ

Ruhm

Ç #Ç # w

und

#œ.

#Ç

ver - traut:

nis

Ç

Ehr',

j œ nœ. S nw nw

des

Macht und Ge -

‰ bÇ b b ÇÇ

repetitions with a diminished fifth leap. In Tristan these occur in act II, scene 2, as the lovers rail against the falsity of day. Schumann’s Second Symphony also shares many motives with Tristan, and also an elastic approach to their development. Motives evolve, merging from one identity to another, and making use self-consciously of contrapuntal maneuvers such as inversion. To choose two of the

114 |

Chapter 5 example 5.6. Tristan, act III, sc. 1, mm. 5–7 and 18–21, theme that includes an inversion of itself

&

bbbb

œ œ œ.

(Engl. Horn auf der Bühne.)

Ç p

b & b bb Ç p

Ç Ç

f

dim.

œ œ œ. f

j œ œ

œ œ œ œ. œ

j œ œ

œ

dim.

bœ . œ

œ J

nœ œ œ œ. p

example 5.7. Schumann, Symphony no. 2, mvt. 4, mm. 211–19 (violins and cellos with double basses), motive with inversions as counterpoint

&

bw

ß ? œŒÓ

Ç œ

#Ç

f ŒÓ

b >Ç Ç w Í

‡ Ç

bÇ

bw

ß

nÇ Ç

Ç nÇ ‡

>Ç b Ç bw Í

‡ Ç

Ç

Ó bÇ Ç bÇ

most obvious moments, in Tristan the third act begins with a “simple” shepherd’s song played on English horn, what Tristan refers to as “the old tune” (Die alte Weise). But this shepherd is skilled enough to invert his melody in measure 18 (example 5.6). In the finale of Symphony no. 2, Schumann does the same, though he feigns his inversions, varying the intervals with each entrance. His motive is close to Wagner’s (example 5.7). The first inversion that Schumann assigns to the cellos and basses replicates the Bachian theme of the preceding slow movement, and thus illustrates the kind of motivic combination that Wagner made a hallmark of his style. Schumann’s slow movement has much in common with Tristan, act II, scene 2, when Tristan and Isolde begin to muse on the coming day. In the following comparison (example 5.8), the excerpts shuffle the same three related motivic cells and can be compared as well with the motives just presented in example 5.7; that contained in the pentagon is inverted from one to the other. That in the rectangle differs in the direction of the first interval (leaping up or down), something that varies in both works; and that in the oval is repeated in both phrases. A surprising example of Schumann’s potential influence on Tristan

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115

example 5.8. Comparison of related motivic cells strung together a. Symphony no. 2, mvt. 3, mm.91–96

b & b b ‰ œJœ Ç • œ ? b n œœ œœœ bb œ Ç

j F œ nœ œ œœ . J J ‰ Œ

bœ J

#œ œ J œ

nœ nœ J

nœ œ nœ œ J

bœ bœ J

œ œ J

# œ b œœ #œ œ J

• • œ œ • œœ œœ • œœ œœ • œœ œœ • œœ œœ • œœ œœ • œ œ • œ œ • œ œ œœ œœ œ œ bœ bœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ œœ œ b œœ œœ œ œ œ œœ œœ

b. Tristan, act II, sc. 2, mm. 1277–84

b œ œ. nœ œ nœ œ. bœ œ œ œ #œ nœ. nœ ‡ ‡ nœ œ & b bb J ‰ Œ Œ J #œ J #œ œ œ J 3 p espress. cresc. f b Ç ‡ ‡ j‰ Œ Œ œ nÇ #œ œ Ç #œ nÇ & b bb œ nœ dim. p più p ‰ f

œ J‰Œ

f Ç f

involves a lesser-known work that Schumann wrote in 1845 to honor the composer who was central for him in that year of contrapuntal study, J. S. Bach. The Six Fugues for Organ on the Name BACH, opus 60, composed during spring and fall of 1845, were among the works of his own that Schumann particularly treasured. His manic prediction that they would be among his most successful and enduring compositions clearly missed the mark; yet they evidently impressed Wagner, who first visited Schumann in Dresden on 18 September 1845, the day after Schumann had begun the fourth fugue on BACH. According to the Haushaltsbücher, Wagner and he also met the next day and again for a third time at the end of the week, on 25 September, the day he noted that his fourth fugue was “almost finished.”11 An extended affinity exists between this fourth fugue and Tristan, act III, scene 1. The scene begins with Tristan wounded and asleep and finishes with him collapsing, after he had explained the message of the shepherd’s tune (at “Die alte Weise”) and waxed rhapsodic about the draft of poison. For Tristan’s last words before briefly losing consciousness, and for the desperate reaction of his loyal aide Kurwenal, Wagner composed especially contorted music with resemblances to the fourth of

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example 5.9. BACH figure with registral split in Robert Schumann, Sechs Fugen über den Namen BACH, op. 60, Fugue no. 4, mm. 1–5

b &b c

Mässig, doch nicht zu langsam

‡‡

‡‡

‡‡

‡‡

Ç

‡œ

Ç nœ bœ œ bœ ‡ œ œœ b œ œ ? b b c Ç ‡œ œ œ œ œ nœ œ œ œ nœ bœ nœ œ nœ b œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ n œÇ œ œ Ç Schumann’s Six Fugues. If the four-note motive BACH is to be expected in a work that proclaims its source in its title, as Schumann’s does, the possibility that the same motive could occur in the middle of Tristan, and moreover, could occur with a symbolic import that references Bach, is one that requires some explanation. Schumann’s fourth BACH fugue is the only one of the six to explore a registrally divided distribution of the BACH notes; namely, with the pitches not all grouped adjacent to each other, but with a leap after BA down to CH an octave lower (example 5.9). After three fugues in which Schumann presented the four-note motto in its conventional form, varied through rhythm, counterpoint, and harmonic context, the fourth fugue arrives as an aggressive distortion, primarily because of the registral split in the motto, but also because the normal motive also returns a quarter of the way through as a contrapuntal second theme, now backwards. Schumann’s marking “thema retrogrado” affixed to each statement seems superfluous, because the easily recognizable retrograde leaps out of the texture. Octave displacements such as those shown in example 5.9 were a familiar form of motivic transformation for Schumann. In Carnaval, opus 9, he had varied the four-note “sphinx,” ASCH (that is, A, EH, C, B), with the same technique.12 Wagner’s handling of this motive in the third act of Tristan suggests that it was not simply a contorted chromatic motive, but that he was aware of the symbolic meaning of these notes. (A consideration of why he would have thought Bach an appropriate reference for Tristan follows.) At the climax of the “Delirium” scene, in the fifty-seven measures that begin with “Ich selbst, ich hab ihn gebraut!,” marked “Gedehnt” (broadly, literally “stretched”), there are fourteen statements of BACH in a long form of the motive, and seven more in a compressed form that he introduces at Kurwenal’s frantic entrance.13 Sometimes called the Love-Curse (Liebesfluch), this motive is shown in example 5.10a, b,

example 5.10. Wagner’s use of a registrally split BACH figure in the Delirium scene of Tristan, act III, sc. 1 a. mm. 809–20, the first three occurrences

Ç. b & b b b ‰ œJ

œ #œ

ich selbst,

b n ÇÇ & b b b n ÇÇ ƒ w ? bb b Ç b

Gedehnt.

b & b bb

ich

nÇ. Ç ..

œ bÇ

-

Aus Va

bÇ b b b n b ÇÇÇ b &

Ç ..

aus Lie

b & b b b 22 ? b b b 22 b

-

ters Not und

bes - trä - nen

nw nw

œ œ

bœ œ ƒ j b ÇÇ .... Ç .. Ç .. œ ‰ œ Ç.

b ww

eh'

nÇ

& nÇ

n ww #œ

und

nœ nœ

œ bœ œ œ bœ œ

b œœœ œ œœœ n œ œ ÇÇ œ œ bœ œ

b œ 23 Ç

Mut - ter

nÇ #w

œ #œ œ. nœ #Ç. J

j nn ÇÇÇ œœœ ‰ Œ œ Ç .. w J n Ç .. Í ‰ Ç .. n Ç .. w bÇ œ ‰ Œ bÇ œ J

‡

w w

œ œ œ. bœ J

œœœ œ ? nw J ‰Œ p dim. n œ Ç .. .. w ? b b b n ®Ç b œœ œœ œÇÇ ..‰ Œ b J b & b b b 22 Œ n œ n Ç

Œ

hab' ihn ge - braut!

f

œœœ œ ‰ Œ J w œ ‰ Œ J

Œ

j n œ b œ œj Ç .

Weh',

Ç. 23 Ç .

Ó

nÇ 32 n n ÇÇ n Ç nÇ . 23 n Ç je,

22

Ó

bœ b œ n Çœ b œ n œ 22 n Çœ b œ n œ 2 b œœ. b œ n œ 2 œ bœ nœ

Œ Œ ‰ Jœ 22

Ç. nœ Ó Ç 32 Ç . Ç n œ n Çœ b œ # Ç Ç ®œ œ œ œ œ . n œ bœ . f cresc. n Ç n Ç g œœ g w nw 32 ggg n n œœœ Ç ggg œ n œœ .Çb œ gg œ

aus

œ 22 œ J œ 22

b. mm. 824–26, flute

b & b bb

Ç

Ç. ƒ

nœ

œ nœbœ 2 nw 2

dim.

(continued)

118 |

Chapter 5

example 5.10 (continued) c. mm. 840–42, double bass and cello staccato œœ œ œ #œ œ bœ œ ? Œ œ œ b œ b œ œ n œ 43 œ b œ n œ 44 ƒ ƒ ƒ

d. mm. 824–26, French horn in F, the only version in this scene with all notes in the same octave

&Ó

bÇ

à2

Ç. ƒ

œ œ n œ b œ 22 Ç

dim.

j œ‰Œ

and c. Wagner began a long form of the motive on nine different pitches in an unusually disoriented, meandering order: G, EH, A, C, AH, EH, GH, DG, A, C, B, F, DG, and D.14 Additionally, as shown in example 5.10c, those at Kurwenal’s entrance that appear in an accelerated form begin on the notes of a diminished seventh: B, D, F, AH, B, D, and F. Notably missing from any of these motives is one that begins on BH, using the precise notes BACH, rather than transpositions of them. Only in the pitches Wagner assigned the F-horn does the motive occur twice in the score with the actual notes (although they sound a fifth lower), at the EH presentations of the motive that begin fourteen measures apart at measures 811 and 824. Moreover, as shown in example 5.10d, the second of these does so without the leap to the lower octave, while it accompanies the notes that the flute plays in example 5.10b. At the moment when Tristan curses the person who brewed the love/death potion (he mistakenly believes that he himself is responsible), Wagner combines the BACH figure with two of the leitmotifs we have mentioned for their resemblance to Schumann, the shepherd’s tune and the motive also present in Genoveva (compare example 5. 5 with the last of the three motives marked in example 5.11). In what is potentially a clue that Wagner intended this motive as a Bach symbol, most of the presentations in the long form (as in example 5.10a, b, and d) use the distinctive rhythm of a probable BACH motto that I have previously identified in the first movement of Felix Mendelssohn’s tragic F-minor String Quartet, opus 80 (example 5.12).15 The first of the BACH notes (B, though at whatever transposition) lasts for

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119

example 5.11. The combination of three Schumannesque motives in Tristan, act III, sc. 1, mm. 835–40

T.

& 23 & 23 ? 23

T.

#Ç

Ó

Trank!

22

Ó

#Ç Ó #Ç nœ #œ. œ. œ # Ç . Ç Ç œ Ç nœ # # Ç .Ç J ƒ #w . n œ # œœ n œœœ # œ # # # www Ç # œœ n œ # œ œ ‰J

‡

&

Ç

Ver - flucht,

Œ

22 22

j œ. œ

? ÇÇ Ç b ÇÇ Ç dim.

w

p n b b www

> ‰ bœ bœ ƒ Ç n œœ œ œœ œ œœ œ œœ œ

Œ bœ Œ œ œ Ç J J wer

ausdrucksvoll

& bÇ bÇ

> #œ nœ. œ # œ # œ n œœ .. #œ > ƒ # ÇÇ œ # nn œœ

‡

dich ge - braut!

Œ Ó

œ ´ ggg b b œœœ gg œ Œ Ó f

?

example 5.12. BACH motive with long-to-short rhythmic profile in Felix Mendelssohn, String Quartet in F Minor, op. 80, mvt. 1, mm. 81–86

j j b & b bb C œ . œ œ . œ Š w Allegro vivace assai

w

Ç Ç

bÇ œ œ Ç

five counts (quarter notes in Wagner’s 4/4 meter, half notes in Mendelssohn’s alla breve), the next two notes (A and C) for a single count each, and the last (H) for a fleeting half count. Schumann does something similar in the often cited BACH figure he placed in the second trio of the Scherzo of his C-major Symphony, beginning with a half note and ending with an eighth (shown below in example 5.14).16 The affinity between Bach’s style and Wagner’s densely contrapuntal writing in Tristan has been noted by others on several occasions.17 Feeding interpretations of what it is that Wagner found in Bach are several comments of his on the cultural meaning and musical significance

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of Bach, utterances that survive because Cosima Wagner dutifully recorded them in her diaries. These entries have previously been examined by Martin Geck and Christian Thorau, who have studied Wagner’s evolving appreciation of Bach’s music, especially with regard to “unendliche Melodie,” musical form, and the debt of Die Meistersinger to Bach. In light of the BACH mottos in Tristan, which because of their dramatic associations potentially provide additional evidence about Wagner’s views, I would like to reconsider Wagner’s comments. The diary references to Bach fall easily into three categories: •

•

•

comments on individual pieces, usually spurred by evening performances in their home; metaphorical descriptions of Bach’s music, chiefly making comparisons to nature and the cosmos; and references to Bach as a medieval composer.

Each of these contributes to an explanation of why Wagner saw BACH not merely as compatible with this passage of Tristan, but well justified. It is an instance in which a musical idea and a segment of Wagner’s poetic narrative can be seen to motivate each other. On several occasions Cosima recorded gatherings in their house in which the evening’s musical entertainment paired something of Bach with something from Tristan. Once it was her father, Franz Liszt, at the piano: “In the evening music—my father plays fugues by Bach, the ‘AH Major’ from Tristan [possibly the Liebestod], and several of his own compositions” (20 October 1872). Another time Wagner himself performed: “R. plays Bach’s CG-minor Prelude, then accompanied by friend Mimi, [he sang King] Marke’s speech and Tristan’s farewell; finally he plays us I.’s apotheosis” (29 October 1882). And once Wagner praised Bach by comparing a favorite prelude from the Well-Tempered Clavier to Tristan. When the pianist Joseph Rubinstein played Bach for them, which he did with surprising frequency, Wagner from time to time improvised an appropriate text to a phrase of a prelude or fugue, or, in this case, he simply spoke as the music continued: “R. has the last prelude [the B-minor Prelude of Book 2] played quickly and with great passion . . . and at certain passages he observes, ‘Tristan und Isolde cannot do that better’ ” (2 March 1879).18 More indicative of a rationale for implanting a symbol of Bach in Tristan is that one aspect of Wagner’s notions about the meaning of

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121

Bach coincides with what he felt to be a central message of Tristan. Both are expressions of Nature. In his opera the inescapable urge that Tristan and Isolde had to love each other is driven by Nature, a positive force that the inhibiting strictures of society worked against. Cosima summarized two conversations in which Wagner explained the dramatic conflict in terms of Nature, rather than essence versus appearance, Night versus Day, or realms of the real versus the unreal, as occurs elsewhere: “At lunch he talked about T. und Isolde in connection with his idea that Nature has a craving to produce something great and redeeming. Tristan is the greatest of tragedies, R. says, for here Nature is thwarted in its finest work” (10 May 1882).19 A few weeks later he expanded on this thought: Then he talks about love and what can happen to a generation in which civilization thwarts Nature’s most serious purpose. For example, he says, Romeo loves Juliet, she him, but civilization makes him marry Rosaline and Juliet marry Paris—what stock can come out of that? It is for this reason, he adds, that Tristan is his most tragic subject, since in it Nature is hindered in its highest work. (29 May 1882)20

At the same time, Wagner liked to explain Bach’s music as being “like Nature,” and as manifesting passion and Will rather than intellect—in stark contrast to views of Bach as a dry and cerebral contrapuntalist. Among many statements in Cosima’s diaries are the following: “Bach’s music is certainly a conception of the world; the figurations, devoid of feeling, are like unfeeling Nature itself—birth and death, winds, storms, sunshine” (12 February 1871). About the CG-minor Prelude: “An indescribable impression—it echoes within us like the quiet lament of a sphinx, or vanishing gods, or Nature before the creation of mankind!” (7 March 1878). And the FG-minor Prelude and Fugue: “That is like Nature, uncomprehending and incomprehensible” (22 February 1879). Lastly, after playing the B-minor Fugue, he exclaimed: “What a world that is! . . . Planets circling around each other, no feeling, yet all of it is passion, will—no intellect” (15 February 1881). Particularly relevant for the conflict he constructed in Tristan are the opposition of will and intellect and the vision of Nature that exists apart from mankind. Like Schumann, Wagner employs these disjointed forms of the BACH motive as a distortion of the normal conjunct spelling of the motive. And much as Schumann had set the stage for the transformations of his fourth fugue by the conventionality of the first three, Wagner prepares the music and drama of this scene with related music and drama in act

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example 5.13. Placement of the BACH motive within a longer descending octave theme in Tristan, act II, sc. 1 a. mm. 419–22

Fl. I

Ob.

Vln. I

Vln. II

œ

œ œ. œ œ nœ J & p p œ œ œ. œ œ nœ # ## œ œ. œ œ nœ Œ Ó ‡ œ & J p p œ œ. œ œ nœ œ œ #œ. œ œ œ. œ œ ## J Œ Ó J & # p ## j j & # œ œ. œ œ nœ œ œ #œ. œ œ œ. œ œ Œ Ó p ###

Mäßig bewegt

Œ

Ó

‡

œ œ #œ. J p œ œ #œ. œ œ #œ. J p

œ

œ #œ.

œ . œ œ ## œœ . œ

‡ ‡

b. mm. 430–31

& œ œ

œ . œ œj b œ

j j j œ œ nœ #œ

II, scenes 1 and 2. There in its familiar form, though at first only in transpositions, the BACH motive figures as the center of the leitmotif commonly associated with love and Frau Minne, the spirit of love. These four notes initially serve as a linchpin linking two stepwise descending fourths (example 5.13a), and then, much more frequently, as the second half of the shortened motive (example 5.13b). Once again Schumann’s treatment of the motive in the Scherzo of the C-major Symphony offers a precedent, with the motive comparably situated in the middle of a descending octave. Example 5.14 provides two consecutive phrases, one with BACH beginning on BH, the next on EH. To consider first the end of scene 1, the BACH figure enters in A major on a GJ and occurs ten times on six different pitches, this time in an order that is not at all meandering: G, G, C, EH, EH, E, E, FG, A, and A. Following the initial statements on G, the motive drops to C and then climbs steadily, stopping just short of BH. As in act III, Wagner avoids a beginning on BH, this time even on transposing instruments. The musical transformation of the BACH motive between this scene and that in act III supports

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example 5.14. Placement of the BACH motive within a longer descending octave theme in Schumann, Symphony no. 2, mvt. 2, Trio 2 a. violins 1, mm. 3–10

&

œ

œ #œ

œ #œ œ œ œ

œ bœ

?

œ œ

œ nœ œ œ

œ œ

œ nœ œ œ

b. oboes, mm. 19–26

&

œ

œ œœ Œ p

œœ

œœ œœ œ œ Ç

?

œ bœ Œ

the ways in which the drama of the two scenes is related. Separated by the events of the Night, the exchanges in act II between Isolde and her maid Brangäne and in act III between Tristan and his servant Kurwenal both reflect on the fateful drink. On the one hand, Isolde, expectant and about to extinguish the torch, praises the maker of the drink (Frau Minne, the spirit of Love); on the other, Tristan, wounded and losing consciousness, curses the drink’s creator (himself). Both Brangäne and Kurwenal play cautionary roles, she prospectively admonishing, he retrospectively lamenting.21 First the exchange between Brangäne and Isolde: referring to Frau Minne, Isolde sings, However she [Minne] turned it, however she finishes it, whatever she may choose for me, wherever she might lead me, I became hers. Now let me show my obedience! brangäne: And if Love’s [Minne’s] treacherous drink must extinguish the light of reason, you may not see when I warn you, only now today, hear my plea! The bright light of danger, only today, today do not extinguish the torch!

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isolde: She who in my breast kindles the glow, she who my heart enflames, she who like Day laughs in my soul. The spirit of Love [Frau Minne] wants: let it be night, that brightly she may shine [leuchte]. (She hurries to the torch.)

The corresponding scene in which Wagner introduced the disjointed BACH motives quickly succeeds the ecstatic lovemaking of the second act. Thrust back into day, civilization, and life, rather than night, passion, and the ardently desired love-death, Tristan blames himself for the potion that had freed Isolde and him to love. Rather than the fearful drink extinguishing the “light of reason” and Isolde putting out the light of the torch, now it is Tristan himself who is extinguished. Internal darkness during day replaces internal light glowing in the night. At his collapse, Kurwenal laments the delusion of love, and reasons his way to a conclusion about the inevitability of love’s evanescence: tristan: The fearful drink that brings me torment, I myself—I myself, I brewed it! From my father’s misery and mother’s anguish, from tears of love once and forever, from laughing and crying, joy and grief, Have I the drink’s poison discovered! What I had prepared flowed to me; that inhaling joy I drank— be damned, fearful drink! Cursed be he that made you! (He collapses unconscious.) kurwenal (trying in vain to calm Tristan, exclaims in horror): My Lord! Tristan!

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Horrible magic! O falsity of Love [Minnetrug]! O urge to love! The world’s dearest delusion, what has happened to you? Here he lies now, the splendid man, who as no other is loved and adored. Now see what thanks has won for him, what thanks Love [Minne] always wins!

The musical and narrative logic of how these scenes connect to each other becomes clearer when the third of the three segments with BACH is considered. Falling between these two scenes we have just considered is the triumphal moment when the two lovers unite and shed all inhibitions. With the torch extinguished at the end of scene 1, the passionate embrace of Tristan and Isolde commences immediately in scene 2. There, as they claim one another as their own (“Mein!”), they lose any shred of musical individuality, singing the same words and motives. Precisely when the lovers yield to Nature, the BACH figure finally reaches BH and attains the notes from which they derive their symbolic meaning (example 5.15). As in the preceding scene there are ten statements, but this time, with a distribution of pitches far more focused than either of the other scenes, they begin repeatedly on just three pitches: BH, BH, DH, DH, DH, AH, BH, BH, BH, and CG. The repetition of motives matches the repetition of words, as well as the uniformity of thought: isolde: tristan: isolde: tristan: isolde: tristan: isolde: tristan: isolde: tristan: isolde: tristan: isolde: tristan: isolde: tristan:

Mine! Tristan mine! Mine! Isolde mine! Tristan mine! Isolde mine! Mine and yours! Mine and yours! Eternally! Tristan mine, Isolde yours! Eternally! Isolde mine! Tristan! Isolde! Tristan! Isolde! Eternally, eternally one! Eternally, eternally one! How long, far! How far, so long! How far, so near! So near, how far!

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example 5.15. The arrival at BACH at its proper pitches in Tristan, act II, sc. 2, mm. 612–16

Vln. I

Vln. II

Vla.

I.

T.

œ œ. œ œ bœ œ œ nœ. œ œ œ. œ œ . œ œ œ bœ J J & J f œ œ. œ œ bœ œ J ‡ & œ Œ Ó f œ œ. œ œ bœ œ œ nœ. œ œ œ. œ œ bœ . œ œ œ œ œ J J J B œ œ œ œ f f Ç. œ. œ w œ Ç. & B

w

w

Tri

-

stan

Ç

mein!

Œ

œ

j œ œ n œ . œ œ œj ‰

Í œ œ nœ. œ œ œ. œ œ J Í œ œ n œ . œ œ œ . œ œœ J œ œ

œ

w

œ

Ç.

œ. œ Ç

I - sol

Tri -

-

de

mein!

The BACH figures then disappear and the ecstatic lovers take separate verses with musical lines that are more independent. Musical references to Bach in this scene are accompanied by extended textual similarities in the verses. The exclamations and questions of Tristan and Isolde in act II, scene 2, expressing both joy and doubt, sound closer in form and language to a dialogue duet in a Bach cantata than they do to love duets in operas of Meyerbeer, Weber, or Spontini. The duet between Jesus (a bass) and the Soul (a soprano) in the second part of Cantata 21: Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis is particularly close to the kind of simultaneous, overlapping, highly repetitive text exchange that occurs in the love duet of Tristan and Isolde, especially in the aria (no. 8). Wagner likely knew this cantata, since it was published in the fifth volume of the Bach Gesamtausgabe (1855); later Liszt arranged a piano transcription of the opening movement and fugue in 1862–63. The presentation of the text that follows does not include Bach’s musically generated repeats of individual words:22 8. aria (duet) soul: Come, my Jesus, and revive, jesus: Yes, I come and revive

Komm, mein Jesu, und erquicke, Ja, ich komme und erquicke

Late Schumann, Wagner, Bach

soul: jesus: soul: jesus: soul: jesus: soul: jesus: soul: jesus: soul: jesus: soul: jesus: soul: jesus: soul: jesus: soul: jesus:

And delight with Your glance. You with my glance of grace. This soul Your soul shall die shall live and not live and not die and in its cave of unhappiness here out of this cave of wounds completely perish? you shall inherit I must always hover in anguish Salvation! Through this juice of the vine Yes, ah yes, I am lost! No, ah no, you are chosen! No, ah no, You hate me! Yes, ah yes, I love you! Ah, Jesus, thoroughly sweeten my soul and heart! Fade, you troubles, disappear, you pains!

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Und erfreu mit deinem Blicke. Dich mit meinem Gnadenblicke. Diese Seele Deine Seele Die soll sterben Die soll leben Und nicht leben Und nicht sterben Und in ihrer Unglückshöhle Hier aus dieser Wundenhöhle Ganz verderben? Sollst du erben Ich muß stets in Kummer schweben, Heil! Durch diesen Saft der Reben, Ja, ach ja, ich bin verloren! Nein, ach nein, du bist erkoren! Nein, ach nein, du hassest mich! Ja, ach ja, ich liebe dich! Ach, Jesu, durchsüße mir Seele und Herze! Entweichet, ihr Sorgen, verschwinde, du Schmerze!

The degree of word repetition in Wagner’s Tristan verses is a characteristic that Carolyn Abbate has associated with his obsessive repetition and interweaving of motives. In her analysis of a single scene in Götterdämmerung (act II, sc. 5), she identifies a trait present in “most of Wagner’s post-Lohengrin texts,” observing that at times “the density of repetition becomes tremendous, almost narcotic,” a description that well suits these verses from Tristan.23 Yet in comparing the consummation scene of Tristan with this duet of Bach’s, it is not just that there is repetition, but how it is used. Both texts reverse word patterns, as in the form of a chiasmus. Thus the Soul and Jesus repeat with inverted word order and play with antithetical states (life and death): soul: Die soll sterben und nicht leben jesus: Die soll leben und nicht sterben

As do Tristan and Isolde with nearness and distance: isolde: Wie lange fern! Wie fern so lang’! tristan: Wie weit so nah’! So nah’ wie weit!

The mirrored repetitions occur again in these examples of yes/no and far/near:

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soul: jesus: soul: jesus:

Ja, ach ja, ich bin verloren! Nein, ach nein, du bist erkoren! Nein, ach nein, du hassest mich! Ja, ach ja, ich liebe dich!

tristan: O Weit’ und Nähe! Hart entzweite! Holde Nähe! Öde Weite!

In the recitative (no. 7) that precedes this duet, the similarity to Tristan is heightened by the contrast of night and day articulated by the two singers, as when immediately after the duet text quoted above, Isolde proclaims “you in dark, I in light,” to which Tristan replies, “The light! The light! O this light, how long it did not extinguish.” Where Wagner then speaks of dusk, Bach’s text invokes dawn: 7. bach, “ich hatte viel bekümmernis,” recitative (no. 7) soul: Ah, Jesus, my peace, my light, where are You? jesus: O soul, see! I am with you. soul: With me? Here is only absolute night. jesus: I am your faithful friend, who also watches in the dark, where absolute villains are. soul: Dawn then with Your radiance and light of comfort. jesus: The hour comes already, when your crown of battle will become a sweet refreshment.

Ach Jesu, meine Ruh, Mein Licht, wo bleibest du? O Seele sieh! Ich bin bei dir. Bei mir? Hier ist ja lauter Nacht. Ich bin dein treuer Freund, Der auch im Dunkeln wacht, Wo lauter Schalken sind. Brich doch mit deinem Glanz und Licht des Trostes ein. Die Stunde kömmet schon, Da deines Kampfes Kron’ Dir wird ein süßes Labsal sein.

tristan and isolde, act ii, scene 2 tristan: The light! The light! Oh, this light, how long it did not extinguish! The sun set, the day past, but its envy it did not stifle: its dread sign was ignited and fixed to the beloved’s door so that I not go to her. isolde: But the beloved’s hand Extinguished the light.

Das Licht! Das Licht! O dieses Licht, wie lang verlosch es nicht! Die Sonne sank, der Tag verging, doch seinen Neid erstickt’ er nicht: sein scheuchend Zeichen zündet er an, und steckt’s an der Liebsten Türe, dass nicht ich zu ihr führe. Doch der Liebsten Hand löschte das Licht;

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The positive and negative attributes of day and night are reversed in the two texts, but they both allow for the existence of light in the dark. In Bach’s verses the Soul longs for Day and learns that even in the dark of night, the light of Jesus is ever present, while Tristan longs for Night but complains that even in the night the lit torch at his lover’s door acted as a “dread sign” (sein scheuchend Zeichen) of the sun. In one the lover (Isolde) extinguishes the light, in the other he (Jesus) is the light. These two passages have the additional similarities of internal word repetition (marked in italics) which bridges verses sung by both singers: tristan: Zündet er an Und steckt’s an der Liebsten Türe, dass nicht ich zu ihr führe. isolde: Doch der Liebsten Hand löschte das Licht soul: Hier ist ja lauter Nacht. jesus: Ich bin dein treuer Freund, Der auch im Dunkeln wacht, Wo lauter Schalken sind.

[light ignited]

[light extinguished] [dark of night] [light of Jesus is vigilant]

These last verses about night and watching in the dark find an echo in Tristan’s use of the same words: “Was dort in keuscher Nacht / dunkel verschlossen wacht.’ ” But Tristan has much more in common with the Soul of Bach’s cantata. Both are figures racked by doubt even as they confront the love they so ardently have sought. The Soul’s inability to see Jesus’s light in the night is the obverse of Tristan’s inability to experience night so long as even a torch is lit. Where the Soul asks Jesus to let his “radiance and light” (Glanz und Licht) dawn, Tristan blames the “radiance and light” (Glanz und Licht) of the sun for Isolde’s pulling away from him. Wagner seemingly connects the two texts, when, at the ecstatic moment Tristan and Isolde first sing an entire phrase together, the music settles into C major, Isolde leaps to a high C, and they shout “Oh joy of the soul!” (O Wonne der Seele!). Why Bach? Why the use of BACH and the referencing of “Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis”? Another way of expressing the difference between the three BACH scenes—to return to Wagner’s analysis of the tragedy in Tristan—is that in the first, Isolde yields to Nature and shuns “the light of reason.” The lovers then embrace in the second, fulfilling Nature’s will and achieving its “highest work.” In contrast, Tristan has returned

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in act III to the glare of day and grasps fully that the will of Nature has been denied. Promise has been revealed as deceit, blessing as a curse. The transformations of the BACH figure chronicle the progress of the drama: initially, with Isolde eagerly rushing toward her fate, the motive has its normal form and the ten statements occur in an orderly, ascending sequence, which however stops just short of the actual notes BACH. That transformation then accompanies the union of the lovers and extends for the duration of the scene in which they are singing the same words. Finally in the “Delirium” scene, Schumann’s motivic distortion depicts the unhappy turn of events and Tristan in his broken state. Instead of an orderly presentation of motives, each one higher than the one before, the motives appear in a jumbled sequence, with no discernible order. The placement of BACH on BH (sounding EH on the French horn in F) contributes to the symbolic depiction of deceitful appearance. Furthermore, while both segments in act II are tonally and metrically stable (in 44 ), that in act III avoids a tonal center and changes meter seventeen times (22, 23, 43, and 44 ). Six times Wagner changed meter for a single measure (as is visible in example 5.10c). With these musical tools, Wagner conveys what happens when “civilization thwarts Nature’s most serious purpose.” The BACH figure is particularly rich in its symbolic capabilities for Wagner. Across the three scenes, he situates the various statements of BACH on each pitch of the chromatic scale. The distorted versions in act III begin on nine different pitches; those in act II contribute six and three, respectively, with no redundancy. The comprehensive distribution gives the impression that Wagner was alluding not only to Bach’s music in general, but to a specific work. Judging from the frequent references to it in Cosima Wagner’s diaries, indicated in the quotations above, his favorite of Bach’s compositions was easily the Well-Tempered Clavier. The preludes and fugues of that comprehensive collection figured prominently in the Wagners’ evening entertainment and prompted numerous observations from both him and Cosima. Some of their favorite preludes and fugues acquired nicknames. Wagner thought of Bach as a pre-Enlightenment figure and called him the last medieval composer, the musical equivalent of Albrecht Dürer. Instances of this comparison recorded by Cosima span a decade: “ ‘Both,’ says R., ‘should be regarded as the conclusion of the Middle Ages, for it is nonsense to regard Bach as of our own time. Both [were] endowed with this rich and mysterious imagination, dispensing with beauty but achieving sublimity, which is greater than all beauty. The poet

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one might put beside them is Dante’ ” (14 June 1870). Again, years later, “He [Bach] was the culmination of the medieval world—Wolfram, the mystics, A. Dürer, Luther; after that a completely new world begins” (11 March 1879).24 In the context of Tristan, labeling Bach as Medieval is not merely a question of historical periodization, however appropriate symbols of a “Medieval” composer might be in an opera about knights and their lords. Rather, because he deemed Bach a representative of an era that prized mystery over reason, an era that had yet to elevate science and intellect over religion, Bach must have seemed all the more appropriate to feature in an opera that contrasted night and day, and especially as a symbol to be planted in its integral form in act II (night). Decades later in 1900, Max Reger composed a work on the BACH motto with prominent allusions both to Tristan and Schumann’s BACH fugues. Reger may have come to the same conclusions about the importance of Bach (and Schumann) to Tristan. In his treatment of the Phantasie und Fuge über den Namen BACH, opus 46, Antonius Bittman has described the Phantasie as an “aesthetic synthesis” of Wagner and Bach, one especially indebted to Tristan.25 Bittman observes such details as Reger’s beginning on the Tristan chord (albeit spelled differently), the opening with “an initial phrase [that is] twice restated as part of an ascending sequence,” and matters of harmony, phrasing, and voice leading. He finds that while “Reger’s BACH immerses itself in Tristan’s desires,”26 his intent was not merely to compose a Bach fantasy in the style of Tristan, but rather to distance himself from his Wagnerian model in a way that would “separate the virtues of Wagner’s music from its potentially destructive essence, and to reconcile them with Bachian elements.”27 In synthesizing Bach and Wagner, Reger sought to counter fin de siècle Wagneritis, a malaise of spirit as well as style. Bittman thus casts the Phantasie as an example of what Reger would express about Bach and Wagner a few years later. Punning on the double meaning of “Bach” as composer and “Bach” as stream, Reger described Bach as “quite a strong remedy (and one that will never dry up), not only for all those composers and musicians who have become sick from ‘misunderstood Wagner,’ but for those ‘contemporaries’ who suffer from spinal atrophy of any kind.”28 Long before Reger had developed his views on Bach as a source of healing, Schumann had reached the same conclusion. Against the advice of his doctor, Schumann’s self-prescribed “cure” for the depression and illness that paralyzed him in 1844 was the prolonged study of Bach and his composition of several contrapuntal keyboard works, culminating in his BACH fugues.29

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Reger then invoked Schumann to begin his fugue, emulating the beginning of Schumann’s first BACH fugue as unapologetically as he had the Tristan Prelude in the Phantasie. Example 5.16 compares the beginnings of the two fugues. Both expositions follow the same plan: five voices enter in the same ascending succession: BH, F, BH, and F, before falling back to BH in the pedal. In the subjects and answers, the BACH motto is separated by a rest from seven quarter notes, and the countersubjects descend through D and DH to C. The rhythm of Reger’s entries follows Schumann’s example: the first pair of eighth notes appears a quarter note after the answer reaches the note G, the next measure has another eighth-note pair, and the measure after that has two. At the conclusions, both composers build intensity with crescendos and accelerating tempos, Schumann with “nach und nach schneller und stärker” and Reger with “sempre crescendo” (from fff) and then stringendo.” And although it is clear that Schumann’s composition is a multifugue set, so too is Reger’s—a tripartite double fugue (A, B, and finally A+B). The prominent allusions both to Tristan and to Schumann’s fugue suggest that Reger had recognized the BACH moments of Tristan and, further, that he had noted the similarity between Wagner’s treatment and Schumann’s BACH fugue. For the sake of comparison, Liszt’s threevoice BACH fugue for organ (composed in 1855 and revised in 1869) differs markedly in character, in harmony and rhythm, in its much lighter density of fugal counterpoint, and in the unsurprising prominence of virtuosic passagework. There are no examples of BACH in retrograde or inversion. Both Reger and Wagner are much closer to Schumann’s treatment of the motto. And yet, a decade after writing Tristan, Wagner informed Cosima that he was indebted to Liszt for being the first to show him the importance of Bach, a statement she dutifully recorded in her diary on 16 August 1869. That same year, in his essay “On Conducting,” he described the impact of Liszt playing for him the CG-minor Prelude and Fugue, calling it a “revelation” that transformed his understanding of Bach: “What I now learned [about Bach from Liszt’s performance], I had however never expected from Bach, however well I had studied him. With this I realized what study amounts to when compared with revelation.”30 Carl Dahlhaus supposed that Wagner’s consciousness had been raised either when the two had met in Starnberg in 1864 or in Triebschen in 1867. And Christian Thorau countered that the epiphany could have transpired considerably earlier, as for example when Wagner and Liszt met in

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example 5.16. Comparison of BACH fugal beginnings a. Max Reger, Phantasie und Fuge über den Namen BACH, op. 46 Sostenuto (Nach und nach beschleunigen)

b ( h = 50 ) ‡ ‡‡ & b 23 ‡ ‡‡ ‡‡ ‡‡ Ø (nnr 8 ' ) sempre ben legato ‡ œ œ b œ œ ‡œ n œ b œ wœ Ç b Ç n Ç œ Ç œ œ n # Çœ œ Œœ ? b b 23 w ‡ Ç Ç nÇ Œ Œ b. Schumann, Sechs Fugen über den Namen BACH, op. 60, Fugue no. 1

b &b c

Langsam

‡ ‡

‡ ? bb c Ç Ç Ç nÇ F

‡ ‡ Œ œœ œ Œ n œ œ œ‡œ œ b œ œ œÇ b Ç n Ç œ Çœ n œ œ#œÇ œ œ # œœ œœ œ œ n œœ œn œœ œ ‡‡

‡‡

Zurich in 1856.31 Thorau further argues that during the years in which Wagner worked on Tristan, Wagner revealed his interest in Bach in comments and letters to friends.32 In light of the BACH figures imbedded in Tristan, to say nothing of the contrapuntal intensity evident throughout, Wagner could hardly have waited until the 1860s to gain his revelation about Bach. This conclusion is also warranted from the standpoint of Bach as symbol. The textual associations of the BACH figures in Tristan indicate that already by the time he began composing this opera, Wagner had arrived at an interpretation of Bach that was consistent with the views he subsequently communicated to Cosima in the 1870s. Wagner’s use of the BACH motto in Tristan was far more than an ornamental detail. It was a fundamental pillar of the opera’s musical and dramatic architecture, a chromatic motive that shaped the tonal organization across three scenes. The center of this musical order was the motto BACH sounding repeatedly at its original pitches, at the precise moment that Tristan and Isolde coupled ecstatically. To portray the period of intensifying arousal in the preceding scene, Wagner positioned the love motive in such a way that transpositions of BACH climbed steadily closer to the pitches heard at the lovers’ union (this climb is also of course shared by the love motive in which the BACH figure is embedded). And in the final broken presentation of the motives, all semblance

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of tonal and metrical order vanished. Among the precedents for this long-range motivic planning in a work that references Bach, Schumann’s Second Symphony is prominent. Schumann’s ability to link the movements of this symphony by having themes and motives interact in shifting contrapuntal combinations and to evolve across the boundaries of individual movements is akin to Wagner’s handling of themes and motives from one scene to the next in Tristan. Composed in the immediate aftermath of his BACH fugues, Schumann’s C-major Symphony is a work in which Bach’s influence is particularly strong, as routinely noted by observers from Brahms to the present day.33 Thus the possibility exists that Wagner’s first persuasive example of Bach’s power and continuing relevance for German composers came not from Liszt in Bavaria in the 1860s or Switzerland in the 1850s, but from Schumann in Dresden already in the fall and winter of 1845–46. By crediting Liszt the pianist with showing him the wonders of Bach, Wagner could write Schumann out of his personal autobiographical narrative, a narrative in which Wagner stood as the direct, unchallenged compositional heir of Beethoven and Bach. For him to have acknowledged Schumann’s role in his development would have invited an unwanted and—according to Wagner—unworthy mediator into the tale. Wagner’s stylistic steps forward in 1845–46, the new ability to combine and transform motives that scholars have detected in Lohengrin, would thus have been the first stage of Wagner’s reaction to Bach, his first steps toward the more motivic and contrapuntal language that emerged fully in Tristan. In Wagner’s handling of the BACH motto in Tristan we can read the influence not just of Bach, but also that of the Dresden colleague who had just spent the better part of a year immersed in the recuperative waters of Bach’s counterpoint: Schumann.

chapter 6

Brahms’s Triple Response to the Ninth

The lessons of counterpoint and thematic dispersion that Wagner and Schumann learned from their study of Beethoven’s Ninth were eventually internalized by the next generation of composers. But in the case of Brahms, who briefly had a chance to study with Schumann and for most of his career was an avid student of Wagner’s music, we have the possibility to test the conclusions of the preceding chapters, not merely to look for signs of contrary motion and thematic dispersion—aspects of his style that are self-evident—but to look for signs that he associated these techniques with Beethoven’s Ninth. If what I have proposed about the lessons that Wagner and Schumann learned from Beethoven’s Ninth is correct, then surely Brahms long ago came to similar conclusions and put his insights to work in his own compositions. The first movement of his First Symphony is particularly elaborate in its evocation of the first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth. His was a triple response: in addition to the well-known struggle he had directly with the Ninth, he also grappled with Wagner’s responses and, to a lesser extent, with Schumann’s as well. Nineteenth-century composers famously wrestled with composing a symphony after the Ninth. Mark Evan Bonds has analyzed the efforts of Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, and Mahler, with particular attention to their responses to Beethoven’s choral finale.1 As he and others have observed, the decisions were not limited to whether or not the finale should be choral, vocal, or resolutely instrumental; they also 135

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included the choice to accept or reject Beethoven’s end-driven and triumphal plot structure. Of all the symphonies that came after the Ninth, none confronted Beethoven’s intimidating model more agonizingly than Brahms’s First Symphony, which Hans von Bülow memorably hailed as “the Tenth.” While most commentary has targeted Brahms’s finale, citing structural parallels and particularly the melodic similarities of the finale’s principal theme to the Ode to Joy, it is also the case that the other movements connect to the Ninth. As Theodor Billroth quickly observed, “the whole symphony is founded on a series of moods similar to Beethoven’s Ninth.”2 Indeed, were it not for the overt resemblances of the finale, Brahms’s opening movement alone could have amply justified the symphony’s reputation as Beethoven’s Tenth. It is no less remarkable for its absorption of the Beethovenian techniques evident in the Faust Overture, The Flying Dutchman, and Lohengrin. Among the influences of Beethoven on the first movement, complex counterpoint is easily the most pervasive. Brahms’s contrapuntal bravura in the first movement has been both praised and criticized from the outset. Joseph Joachim doubtless had counterpoint in mind when he wrote a friend (with ambiguous intent), “One doesn’t quite know where the enormous virtuosity of workmanship stops and the music begins.”3 With no equivocation, Eduard Hanslick let it be known that, even for a supporter such as him, he thought Brahms had in this respect gone too far: “We would often give the finest contrapuntal device (and they lie bedded away in the symphony by the dozen) for a moment of warm, heart-quickening sunshine.”4 Many have noted the variety of ways in which Brahms combines the two parts of the main subject, a double theme. It appears in various types of invertible counterpoint, which Beethoven had also employed extensively in his first movement, particularly with regard to the different ideas of the second theme group and in the development. Brahms further subjects both parts of the main theme to inversion, more strictly than Beethoven, who invariably turned to inversion as a means of creating an oppositional accompaniment. To the list of contrapuntal devices in the First Symphony we can add a remarkable percentage of counterpoint by contrary motion. Brahms’s first movement has oppositional counterpoint in 32 percent of its measures, the percentage detected in Beethoven’s first movement. Moreover, this figure also pertains to the Allegro portion of the movement on its own; that is, to the movement that Brahms had completely drafted by 1862. When Brahms later composed the slow introduction, whether by chance or by design, he left that percentage unaltered. The thirty-seven-

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measure introduction has thirteen measures (35 percent) with contrary motion, enough to sustain the 32 percent figure for the entire movement.5 As we observed also in the comparison of Beethoven’s Ninth to his other symphonies, Brahms does not come close to this percentage in the symphonic first movements that he composed later: that of the Second Symphony has 7 percent, the Third has 23 percent, and the Fourth 10 percent. Nor do the symphonic first movements of Mendelssohn or Schumann compare. Brahms’s First is, at least in this regard, anomalous. Appendix 5 provides the details of location and duration of the counterpoint in contrary motion, along with its direction. Brahms did not follow Beethoven’s expansion of contrary motion from section to section within the sonata form. If Brahms’s proportions are Beethovenian, his actual opening statement of contrary motion counterpoint is more Wagnerian. The movement commences with two large arcs, lines that unfold with mirrored upward and downward motion in three registers simultaneously, all starting from the tonic C; the lines step deliberately away from the tonic until both voices have traversed a minor seventh. Then, reversing direction in measure 4, the lines continue (down a ninth, up a diminished twelfth) until they meet to form an F-minor diad in measure 8 before cadencing (example 6.1). In the latter half of these arcs, several leaps to adjacent octaves distract attention away from the progress of what is essentially stepwise motion. The single line above and the parallel thirds below introduce a texture that returns to start the Allegro (m. 38). In this older portion of the movement, evidently largely in place by 1862, it is more appropriate to speak of a wedge than an arc, because the oppositional movement in this chromatic motive is succinct, and except for the last notes, outward moving (example 6.2). When this motive returns at the end of the movement, heard four times successively in ostinato fashion, flats replace sharps. Not surprisingly, Brahms’s contrary motion is generally more rigorous than that of Beethoven, Schumann, and Wagner. Opposing lines mirror each other more precisely, as seen in the following instances: example 6.3 involves lengthy leaps in opposite directions (mm. 63–67); example 6.4 (mm. 258–63) begins a thirty-measure segment of nearly continuous oppositional counterpoint, a segment in which the direction of the wedges alternates between lines that move away from and toward each other; and example 6.5 (mm. 334–41) includes the extraordinary recapitulation. As in Beethoven’s movement, this is the contrapuntal passage that is the freest, but also among the most emphatically

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example 6.1. Brahms, Symphony no. 1, mvt. 1, mm. 1–7, opening wedge as played by 2nd violins, violas and two bassoons, and double basses

b œ #œ œ œ œ. œ œ œ & b b 68 œ . J J f .espr. e legato œœ .. ? b b 68 œœ . # n œœ .. n b œœ œœ b J f legato ? b b 68 œ œ œ œ œ œ Ç!. b f pesante Un poco sostenuto

Vln. II

Bsn.

Db.

Vln. II

Bsn.

Db.

b œ. œ œ œ &bb œ

œ œ. œ œ œ J œ

œœ œœ œœ œœ ..

? b n œœ .. bb ? b Ç!. bb

Ç!.

œ œJ œ n œJ œœ ..

Ç!.

œ œœ œ J œ œ œœ œœ œœ œ Ç!.

œœ ..

œ Jœ œ

bœ J

œœ œœ œœ

œœ ..

Ç!. 98

œ œœ œœ œ œœ œœ n œœ J J

98 98

example 6.2. Contrary motion in the original opening of Symphony no. 1, mvt. 1, Allegro, mm. 38–42 Allegro

Fl.

Ob.

Bsn.

b &bb ‰ b &bb ‰

n œœ .. ƒ n œœ ..

nœ. ? bb ‰ B # œ . b

b œœ .. # œœ .. b œœ .. # œœ ..

n b œœ .. b œœ ..

Ç . œ n œ n œ n ÇÇ .. .. # œ . œ .

œ. œ. œ nœ nœ nÇ. Ç. .. # Ç . #Ç nÇ .. œ .. œ . œ n œ n œ n Ç ..

œœ. J‰ œ. œ‰ J œœ. ‰ J

oppositional. Beginning at the surprise cadential deflection away from the expected and long-prepared resolution to C minor in measure 335, the surprise FG is the beginning of a wedge outward that sees the lower line descend two octaves and more while the upper line ascends chromatically, arriving with the last three notes at the motive that had begun the exposition.

example 6.3. Contrary motion in Symphony no. 1, mvt. 1, mm. 63–67

Fl.

b n # œœ .. &bb ‰

b & b b ‰ n # œœ .. più

Ob.

nœ. ? bb ‰ n œ . b più

Bsn.

più

f

n # œœ .. n œ . n œ.

n n œœ .. # œ . n œ.

n # œœ .. n œ . # œ.

œ n # œ ..

#œ. œ. #œ. œ.

nœ. #œ. nœ. #œ.

nœ. nœ. nœ. nœ.

nœ. nœ.

n # œœ .. n œ n œ ..

f f

n n œœ .. # œ n œ ..

n # œœ .. n œ . # œ.

nœ. # œ.

example 6.4. Contrary motion in Symphony no. 1, mvt.1, mm. 258–63

œ. b b n œœœ ... b &

b œœ .. b œœ ..

? bb œ . b œ.

œ. œ. œ. œ.

œ. n œœœ ...

b œœ .. b œœ ..

œ. n œœœ ...

œ. œ. œ. œ.

b œ. œ. œ. œœœ ... b œœ œ œ œ .

œœ .. œœ ..

. n œœœœ ...

ƒ . . œ. œ b œ œ œœœ œœœ b œœœ œœœ œœœ # œ n œœœ œœœ œ œ bœ œ. œ. #œ.

n œ. n œ. œ. œ œ nœ j œ ‰ ‰ œ

example 6.5. Contrary motion in Symphony no. 1, mvt. 1, recapitulation, mm. 334–41

b œœ œ & b b œœ .. œ S œ œ ? bb œ . œ n œ b b œœœ . œ œ & b b n œ œœ œœ

“ ´ j # œœ . œ œ # œ ‰ ‰ n # œœ œœ œœ #œ ƒ # >œ . n œ œ # œ j ‰ ‰ #œ. #œ # œÿ ´j œœ . œ œœ . œ œ b n œœ œ œœ œœ œœ n J œ ‰ ‰ œœ œœ

´j œ œ œ ‰‰ œœ J ´j œ œ œœ J ‰‰

> > ? b œ. nœ œ #œ œ. b b œ. œ.

´j œœ . œ œ n # œœ œ n œœœ . œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ # J œ ‰ ‰ n œ œ œ

œœ . œ œ # n œœ œœ œœ

>œ . # œ n œ >œ . #œ œ. nœ.

œœ œ

ƒ j bœ ‰ ‰ œ œ œ b œÿ œÿ œ œ ÿ ÿ

b œ´ n >œ . œ bœ ‰ ‰ nœ. œ nœ J

œœœ . œ œ # œœ . œ œ œ œœ œœ # œ œ œ œ œÿ

2

œ œÿ

œ. œ.

œ. # n œœœ œœœ œœœ j ‰ ‰ œ œÿ

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Brahms gleaned more than counterpoint from Beethoven. However prominent the echoes of Beethoven’s C-minor Symphony in the First, they are eclipsed by ideas from the Ninth.6 On a general level, both works have been cited for the ways in which early fragmentary ideas are subsequently fleshed out, either later in the first movement or in another movement.7 Nicholas Cook has noted the avoidance of strong cadences in Beethoven’s first movement and the frequency of important harmonic movement that occurs on weak beats, both of which are also true of Brahms, whose off-beat emphases in the first movement commence already in the first phrase (see example 6.1).8 And more than many minor-mode movements, both movements evoke a predominantly brooding, turbulent character, although Brahms, as we will see, unconvincingly lightens his conclusion with a perfunctory phrase in major mode. Bonds, in discussing the inability of the lyrical theme heard in the development to survive, compares it to the Ninth: “This, too, represents an allusion to Beethoven’s Ninth, whose first movement employs a similar strategy: lyrical ideas appear intermittently, including a faint anticipation of the ‘Ode to Joy’ theme itself (m. 74, m. 339), but these lyrical fragments never fully unfold. Their repeated attempts to assert themselves are always thwarted.”9 Furthermore, the tendency of ideas to be interrupted, most obviously at the beginning of the finale, is also a characteristic of the First. More specifically, Brahms derived several aspects of structure, harmony, and motive from the Ninth. To take them more or less in the order they occur, both Brahms and Beethoven begin their Allegros with uncertain tonality, establish the tonic, and then immediately digress in the same fashion. Beethoven’s tonally ambiguous beginning emphasizes A minor for the first sixteen measures, before arriving at the main theme emphatically in D minor. With no transition, he then swerves in measure 24 to EH major (HII) for three measures, and from there to a diminished seventh based on EJ (see example 6.6a). Rather than resolving up another half step, this chord moves unconventionally to an A7 chord (dominant seventh of D). Brahms emulated all of this, both in the Allegro and in the subsequently added slow introduction (example 6.6b). He began his Allegro with a diminished triad, but soon establishes C minor with a cadence in the fifth measure (m. 42), followed by the main theme. Brahms then recreates Beethoven’s tonal swerve: DH major (HII) played fortissimo, a diminished seventh over DJ (with CH becoming BJ), which leads to the dominant (via C-minor triads). This allegro passage, which without the introduction would occur in measures 16–18, was

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example 6.6. Comparison of progression from HII to diminished-seventh chord to V early in the first movements of Beethoven’s Ninth and Brahms’s First symphonies a. Ninth Symphony, mvt. 1, mm. 23–28

œ j j œœ œœ œœ .. # œœœ ... & b œœ .. • œ . • œ < < ten. S œœ ¯ ¯ ^ ? b œœ .. • œ . • . b œ . œ œ bœ. œ. œ. J œ J Jƒ

Ç Ç œ . œ. J .j œœ .. œ ÇÇ Ç

. . œ. œ b œ œ œœ œœ b œœœ œœ œ .j . œ œ œœ b œœœ œ J

. b œœ œœ

. œœ œœ

´j # œœœ # œ œ . œ œ œ œœœ # œœ .... .. œ. œ œ œ p œ ´j f œ # œ .. # œœœ Ç n œ J œ. œ œ œ ÿ ÿ

œœ œ œ

b. Brahms, Symphony no. 1, mvt. 1, mm. 13–20 of Allegro

“ bb œœœ .œœ œœ #œœœ œ. œ œœ & b œœœ# œ œ œ œ. ? bb œ . b

.j bœ. œ. .j .j j j j bœ. nœ œ. œ œœ ‰ b œœœ ... œœœ b œœ b œœœ ... œœœ œœœ n œœ .. œœ œœœ n œœœ œœœœ n œœœ ‰ ‰ n œœ ‰‰ œ . œ . . . œ. J ƒ j œ . œ n œn œ j j œ ‰‰ b œ n œ ‰ œ. œ œ œj œ ‰ ‰ ? bœ. nœ. œ. œ . & œ . œ. œ œ. œ. œ œ. nœ bœ. nœ. œ . ƒ

important enough to Brahms that when he appended the slow introduction, he recreated it at a similar formal position immediately after the first presentation of the opening theme (mm. 11–13). The sequence of HII to diminished-seventh chord to V stands out both because of the unconventional harmonic sequence and its unexpectedly early formal placement. Brahms adheres to Beethoven’s model yet further by omitting this gesture when the main theme repeats.10 Shared structural patterns also link Brahms to Beethoven in their second theme groups and the arrival at the recapitulation. Beethoven’s second theme group is strikingly fragmented, so much so that the actual beginning of this area in measure 74 sounds less like a second theme, which most accounts place in measure 80, than like a transition or introductory passage. Secondary ideas that appear in measures 88, 92 (the first of the long scalar figures), and 102 (the dotted fanfare motive) only confuse the sense of what might actually have thematic importance. Brahms’s symphony proceeds apace: David Brodbeck observes that the beginning of the second theme group is hardly “clear cut,”

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suggesting three different options: the proper tonal arrival in measure 121, the lyrical theme in measure 130, or the figure for clarinets in measure 148.11 Brahms evidently noticed what many have long heard in the first idea of Beethoven’s second theme group (m. 74), namely, a precursor of the Ode the Joy theme. He emulated this long-range thematic strategy with an idea first presented midway through his second theme area in measure 138. A three-pitch motive played four times in fourteen measures by the clarinet, it returns in the recapitulation on the pitches G–C–B, which are also the first three pitches of his finale’s main theme.12 Brahms not only composed the finale theme as an allusion to the Ode to Joy, he introduced the thematic seed for his theme in the same structural region that Beethoven did, the second theme group of the first movement, as the consequent phrase of an antecedent-consequent pairing. Moreover, he followed Beethoven’s plan for presenting the idea in stages: both composers initially unveil this idea in a flat key (BH and EH) and then in the recapitulation in the tonic (D and C), thereby placing the motive in the key in which the melody will eventually arrive; and in the second theme areas, the idea unfolds antiphonally in winds and horns, dovetailing antecedent and consequent, as compared in example 6.7. At the important structural boundaries considered thus far, Brahms and Beethoven chose to de-emphasize the structural downbeat. The expositions begin off tonic and with motives rather than themes; and the second theme groups avoid strongly defined themes, favoring motivic variety over themes that establish themselves by virtue of length, repetition, and harmonic stability. In both movements, the second theme group is understood to have a tonal beginning that arrives a phrase before what theorists and critics usually designate as the second theme. Brahms and Beethoven avoid cadences which would identify the phrase that follows as significant, as the start of a new paragraph. Beethoven, at least, takes a different approach at the recapitulation. After the cerebral complexities of triple counterpoint in the latter half of the development, there are six bars of crescendo from piano to fortissimo, during which the orchestra descends two octaves (G to G) in unison on sixteenth notes. On the downbeat that follows, basses and bassoons continue down to their cataclysmic FG while all other instruments snap back in an attempt to sound an open fifth, D–A (see example 2.9). Whatever the shock caused by the basses moving up and down two octaves on FG, there is no doubt that the recapitulation has begun. Not so, in Brahms. Although anyone with a score can pick out the exact

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example 6.7. Comparison of first appearance of a motive in the second theme group of movement one that later emerges transformed as the main theme of the fourth movement a. Ninth Symphony, mvt. 1, second theme group, mm. 339–45 Antecedent

Antecedent

# œ # œ œ œ œ n œ n œ œ œ œ #œ œ # œ . œœ .. # œœ n œœ n œœ # œœ œœ œœ œœ # œœ œœ # œœ Œ ‰ nœ #œ œ œ &b p dol. œœ Consequent ?b J‰Œ ‡ & # œ . œ œœ # œœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ œ # œœ œœ œœ #‰œ œ œ # œ œ œ œ œ # œ . œ. œ #œ J b. Brahms’s First Symphony, mvt. 1, motive second theme group, mm.410–14

j œ

Antecedent

b . & b b œœ .

œ. œœ ..

œ œ

‰ œ J

Œ œ.

Consequent

œ. œ. n œœ .. ? b b œ œ œ n n œœ . œ œ œ œ œ b

‰

j œ

Antecedent

n œœ .

œ. n œœ ..

œ œ

‰ œ J

Consequent

œ. œ. n œœ .. œ. œ œ œ n œœ . œ œ n n œœ . œ œ œ œ œ

œ.

n œœœ ..

j œ

œ. œ. œ œ œ n œœ . œ œ

moment when the opening notes of the exposition return in measure 339, the aural experience is intentionally obscured by Brahms. Instead of a cadence, pause, or other marker, Brahms tucks these notes into the end of one of his chromatic wedges (shown in example 6.5). Aurally the moment of return begins only with the double theme set apart by the cadence in measure 343. Once again Brahms has de-emphasized the structural downbeat. Or has he? Beethoven’s precedent is crucial for interpreting Brahms’s strategy at the return to the recapitulation. After seeing the early draft in 1862, Clara Schumann had singled this juncture out for particular praise, writing Joseph Joachim that “in the transition from the second part back to the first he has once more succeeded splendidly.”13 The immediate buildup to the recapitulation consists of a dominant pedal on G for fourteen measures (mm. 321–34), and, as in the Ninth, a flurry of descending sixteenth notes, two octaves and a fifth from D down to G (mm. 327–29), but these rise again on a dominant seventh (mm. 331– 34). As the timpani starts its climactic roll, it is clear the moment of recapitulation is at hand. Seemingly out of nowhere, all instruments

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drop to a low fortissimo FG, and then rebound up an octave—cellos, basses, and contrabassoons leap up a full two octaves—to begin the chromatic wedge. Brahms had prepared this FG meticulously throughout the development section: at the start during seven static measures of B major, the theme repeatedly emphasizes FGs, high and low; in the middle at the chorale-like theme in GH major (mm. 231–42), the basses and cellos descend and ascend two octaves bounded by GHs; and, with greater portent just before the retransition, an eighteen-measure pedal on G ends when the cellos sink down to an FG (mm. 291–94) while the strings come to rest on a B-minor triad and then drop out, leaving cellos and the contrabassoon alone on the low FG. After this cessation of all movement, momentum slowly begins to gather and the retransition builds in volume, register, and imitative swirl. Brahms stokes the tension for some sort of resolution at the onset of the recapitulation. He composes a second pedal on G and a second fall to FG. This FG is an allusion to Beethoven’s Ninth every bit as bold as his finale theme. The structural position of the FG, the ensuing two-octave rebound in the lower strings, the element of surprise—all point to Beethoven as model. Brahms’s challenge, and his achievement, was to integrate an FG into a movement in C minor, obviously a very different feat than forcibly converting D minor to major. Ought this moment then to be considered as the beginning of the recapitulation, rather than the agent of its postponement? Or, given Brahms’s blurring of beginnings in the exposition and development (and also the coda), is this just another structural deflection, a structurally off-beat accent to match the syncopations heard throughout the movement? I lean to the former interpretation, on the strength of the allusive power of his famous model. It is clear enough from nearly a century and a half of analytical commentary that the music alone has not suggested this interpretation. Brahms made a number of other allusions to the Ninth in the first movement that involve motive and harmony. Among those are an allusion to the D-minor, double-dotted principal theme, that descends two octaves in C minor, and as in the Ninth, fortissimo and in multiple parallel octaves (example 6.8); this descending line otherwise appears on diminished sevenths.14 Further, an antiphonal passage in Beethoven that involves a four-note motive ending with an upward jump of a sixth (mm. 59–61) apparently inspired Brahms, who extends the figure by increasing the leap from a tritone, to a fifth, to a sixth. In the Ninth, this passage is played by the full orchestra in four parallel octaves, while in

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example 6.8. Recollection of the Ninth Symphony in Brahms, Symphony no. 1, mvt. 1, mm. 86–89. Strings only.

Vln. I

Vln. II

Vla.

Vc. Db.

œ. œ. . œ . b J œ œ. œ. œj j ‰ &bb ‰ J J . œ. œ. œ. œj j ‰ b b ‰ œJ. œ. œ. b & . œ. J œ. J . œ. œ. . j j B b b b ‰ œj œ. Jœ J œ œ. œ. ‰ . . œ. œ. œ œ. œ. œ. œ. J J ? b b ‰ œJ. J J ‰ b

´j ‰ nœ ‰ œœ ´j ‰ nœ ‰ œœ n œ´ ‰ œœ ‰ J ´ ‰ j‰ œ

´j ‰ œœ ‰ œ ´j ‰ œ ‰ œ œ œ´ ‰ œœ ‰ J ´j ‰ œ ‰

‰ ‰ ‰ ‰

Brahms it plays out across three octaves, leading in to descending arpeggiated diminished sevenths (example 6.9).15 Far richer in its symbolic import is the one instance in the First Symphony in which Brahms resorts to the opening chord of Beethoven’s finale. Toward the end of the development section in the midst of the retransition, Brahms builds dramatically from a point of quiet repose to a moment of maximum tension. The rising, crossing, syncopated polyphonic lines build to a summit that has been termed “excruciating,” the pivotal moment that “unleashes” the violent downward rush to the recapitulation.16 The chord is Beethoven’s, transposed to C minor with a dissonant AH, presented as ever in inversion, distributed broadly over four octaves—a tonic chord devoid of tonic stability. The timpani reenter at just this moment, pounding the rhythm of Beethoven’s Fifth (example 6.10). By positioning this chord so early in the four-movement work, Brahms reveals he has a very different dramatic trajectory than Beethoven’s. While Beethoven’s chord had derived some of its power to shock by following the slow movement, in Brahms’s development section it follows an incremental and remarkable buildup of polyphonic tension. The many ties between Brahms’s first movement and Beethoven’s are summarized in table 6.1.

brahms responding to wagner By the time that Brahms finished a draft of the first movement in 1862, Wagner had composed the three works of his that we have linked to the Ninth. Because most of the Beethovenian elements that Brahms

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example 6.9. Comparison of similar motives a. Ninth Symphony, mvt. 1, mm. 55–63

&b ?b

j œ ‰ • œbœ œ. b œ. œ. S . œ. ‰ • œ b œ. œbœ œ J

j œœ ‰ • œœ œœ œœ b & œ. œ. œ. œ. S ? b ¨œœ ‰ • œœ. œœ. œœ. œ œ œœ J

œ œ.

œ. œ

r“ œ œ. b œ. œ. œœ b œœ S œ œ. œœ b œœ œ . b œ. R

r “ œ œ. . œ. œœ œœ œ S. œ œ &œ œ R œœ œœ . .

œ. œ ‰ J

œœ. œ

œœ œ.

&

j œ ‰ œ.

?

j nœ ‰ • œ œ œ œ. œ. œ n œ. . S j n œ ‰ • œ. œ. œ. œœœ n œ.

r “ . œœ œœ # œœ œ œœ. œ. # œ. œ œ œ œ œ œ œ. œ # œ . œ œ # œ R œœ. . . S. r r . œ œ ? œœ. œœ. # œœ. œ œ œ œ ? œœœ & œœ œ œ œ # œ R œ œ # œœ œ œ. œ. # œ . œ. . . œ. œœ. œ œR

r“ # œ œ. . # œ. œœ œœ œ S œ # œ. œœ œœœ #œ . . R

œœ. œ

œœ œ.

# œ. #œ ‰ J j ‰ # œ.

& #œ

œœ œœ œ œ œ œ. œ œ. œœ œ œ n œœ œœ œœœ œœ œ . œ œœ œœ S. œœ. œœ. œœ #œ œ œ œ œ œœ œœ œœ # œœ œœ œœ œœ œ œ œ #œ

?

Ç Ç S • Ç Ç

b. Brahms, Symphony no. 1, mvt. 1, mm. 159–65

b . . . & b b bœ œ œ Œ ‰ n œœ cresc. . molto Œ b œj . . ‰ œœ ? bb b œ ‰ ‰bœ œ œ . .

b œ. œ. œ. bœ œ œ Œ ‰ . Œ b œj . . ‰ œœ œ ‰ ‰bœ œ . . .

b œ. œ. œ. n œ>œ .. b œ œ n œœ .. ƒ bœ œ j j ‰ b Jœ œ bb œœ œ œ.

b œ. œ. œ. b œœœ ... bœ œ œ bœ. S j œ bœ œ. œ. œ bœ œ. œ.

b œ. œ. œ. >œœœ ... bœ œ œ œ. œ. œ.

œœœ œ

œ. œ. œ œ œ b œ. œœ œ. œ. j œ œ œ œœ œ œ œ J

b œœ S bœ bœ

incorporated into his First Symphony had also appeared in Wagner’s compositions, we must necessarily ask what, if any, influence Wagner may have had on the various allusions to the Ninth present in Brahms’s first movement. To what extent was Brahms alluding to both Beethoven and Wagner? Is there any reason to conclude that Brahms was aware of Wagner’s debts? Scholars have sharpened the critique of the ways in which the First Symphony constitutes not only a response to Beethoven, but also a direct engagement with Wagner. By alluding so obviously to the Ode to Joy and yet doing so without following his model into the realm of choral music, Brahms is now understood to have rejected the Ninth as the

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example 6.10. C-minor version of the Schreckensfanfare chord in Brahms, Symphony no. 1, mvt. 1, mm. 318–21

Timp.

Vln. I

Vln. II

Vla.

Vc.

Db.

? &

bbb

œ

b Ç. &bb @ b & b b n@Ç .

? bb œ . b

? b œ. bb

‡ ‰

#œ

nœ.

B

œ. œ.

# ÇÇ .. @ nÇ. Ç. @ œ œ

‡ ‰

nœ.

‰ nœ. ‰ nœ.

Œ ‰ œ œœ œ ƒ bœ. œ nœ. ‰ ƒ œ. Ç. œ. nÇ. @ ƒ. Ç. œ œ ‰ Ç. J @ ƒ nœ œ. ‰ ‰ œ. J ƒ nœ œ. œ. ‰ œ. ƒ

‰ œ œ œ œ. œ œ œ œ. œ œ œ œ.

œ. ‰ J ‰ ‰ œ. ‰ J ‰ ‰ œ. œ .

beginning of a “path” that he was bound to pursue. Reinhold Brinkmann’s analysis of Brahms’s finale brilliantly details the ways in which Brahms thwarts his finale theme from becoming heroic or triumphal in the manner of Beethoven: “the ‘Beethovenian’ theme is substituted, repudiated in an eventful way. It never manages to develop a principal theme’s recapitulatory function; and marking the finale’s, and so the symphony’s, climax is denied it. Other themes with other connotations, the alphorn call and the (Protestant) chorale, take its place. . . . Both the association with and the detachment from Beethoven can thus be understood as a deliberate and emphatic act.”17 Bonds extends these thoughts to include Wagner: “By incorporating an unmistakable paraphrase of the ‘Ode to Joy’ into the finale of his own First Symphony, Brahms created a musical response to Wagner and the New German School that at once challenged their claim on the Ninth and at the same time allowed him both to embrace and distance himself from that very work.”18 He concludes that the First “is not so much an instrumental reworking of the Ninth as a critique of its very premise, implicitly arguing that voices are not necessary for the ‘redemption’ of instrumental music from its supposed limitations.”19 The exaggerated nature of Wagner’s disdain for Brahms’s symphony may indicate that Wagner clearly understood it as a pointed response not only to Beethoven

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table 6.1 shared traits of the first movements of beethoven’s ninth and brahms’s first symphonies General traits 1. repeated avoidance of strong cadences 2. weak beat accents, obscuring of down beats 3. contrapuntal richness invertible counterpoint motivic inversions much contrary motion counterpoint (32%) Specific traits Exposition: 1. Allegro begins with ambiguous tonality 2. early tonal swerve to HII 3. descending triadic arpeggio idea in parallel octaves 4. arrival at 2nd theme group is ambiguous 2nd theme group introduces a motive that prepares the main theme of finale; this motive is introduced in an antecedent-consequent format 2nd theme group themes developed in invertible counterpoint 5. three descending notes and a leap up a minor sixth, antiphonally, in parallel octaves 6. diminished 7th wedge (closing group idea) Development: 7. lyrical idea thwarted and fragmented (in the Ninth in the second theme group) 8. extended quiet section 9. opening chord of Ninth finale occurs in Brahms’s retransition Recapitulation: 10. Retransition to the recapitulation and then an unexpected FG at the start of the recapitulation 11. leaps of a tenth up in cellos and basses, with syncopation Coda: 12. ostinatos

but to him, and that he recognized in the symphony several potential appropriations of his own work. Among Brahms’s possible models are the remains of Wagner’s unfinished Faust Symphony. Brahms’s first movement and the Faust Overture both begin with a slow introduction that presents a variant of the Allegro theme over a tonic pedal in the timpani, followed after a pause by a second pedal on the dominant. Introductory material from each later returns in mid-movement to be developed in preparation for the reca-

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example 6.11. Brahms’s allusion to Wagner’s Faust Overture, and its allusion to the Ninth in Symphony no. 1, mvt. 4, mm. 226–33 (also mm. 101ff)

> œ. & œœ ‰ b # œœœ J >œ ? j‰ œ œ.

b >œœœ œ

>œ œœ

œœœ .. œ ..

œ œ. œ œœœ ... J

ƒ œ #œ œ œ. # >œ >œ œ œ œ . œ œœ. œœ. # # œœ > # >œ œœœ .. œ œ & œ .. J œœ #œ f # œ. . œ ? œ œ ÇÇ œ œ ‰ # œJ œ ‰ œ œ J œ. œ.

> œ

œ œ .. œ œœ . J ‰ jœ œ Ç œ œ Ç œ œ œ œ # >œ #œ

œ œ J j œ œ

> # >œ >œ œ #œ œ œ

œœœ. œ

œœ .. œ.

œ œ.

œ. œ œ œ. œ œ

>œ œœ

œ œœ .. œ œœ .. J

j œ œ œ œ

œ œ J

j j j ‰ # œ œ ‰ ‰ # œ œj ‰ ‰ j j # œ. œ # œ œ œ . . œ. œ. œ .

pitulation. In Brahms this occurs sixty-seven measures before the end of his development section (m. 273), in Wagner forty-nine (m. 270). More suggestive of a direct (rather than generic) influence is Brahms’s unexpected retreat to major mode at the conclusion of the movement. His puzzlingly brief turn to C major at the last moment replicates several aspects of Wagner’s modal shift at end of the Faust Overture. Wagner finishes with nine measures of D major, Brahms with seven of C major, and both avoid a closing V–I cadence. Over a tonic pedal Brahms moves plagally from a D half-diminished seventh (third inversion) to a C-major triad, while Wagner takes a similar path, a plagal cadence (IV–I) over a tonic pedal. Brahms begins the modal shift to C major with the Meno Allegro in the last seventeen measures; Wagner also begins his shift to a major-mode ending seventeen measures before the end, when he surprisingly harmonizes the sustained CG as the root of a major triad (see example 3.3). Both Brahms and Wagner lead into the final chord with violins climbing two or three octaves out of their lowest register (G and GG respectively). In another reference to Wagner, Brahms nearly quotes one of the Faust Overture’s strongest allusions to Beethoven in his finale. Wagner’s allusion in the recapitulation to Beethoven’s dotted D-minor principal theme included Beethoven’s injection of contrary-motion counterpoint. Brahms mimics several aspects of Wagner’s allusion to Beethoven (compare example 6.11 with example 3.5): he precedes the descending and rising themes with the same diminished seventh (CG–E–G–BH), ascends

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example 6.12. Expanding motive in The Flying Dutchman, act II, sc. 2

E.

b bœ & b ‰ J Jœ b b ÓÇ &b Ç f >> bÇ ? bb Ç Ó

œ J

Du willst mich

nÇ

œ nÇ J fliehn? Du weichst mir aus? . . n œœ Œ b ÓÇÇ n œœ Œ n œœ n œœ .. . > > f f œœ œœ b ÇÇ œ Œ œ Œ Ó . ‰ b œJ

œ J

‰ b œJ œ J

b ÓÇÇ >> b ÇÇ Ó

œ J

bw

Du willst mich fliehn?

b ww ÇÇÇ nw Ç ƒ ww ÇÇ Ç

ÇÇÇ Ç ÇÇ Ç

from low F in cello and bass two octaves upward, forming a third (F–A) with the bottom note of the upper strings. Wagner wrote a second converging wedge, several more short sequential wedges, and then a twomeasure wedge made up of seven successive thirds. Brahms also ends with a diverging wedge, but this is an aural and visual feint; in fact, both lines descend through seven successive thirds. The upper line rises by alternating descending thirds with ascending leaps of a sixth. Brahms proceeds to further iterations of this sequence, varied in part through invertible counterpoint. I suspect, however, that Wagner would have noticed stronger connections between the first movement of Brahms’s First and The Flying Dutchman. In several passages in the development Brahms appears to allude simultaneously to Beethoven and to Wagner. The antiphonal four-note motive shown above in example 6.9b because of its allusion to Beethoven, is, precisely in the way that Brahms alters Beethoven, also strongly reminiscent of the act III duet between Senta and Erik. In Brahms’s transformation as it appears in the development, this passage recalls Erik’s notes when he realizes that Senta will leave him for the Dutchman, as he sings “You want to flee from me?” (Du willst mich fliehn? To which Senta replies, “Ach, lass mich fort!”). The extension of the motive from the tritone BH–EJ to the minor sixth BH–GH virtually quotes Wagner (compare examples 6.9b and 6.12). Accounts of Brahms’s first movement often describe the movement as a scherzo or as scherzo-like because of its 86 meter. But in spirit, mode, meter, tempo, figuration, and harmonic goals, it is far closer to the Dutchman’s bleak aria, “Wie oft in Meeres tiefsten Schlund.” In the first portion of this 86 C-minor aria, where the Dutchman describes his unsuccessful attempts to end his life, Wagner ventures to two distant keys that are

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also goals for Brahms in the development: GH major and B minor/major; moreover, the midpoint of this aria—the brief passage between verse one and its varied repetition—sputters to a quiet pause on the note B, from which point Wagner (and the Dutchman) gradually revives, very much in the way that Brahms, in the heart of his development section, brings forward motion to a halt on a B-minor triad and low FG and then inexorably builds in volume and register. The goal of Brahms’s prolonged crescendo is a particular dissonant sonority, the C-minor version of Beethoven’s Schreckensfanfare chord, but that chord in the version that Wagner had used in “Wie oft in Meeres tiefsten Schlund.” Placed near the end of the development section, that pivotal, climactic chord uses much the same spelling and orchestration that Wagner had employed to begin the Dutchman’s aria: timpani sustaining the dominant along with C horns on their octave Gs, and bassoons in the thick of it on middle C and EH (compare examples 2.3 and 6.10). Later, at the end of this 276-measure scene, Wagner recycles his conclusion for the Faust Overture, briefly and unexpectedly shifting to the tonic major at the Dutchman’s exclamation “Eternal annihilation, take me!” (Ew’ge Vernichtung, nimm mich auf!). His despondent cry precipitates a sudden brilliant shift to triads on C major (four measures), F minor (second inversion, four measures), and C major (five measures). This is the minor plagal cadence used by Brahms at the end of the first movement, lacking only a D in the middle chord. Additionally, Brahms echoes a complex gesture from the Dutchman’s aria. A six-measure passage near the start of the aria resembles an analogous moment in Brahms’s slow introduction (example 6.13). Once again Brahms emulates formal function as well as motive; the two passages serve the same syntactic purpose: the first two measures are a bridge between a diminished seventh (B–D–F–AH) and the arrival of the theme. A unison line descends two octaves from AH to begin the principal idea, or in Brahms’s case, a precursor of his main theme which in this incarnation with sixteenth notes resembles the Dutchman’s undulating figure. At the thematic beginning in the third measure, the dynamics shift from loud to soft and then crescendo as the line returns upward. Brahms, like Wagner, writes unison for all strings, oscillating back and forth an octave between two Gs. Brahms’s interest in the Dutchman’s aria may stem from this being one of the moments in The Flying Dutchman when Wagner’s counterpoint and his Faustian program were most indebted to the first movement of the Ninth. Allusions to the Tristan Prelude have been detected in the First Symphony, convincingly in the Andante sostenuto slow movement, where

example 6.13. Comparison of gesture, texture, and formal function a. Brahms, Symphony no. 1, mvt. 1, slow introduction, mm. 18–25

œ œœ J f ? bb œ b œ b &bb

b œœœ œœ œ œ b œ œ œ j œ œ œ bœ œ œ. œ œ dim. œ œ bœ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ bœ b œœœ œœœ J œ Ç. œ. œ. œ œ œ œ œ œ

œ

j œ

œ œ

œ

Ç. œ œ œ œ œ œ

œ œ œ. œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ. & œ œ œ œœ œœœ œ œ œ ƒ cresc. ? bb b Ç. œ. œ. œ. œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ. bbb

b. Wagner, The Flying Dutchman, act I, no. 2, “Wie oft in Meeres tiefsten Schlund,” introduction.

H.

H.

? bb

‡

‡

b

b Ç. & b b @Ç . f b œœ .. ? bb Œ ‰ # œ . b . ? bb œ b

œ œ Œ ‰ œ œ œ nœ œ ! ! !œ n!œ !œ ƒ œ! œ nn œœœ nœ ‰ Œ œ‰ œ n œ œœ ! ! ! œ

b &bb œ œ œœ œ œ ? bb œ œ œ œ œ b œ Mee

-

œ J

res

œ

tief

-

œ J

‡

Œ

Holländer

œ J

œ

œ J

´ Œ j œ œ #œ œ œ nœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ .. p f j œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ #œ œ œ nœ œ œ œ œ ! ! ÿ œÿ

œ.

sten Schlund

´

œœœ j œ œ œ #œ œ œ nœ œ œ >œ œ œ œ œœ .. fœ p œ œj œ œ œ œ œ œ œ # œ œ œ n œ

Wie

oft

in

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example 6.14. Comparison of motives a. Tristan, act III, sc. 1, mm. 690–93, at “Die alte Weise”

T

bb &bb

Œ ‰ n œj b œ .

‡

Die al

bb Ç œ œ œ. &bb Ç p f ? bb b œ n œ b œ œ b bœ œ œ bœ Ç nÇ Eng. Hn.

-

j œ œ

œ œ œ ‰ ‰œ j J œ J

te Wei - se

sagt mir's

œ œ œ. œ bœ

dim.

j œ

œ bœ bœ œ œ œ œ bœ nœ œ œ œ

œ.

j nœ Ó

wie - der:

œ . b œj œ .

j œ

bœ œ Ç bÇ œ œ

b. Brahms, Symphony no. 1, mvt. 1, mm. 134–39.

j œ bœ. b &bb ‰ Oboe

œ.

œ.

bœ.

bœ.

œ bœ. œ J œ.

j œ œ Œœ ‰ œ b œ œ J . œ ‰

b j œ . œœ .. b ÇÇ .. b b n ÇÇÇ .. & b b œ n ÇÇ .. œ. œ. œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ. œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ . œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ . œ œ

Wagner’s opening motive retains its character and tempo; and Robert Fink has attempted to make a more difficult case for a relationship between the Prelude and the beginning of the first movement.20 Later in the first movement, Brahms seems to have alluded to a contrapuntal pair of motives, underlining the resemblance by using the same pitches and orchestration. Two motives in the second theme group are associated with the shepherd’s tune, “Die alte Weise,” the motive shown above in example 6.7 and its accompanying segment that alternates descending tritones with rising fourths.21 Brahms assigns this moment to oboe and Wagner to English horn and even uses the same pitches for one statement (example 6.14). This reference to “Die alte Weise” augments those to the Faust Overture and to The Flying Dutchman. Brahms communicated his admiration for The Flying Dutchman, once calling it “the best thing Wagner has done.”22 The realization of the multifarious ways in which The Flying Dutchman incorporates elements of the Ninth provides an explanation for why Brahms held it in such high esteem. And Brahms’s

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recollections of it and of the Ninth further suggest that he may have intended his First to send a series of messages to Wagner; firstly and most basically, that Brahms was as keen a student of Beethoven as Wagner, and therefore as worthy an heir. Critics of the time who chided Brahms for composing Beethoven’s Tenth completely overlooked the extent to which he was also writing Wagner’s First, showing Wagner what he might have made of his abandoned symphony. The “alte Weise” reference potentially demonstrated to Wagner that there was much yet to be done with the “old tunes,” and that if Wagner could turn symphony into opera, Brahms could reverse the process. At the same time, whatever anxiety Beethoven’s shadow may have caused Brahms, it was doubtless compounded by a desire to compose something as worthy of the Ninth as The Flying Dutchman.

brahms responding to schumann Brahms undoubtedly recognized the various musical sources of Schumann’s Second Symphony, and his First Symphony amply proclaims his admiration for Schumann’s reworking of Beethoven. Brinkmann cites two aspects of Schumann’s finale that inspired Brahms, “the strategy of a new theme to replace the symphonic main idea, and the instrumental realization of the vocal collectivity in the tutti close”; that is, the supplanting of choir with a lyrical song melody played orchestrally.23 And Brodbeck has fruitfully compared the intricate motivic transformations that occur in Schumann’s symphony between his slow Bach-inspired C-minor third movement and his joyous C-major finale with those that Brahms devised in his finale between the slow C-minor introduction and the C-major Allegro that it prepares.24 As he had with Wagner’s Faust Overture and The Flying Dutchman, Brahms also incorporated elements of Schumann’s Second into his First. In the draft of the first movement that he completed in 1862, Brahms appears to have originally intended to launch his symphony with a recollection of Schumann’s finale, the movement in which the derivation from Beethoven was most tangible. The first phrase of his first movement Allegro, shown in example 6.15, adapts the gestural and harmonic plan of Schumann’s beginning. An opening fanfare in both movements starts on the tonic C, and quickly moves upward, stepping chromatically through CG (in m. 2) to D. Both have a secondary dominant (V of V) as a harmonic goal in the third measure, resolving to the dominant (m. 4), before continuing (m. 5).

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example 6.15. Comparison of motives and movement beginnings a. the beginning of Schumann, Second Symphony, Finale b. Brahms, the originally planned beginning of his Symphony no. 1. Allegro molto vivace

&

?

C

Ç f C Ç Ç

b 6 &bb 8

Allegro

? b b 68 b

^ ^ Ç #Ç œ œ œ œ œœœ Ç #Ç ^ ^ œ Ç #Ç œ œ œ œ œ œœ

^ Ç Ç ^ Ç

n b œœ .. œœ ..

.. # œ œ ..

n œœ .. Œ ‰ œ. f ƒ ‰ ‰ j & # n œœ .. œ œ

b œœ .. # œœ .. # œœœ ... œ . # œ . ..

ÇÇ ÇÇ

# ÇÇ Ç

ÇÇ Ç

Ç Ç

œ . œ n œ n œ n œœœ ... œœ .. n œœ .. j

?œ

œ.

‰ ‰

Œ Œ

œœ .. œ b œ œ œ œœœ ... œ J ‰

j œ ‰ ‰ j‰ ‰ œ œ. œ.

j œœ ‰ œ.

Brinkmann astutely observed that Schumann’s symphony was as much a point of departure for Brahms as Beethoven’s, that “Brahms adopted the formal model provided by Schumann, [but] not the meaning contained by it.”25 Brinkmann distinguished between a public and communal voice (Brahms and his invocation of a chorale) and one that is private and intimate (Schumann and his allusion to Beethoven’s love song). But Brahms also departs from both Schumann and Beethoven by maintaining the minor mode and contrary-motion counterpoint (as seen, for example, in the allusion to Wagner in example 6.11). At the very outset he signals his more pessimistic course, diverging from Schumann’s joyous fanfare in two telling aspects. Instead of one voice ascending, Brahms adds a second oppositional voice, countering the ascent, that which has been compared to the beginning of Tristan; and while Schumann continues ebulliently up to FG and G, Brahms veers away, throwing an FJ into his G triad, forcing a downward resolution back down to C. In the recapitulation the ascending line fails even make it that far, cresting at D, as it does repeatedly in the ostinato at movement’s end. To adapt the fanfare beginning of a finale at the outset of a first movement, and in so doing, to begin a symphony with a tempered recollection of a triumphal conclusion, served multiple purposes. Locally Brahms reinforced his allusion to the Schreckensfanfare chord in

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the middle of his first movement development (see example 6.10), another finale-derived moment for his beginning. More distantly, by beginning with Schumann’s finale he also emulated Schumann’s adaptation of Beethoven’s Schreckensfanfare at the start of his Overture to Scenen aus Goethes Faust. The gesture announces both the new work’s pedigree and the composer’s intent to venture toward a different conclusion; in contrast, works like The Flying Dutchman or Mendelssohn’s Reformation Symphony, both of which imitate the start of Beethoven’s first movement, leave open the possibility of following Beethoven’s model to the end. Still more broadly, by commencing his First Symphony with a fanfare borrowed from a finale, Brahms encapsulated in one gesture what his symphony as a whole proclaims: I take as my starting point the conclusions of Beethoven’s Ninth and two of its most reverent offspring, Schumann’s Second and Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman. Before Brahms’s First Symphony no surviving work of his employs contrary-motion counterpoint so intensively in combination with other elements of the Ninth. But it is evident from what remains of Brahms’s first symphonic attempt in the mid-1850s that he was already aware of Beethoven’s oppositional counterpoint well before he drafted the first movement of his symphony in 1862. The D-minor first movement of his First Piano Concerto, composed in 1856–57, begins as does the Ninth with extended passages for lines moving forcibly downward, and as the movement progresses contrary motion emerges. Although the recapitulation does not emulate the violent intrusion of the low FG, Brahms works in that gesture, too. Just thirty-three measures from the end of the movement, after an extended period in which it appeared that Brahms had settled permanently into the tranquility of D major, the music returns abruptly to D minor and builds in seven più agitato measures to a final reprise of the opening theme, this time presented with the pianist pounding upward-leaping arpeggios on FG, moving up two octaves (example 6.16). Brahms successfully captures Beethoven’s message that, however boisterous they may be, these FGs are transitory, fleeting, if not altogether illusory, at least within the confines of this movement. They disappear within four measures but promise much for the movements to come. The finale owes its formal structure to the rondo finale of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto, as Charles Rosen persuasively demonstrated.26 Yet in this movement the counterpoint moves pervasively in contrary

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example 6.16. FG leaps in Brahms, Piano Concerto no. 1, mvt. 1, mm. 450–52, arranged for two pianos

. . # œ. œ. œ . œ. œ. œ. œ œ œ œ œœ. #œ œ œœ œœ œ #œ œ #œ &b œ # œ. S # œ. . . œ . . . . ƒ . œ. # œ œ . œ. # œ œ . ? b œœ œ # œ œ œ œœ œ # œ œ œœ # œ œ ## œœ # œ. œ. . >Ç Orchestra œœ´ ÇÇ ... ÇÇ ? b ÇÇ .. Ç. Ç &œ ƒ´ œ >Ç . ? b œ Œ Œ œ Œ œ # ÇÇ .. œ. œ. Solo Piano

I

II

. # œ. œ # œ. œœ œ # œ œ œ œ J ‰Œ œ. # œ. .

. # œ. œ # œ. œ œ # œ œ œ œ œ J ‰Œ œ. # œ. . >Ç ÇÇ

#Ç. # >Ç .

# >œ #œ

. . # œ. # œ. œœ # œ . œ . œ # œ. # œ œ. # œ. # œ # œ œ œ œ J ‰ œ #œ . œ. # œ # œ. # œœ œ œ # œ œ # œ ## œœ # œ œ. œ. œ J ‰ œ. # œ. . . ´ œ´ # ## œœœ œ Œ Ó > # # ÇÇÇ ...

Ç >Ç

example 6.17. Contrary motion in Brahms, Piano Concerto no. 1, mvt. 2, beginning

Vln.

Bsn.

Vc. Db.

con sord. # . œ œ œ Ç #œ Ç œ œ œ œ œ œ œ Ç œ & # 46 Ç Ç œ p espr. e legato œœ œœ œœ ÇÇ .. œ œœ œ œ œ œ ÇÇ œœ ÇÇ ? # # 6 œ œ œ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œ œ 4 p legato ? ## 6 w . w. w. Ç. œ œ œ 4 p

Ç. œœ œœ Ç.

motion for the first theme group, extending without a break through the first eighteen measures. So, too, does the beginning of the slow movement, which anticipates to a remarkable degree the slow introduction Brahms later fashioned for his First Symphony (compare examples 6.17 and 6.1). Numerous aspects of Brahms’s symphonic introduction are present: two bassoons moving in parallel thirds by step down a seventh and then back up a greater distance, an opposing single line also moving by step, and to support them both, a tonic pedal. The pedals create a dissonant cluster with the descending bassoons as they reach

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the bottom of their arc, with one of the descending notes crossing beyond the pedal and one stopping just short of it. Having reached this point of maximum separation, the lone upper voice and the paired thirds begin to close the distance between them, until they meet to form a third. Whether Brahms was making some personal (autobiographical) connection between these two movements, or establishing a musical link between his First Symphony and his First Piano Concerto, or strategically reworking an opening gesture he found particularly effective, the relevant point here is that he already knew a great deal about counterpoint in contrary motion by the mid-1850s. Schumann was unquestionably his link to the revelations of 1845–46. Many of the analytical insights in this and the preceding chapters have been spurred by comparisons of works that were created in response to the Ninth. While individual comparisons between these works and the Ninth have long traditions, it is less common to compare one of the Ninth’s musical descendants to another, excepting Schumann’s Second and Brahms’s First. But several aspects of the Faust Overture, such as its handling of contrary motion and its abrupt concluding shift to a plagal ending in major, may have provided musical material for Brahms. Further, the several events shared by The Flying Dutchman and Brahms’s First include a C-minor version of the Schrekensfanfare chord and the tonal goals of B minor/major and GH major in the context of a C-minor work, the latter creating opportunities for strategic handling of the notes FG and GH. Of all of the resonances to other compositions that Brahms imbedded in the first movement of his First Symphony, one gesture stands out for its ability to reference multiple works: the leaping FGs that mark the beginning of Brahms’s recapitulation draw most significantly on the octave jumps in Beethoven’s own first-movement recapitulation, but also on their subsequent appearance in his choral finale, in the last movement of Schumann’s Ouverture, Scherzo and Finale, and also in Lohengrin, where, parodied, they accompany a defeated Telramund as he laments that his “sword lies smashed.” Brahms incorporated references to Schumann’s Second Symphony alongside numerous reminiscences of Wagner. His purpose in this seems anything but benign. His achievement in the First Symphony was the fashioning of his own distinct symphonic voice by skillfully integrating three others: the Ninth, Schumann’s Second, and various works of Wagner that were indebted to the Ninth but also substantially to late Schumann. If I am correct that Wagner included in Tristan several ideas he

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appropriated from Schumann, and also that their approaches to counterpoint and motive coincided after 1845, then Brahms’s own inspired mixing of Schumann and Wagner may be read as a defense of Schumann. Keenly alert to life’s ironies, Brahms had recognized that however much Wagner slandered late Schumann with his words, he drew him close with his music.

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Wagner and Schumann

For the stylistic changes that Wagner and Schumann made in the year 1845–46, the two musical lessons of the Ninth examined in this book were equally important. Both counterpoint by contrary motion and thematic dispersion manifested themselves in stylistically important ways. Contrary motion could serve as a musical technique in the construction of a phrase and also as a musical topic, either for military conflict or sacred power; but it could also function as an element of musical order, as when Beethoven steadily increased the density of contrary motion in the formal sections of his first movement, or as when Schumann divided the finale of his Second Symphony into segments with much oppositional movement and with little. None of these roles, obviously, excludes the others. And thematic dispersion could mean, as it did initially for Wagner, the distribution of elements of the Ninth throughout The Flying Dutchman. This allowed him to “unify” his opera, imbuing his Faustian composition with symbolic import, and at the same time, to realize the dramatic potential he felt to be latent in the Ninth. Thematic dispersion could also refer to the breaking up of a climactic theme into motivic segments to be developed from the beginning of a multimovement work onward, as Wagner understood Beethoven to have done in the Ninth, as Schumann did in his Second, and Brahms in his First. In this way thematic dispersion led first to thematic transformations in Schumann and eventually to the enhanced motivicity that characterizes the later works of Wagner and Brahms. 160

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As we now attempt to ascertain whether Schumann enlightened Wagner or Wagner Schumann, there seems little reason to doubt that for thematic dispersion, at least, Wagner had come to his understanding of Beethoven’s methods earlier than did Schumann. Schumann’s First Symphony does not compare to his Second in the preparation and development of ideas from movement to movement. No extended work that he had composed before the Second Symphony remotely approaches what Wagner achieved in The Flying Dutchman. But with regard to who first discovered what Beethoven had done in the Ninth Symphony with contrary motion and how it contributed to an interpretation of the symphony, Schumann might appear to have the greater claim, because of the intensive counterpoint studies that he had pursued for much of 1845. He completed his studies of Cherubini’s treatise on 14 November and the sixth of his BACH fugues eight days later. It is no exaggeration to say that in these weeks he was steeped in counterpoint. One of the clearest signs that Schumann understood Beethoven’s counterpoint is his revised Finale of the Ouverture, Scherzo and Finale, a revision he accomplished between 9 and 20 October. Schumann’s virtuoso combination of voices moving in contrary motion and his conflation of not only Beethoven’s oscillating FGs, but also the contrapuntal wedge that leads into them, seems a euphoric application of his studies of Beethoven and Cherubini. Although Wagner had made a few musical sketches for Lohengrin in early October, and had completed the verse draft of Lohengrin by 27 November, he didn’t actually begin active composition of the music until May 1846, following his performance of Beethoven’s Ninth.1 Schumann, moreover, may have been able to suggest to Wagner the essential elements of Wagner’s programmatic narrative for the Ninth. He was intimately aware of a potential model for this narrative because he had published it several years before in his journal, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. In the summer and fall issues of 1838, the NZfM ran an extended series of dueling analytical studies of the Ninth Symphony written by two friends of Schumann, Herrmann Hirschbach and Georg Dietrich Otten.2 The articles were illustrated with musical excerpts and many additional references to specific pages and measures in the first-edition orchestral score. On the one side was Hirschbach, a formidable chess player and inconsequential composer, drily identifying the important themes and concluding that the first movement was not Beethoven’s finest: “the theme in itself is in no way excellent; it does however announce that the character of the first movement is

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energetic.”3 On the other side, passionately defensive of Beethoven and of the extraordinary merits of his first movement was the music director (and future supporter of Brahms), Otten, who signed himself cryptically as “Hr. ‘O’ from Hamburg.” Otten took a more poetic approach, describing the first movement in terms of highly dramatic images, as a battle between heaven and earth. Otten begins by characterizing the first theme as possessing “heroic power, manly gravity, yes almost a tragic demise.”4 When Beethoven introduces contrary motion (mm. 64–66, shown in example 2.7), Otten calls attention to this Gegenbewegung as “outstandingly beautiful” (ausgezeichnet schön).5 With the arrival at the development section, Otten’s excitement intensifies, step by step with Beethoven’s music: Now it really gets going. Just listen to the announcing A of the trumpets, which is now assisted by the timpani. Do you not see it stepping in, do you not feel it tremble at the step of the hero’s, who will descend before our eyes, struggling violently? Right at pg. 14 in the fifth measure the FG in the bass . . . this indescribably beautiful FG presses in like a beam of light and satisfies with gentle tremors.6

Otten notes how the double basses move in contrary motion, pizzicato, against the descending theme, bringing the first installment of his reply to a close. In the next issue a week later, he picks up with the recapitulation: With continuous attention to individual parts of the theme, everything crescendos to the storm painting, pg. 24. Here words fail utterly to describe something so enormous. The summit of the magnificent battle is reached at that moment, when the crashing thunder of the D-major seventh chord happens, and then under the unceasing booming of the wind instruments and timpani, all strings slice in between with their lightening-like figure [a3–d2]. And then the immeasurable: [he provides an example of the main theme in the recapitulation, with contrary motion, as shown in example 0.3c]. Is it not as if heaven and earth tug against each other in a battle of annihilation? And the theme is “in no way excellent”?! For many pages the storm rages on, finally collapsing before the power of the gods. Everything staggers—ever more gently the timpani roll on in their pedal point, until (pg. 27, m. 5) the bitter laments sound. Once again all the earlier thoughts appear, once again striving courage and revitalized hope return: but in vain!7

The spirit of Wagner’s narration is already present, although Wagner and Otten differ on important details. In this account the battle is between heaven and earth with the gods finally overpowering. Wagner’s introduction of a malevolent force creates starker lines of good versus

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evil, and he is less concerned with metaphorizing every formal moment. The differences between Otten’s program and Wagner’s show the dramatic sensibility of a successful opera composer, one who knew how to personalize the combat, much as he did in the struggle between Lohengrin and Friedrich. And Wagner’s interpretation of the first movement takes into consideration events in the finale, thus providing a motive for the struggle. But already in 1838 Otten had noticed the progression of the main theme and noted a couple of instances of contrary motion. If Schumann is certain to have read Otten, Wagner, who was still in Riga at this time, is also likely to have encountered these articles; however, he was by his own account in a period of disaffection with the Ninth and thus presumably more sympathetic to Hirschbach’s view. Nevertheless, from all of the evidence of their compositions before and after fall 1845, neither Wagner nor Schumann were able to grasp the full implications of Beethoven’s counterpoint as described in Otten’s account, which leaves us still uncertain about the circumstances of the discovery. The case for crediting Wagner with the insight is at least as strong as that for Schumann. Schumann’s revision of the opus 52 Finale began barely two weeks after he had met with Wagner three times in one week. And Wagner had plainly divulged to Schumann his plans to conduct the Ninth the following spring, as we know from his letter to Mendelssohn on 24 September. The sequence of that week was 18 September: “Visit from R. Wagner” 19 September: “with Wagner, R. Schmieder and Krägen” 24 September: [Letter to Mendelssohn in which he mentions the plans for the Palm Sunday Concert] 25 September: “4th [BACH] fugue almost finished”; “early walk with R. Wagner” However suggestive this chronology is for Wagner’s informing Schumann about the Ninth, a more compelling argument for Wagner requires a review of his ideas about the relationship of music to poetry and his methods of composing. His claim that he conceived of the music for his operas as he wrote their texts is relevant, because he had written the prose draft of Lohengrin during his stay in Marienbad in summer 1845. He then began writing the verse draft, finishing this lengthy poem in November. Wagner expressed himself most provocatively about the connection of poetry and music in an evaluation of what he considered Berlioz’s

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inadequacies as a composer in an 1852 letter to Liszt. Berlioz, he wrote, “needs a poet to fill him through and through, a poet who is driven by ecstasy to violate him, and who is to him what man is to woman.”8 For Wagner, who thought of music as female and poetry male, the use of inferior poetry carried inescapably dire consequences. Since poetry was the expression of understanding and music that of feeling, music with inferior poetry would never compare to that inspired by worthy poetry. As Jean-Jacques Nattiez argued in Wagner Androgyne, Wagner went in the 1840s from believing that poems “fertilized” music, to something that was more truly a hybrid, a hybrid that Wagner alone was capable of achieving. In The Art-Work of the Future, written after completing Lohengrin, Wagner concluded: It is impossible at present for two people to be struck by the same idea of creating the perfect drama together, since, in discussing this idea, they would be forced to admit . . . that such a drama was impossible to realize in the present climate of public opinion and this avowal would nip their undertaking in the bud. Only the solitary individual, urged on by his instinctual desire, can transform the bitterness of this avowal into a sense of intoxicating joy that drives him on, with drunken courage, to undertake the task of making the impossible possible; for he alone is impelled by two artistic forces that he cannot resist and by which he willingly allows himself to be driven on to the point of self-sacrificial abandon.9

Wagner obviously recognized in his own extraordinary combination of talents—musical, literary, social—this androgynous poet-musician of the future. Precisely because Wagner was both poet and composer, he could control poetic and musical allusions and influences to a degree that would be impossible even among the closest of collaborators. While he was in the thick of composing the music for Tannhäuser in January 1844, Wagner described writing both poetry and music simultaneously, or more precisely, conceiving of the music as he wrote the poetry: “even before I set about writing a single line of text or drafting a scene, I am already thoroughly immersed in the musical aura of my new creation, I have the whole sound & all the characteristic motives in my head so that when the poem is finished & the scenes are arranged in their proper order the opera is already completed, & its detailed musical treatment is more a question of calm & reflective revision.”10 However pompously proclaimed, this is exactly the process implied by Wagner’s use of the Ninth Symphony in The Flying Dutchman, as well as for Tannhäuser and Lohengrin, when Weber’s Euryanthe supplanted the Ninth as pri-

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mary model.11 His appropriation of musical ideas from Beethoven, Weber, and others thus does not contradict his claim of self-sufficiency. Regarding his poetic texts, Wagner had acknowledged in 1856 several of his principal sources for the Ring. Since then medieval writings from Germanic and Nordic lands have been recognized alongside Greek myths, biblical passages, Goethe’s Faust, Grimms’ fairy tales, and other nineteenth-century writings. From these Wagner derived not only large outlines of plot and narrative structure but also specific details of wording and poetic phrasing. What we do not know is the extent to which these source texts may also have stimulated music, or how his external musical sources stimulated poetry. Whatever state of readiness Wagner might have meant by claiming that the opera was “already completed” once he had finished the poem, his claim of conceiving both poem and music simultaneously is entirely plausible. Given the connections we have seen between his musicaltextual sources of The Flying Dutchman and its final shape, each successive step of work on the libretto—from prose sketch to final copy of the poem—had to involve progressively more detailed ideas about the music. At the outset, a prose sketch must also have entailed some basic musical ideas, while a more developed verse draft likely also involved significantly more precise thoughts on motives, keys, and musical structure. By the time he had completed the librettos for The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser, and Lohengrin, he would certainly already have had to incorporate not only his various poetic sources to create his own story, but also the basic structural patterns that he had derived from Beethoven, Weber, and others. Those patterns could not have been imposed after he had written the libretto; they were a part of that writing. And some of the other musical details, such as the borrowing in Tannhäuser of Berlioz’s concluding scene from Roméo et Juliette, similarly required that he write poetry that would in effect “motivate” the musical allusion. In The Flying Dutchman, the sources of inspiration were both musical and textual and both large and small. The way Wagner drew on the music of Beethoven’s Ninth and his reading of its implied Faustian text lends credibility to his simile that a “thematic image . . . spread itself quite naturally across the entire drama like a complete net.” Wagner’s musical and textual net indeed encompasses the entire opera. Strands of this net include such conjunctions of referential text (Goethe) and music (Beethoven) as the Schreckensfanfare chords at just the moment the Dutchman perceives he has been betrayed, and the Ninth Symphony

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scherzo references to support the music of the one scene in the opera that depicts a banal happiness rather than a noble joy. But the weave of his Beethovenian net was also strong enough to support many other imported musical ideas, as all who have noted the precedent of Emmy’s strophic song in Marschner’s Der Vampyr have realized. The description of the Dutchman as a “pale man” (bleicher Mann) also appeared already in the French prose draft, indicating that from the outset Wagner appropriated textual detail (description of the Dutchman) and musical form (ballad). Even Wagner’s association of Bach with nature and medieval culture can be considered a text that motivated Wagner’s wide-ranging incorporation of the BACH figure at dramatically appropriate moments of the music in Tristan. In these cases texts must have suggested certain musical as well as poetic ideas to him, but in other instances, the reverse must have occurred, and music suggested poetry. From the Scherzo of the Ninth, the dramatic pauses with repetitions at increasingly higher steps provided an effect that motivated the repeated and increasingly anxious commands from the Norwegians to the Flying Dutchman sailors (“Antworte doch!”). Likewise, the Schwabian folk song about going to the town fountain but not drinking (see example 1.1) suggested both text and music of the Norwegian sailors. Wagner’s claim to originality does not require that he was the originator of all of his textual and musical ideas, only that he was the “solitary individual . . . impelled by two artistic forces,” and thus able to respond musically to textual stimuli and poetically to musical. The inner impregnation of an androgynous creator allows for the poet-composer to take seeds from diverse gardens planted by others. The traditional collaborative interaction between a librettist and a composer did not permit the degree of control over the text that allowed Wagner the composer to shape the work of Wagner the poet with musical goals in mind. Wagner’s description of his new creative path hints at this: “the form of the Flying Dutchman poem was, like that of all my subsequent works, conditioned in every particular, down to the last detail of its musical execution, by the material itself . . . and . . . I continued to acquire a capacity for artistic formation along the lines of my newly chosen path, through practice and experience.”12 In the key assertion here—“the material itself” shaped the poem—“material” must include musical as well as poetic sources. Thus his achievement in The Flying Dutchman was not primarily in mixing Goethe and Beethoven (and Marschner and Weber) but in doing so reciprocally, a breakthrough as

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much of method as of substance. Wagner’s first Beethovenian epiphany, as I imagine it, came when he began to hear Beethoven’s Ninth as a manifestation of Goethe’s Faust, when he “impregnated” Beethoven’s music with Goethe’s poem. The seed thus planted gestated rapidly, leading to the birth of Senta and her ballad within months. With Lohengrin, then, Wagner’s preparation of the prose draft in summer 1845 certainly involved musical thoughts and not “merely” the creation of a plot line. Many more musical ideas would have occurred to him as he fleshed this sketch out into poetic verses intended to be sung. It is not difficult to imagine that one such early idea was the shimmering musical chiasmus that depicts the awed response to the Holy Grail music. But as central as this gesture is to Lohengrin, it does not in itself require Wagner to have discovered Beethoven’s use of contrary motion. If he needed one, he had a dramatically appropriate model for this in the extended convergence of voices that Schumann had composed in Das Paradies und die Peri (see example 4.1). Those twentynine measures portray Peri rejoicing over the gift that she hopes will allow her return to paradise, a cup filled with the blood of a fallen hero. With Lohengrin Wagner made one significant change in his earlier compositional practices, in composing from beginning to end, rather than working on disconnected segments. The sense of direction and confidence that this implies also indicates many musical ideas had occurred to him before he began his composition draft. Wagner’s method of working from start to finish, it is worth noting, was also Schumann’s with his Second Symphony. Like the quotation from An die ferne Geliebte that arrives in the last third of Schumann’s finale, the threeoctave wedge and the insertion of the Schreckensfanfare chord in act III, scene 3, were ideas that did not need composing before Wagner could begin with act I, scene 1. They were from the very beginning his musical goals. But whether the many instances of contrary motion were among the ideas that occurred to Wagner while writing text and poem, we do not know. Nothing in this review of Wagner’s methods rules out the possibility that Schumann was responsible for the insight about Beethoven’s counterpoint. As with the summary of who did what when in September and October 1845, it suggests but does not prove. If Schumann had had the insight, then it seems likely that their January meetings—after completing his Second Symphony—would have been the occasion for him to enlighten Wagner. Were Wagner to have had the revelation rather than

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Schumann, then their meetings in September would have been the occasion for him to divulge this information to Schumann, in time for Schumann to have benefited from the conversation before revising the opus 52 Finale; and had it been Wagner who had the revelation, then this would have occurred during the course of his learning the score of the Ninth in preparation for conducting it. One can glean the extent of his attention to detail in My Life, as in his description of holding part rehearsals repeatedly with the double basses: I devoted special attention to that extraordinary passage, resembling a recitative for the ’cellos and basses, which comes at the beginning of the last movement. . . . Thanks to the exceptional excellence of our bass players, I felt certain of attaining to absolute perfection in this passage. After twelve special rehearsals of the instruments alone concerned, I succeeded in getting them to perform in a way which sounded not only perfectly free, but which also expressed the most exquisite tenderness and the greatest energy in a thoroughly impressive manner.

And if Wagner had discovered Beethoven’s contrapuntal strategies on his own, then potentially there is one ecstatic anecdote in his autobiography that may just capture Wagner’s astonishment at the moment of his epiphany. To return to the passage that I quoted at the outset: It is simply not possible that the heart of a pupil has ever been captivated with such rapturous force by the work of a master as mine was by the first movement of this symphony. Anyone who came upon me by surprise with the score open before me, as I went through it thinking how best it could be performed, would have been startled to hear my wild sobs and see my crying, and would no doubt have asked themselves in some amazement whether this was proper behavior for a Royal Saxon Kapellmeister.13

In all the volumes that have been written about how fundamental Beethoven’s choral finale was to Wagner and to all composers of his generation and the next, the extent to which the first movement affected him has been obscured by the discussions of his synthesis of word and tone, discussions that have been inspired in equal measure by Wagner’s music and his self-aggrandizing prose. Perhaps the first and finest student of this movement and the impact it had had on Schumann and Wagner in 1845–46 was Brahms. In granting prominence to ideas gleaned from both Schumann and Wagner in the first movement of his first symphony, Brahms suggests to us that ultimately it matters little who made the discovery, that the attempt to assign credit for the analytical insights to either Schumann or Wagner alone is misguided. A third possibility exists. Perhaps the discussions between Schumann and Wagner in fall 1845 and

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winter 1846 really are the source of the insights, and they worked it out together. That would be the greatest surprise of all. Whatever the roles Wagner and Schumann played in their interactions with each other that pivotal year in Dresden, the reason why late Schumann was of such interest to later Wagner becomes clear: from 1845 until Schumann stopped composing, no other composer understood the newly learned lessons of the Ninth; and no other composer applied them so convincingly, in a style so close to Wagner’s own.

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appendix 1

Citations of Wagner’s Possible Allusions and Influences in The Flying Dutchman

Each entry first refers to a specific section of a composition by a composer other than Wagner and then indicates the moment in The Flying Dutchman to which it relates. The bracketed text at the end of each entry refers to articles and books listed below. Beethoven, Fidelio, act I, no. 9, Leonore’s aria “Komm, Hoffnung” at “den letzten Stern”; RW, act II duet, Dutchman at “Du, Stern des Unheils” and “Licht meiner Hoffnung” [1995, 198] Beethoven, Fidelio, act I, no. 9, end of Leonore’s “Komm, Hoffnung” (at “erreichen”); RW, end of Senta’s ballad at interruption (at “erreichen”) [1995, 201–3] Beethoven, Fidelio, act I, no. 10 (duet with Rocco), Leonore’s “Ich muss ihn sehen . . . und müsst’ ich selbst zu Grunde gehen”; RW, act II (duet with Erik), after Erik’s dream, Senta: “Ich muss ihn seh’n! Mit ihm muss ich zu Grunde geh’n!” Motives differ but rising sequence climaxes on AH and section ends with HVI-V-I [CR] Beethoven, Fidelio, act II, no. 12, Leonore’s “wer du auch sei’st”; RW, act II, duet, Senta at “wer du auch sei’st” [1967, 74; 1995, 198] Beethoven, Symphony no. 9, beginning; RW, Overture, beginning (Flying Dutchman motive) [1968, 22; 1975, 203; 1979, 118; 1982a, 15, 17] Adrien Boieldieu, La Dame blanche (1825), Marguérite’s fileuse; RW, Spinning chorus [1968, 62; 1979, 100; 1982a, 11] Adrien Boieldieu, La Dame blanche (1825), Jenny’s ballad, “D’ici voyez ce beau domaine”; RW, Senta’s ballad [1992, 75] E. T. A. Hoffmann, Undine, cellos have recitative-like passage; RW, act I, sc. 1 [1965, 606] Marschner, Overture to Schön Ella (1822); RW, refrain of Senta’s ballad [1940, 103] 171

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Marschner, Der Vampyr; RW, unspecified musical and textual indebtedness [1968, 73] Marschner, Der Vampyr, act I, “mit einem Stück aus dem ersten Akt”; RW, end of act II, Trio, at Daland’s entrance [1883, 102–3] Marschner, Der Vampyr, act II, Emmy’s Romanza, “Sieh, Mutter, dort den bleichen Mann”; RW, Senta’s ballad [1940a, 102–3 (not music); 196, 44; 1982a, 9; 1984, 14; 1988, 134–37; 1991a, 74–75, 85; 1992, 75; 1995, 198, 200–201; 1997, 557; 1999, 128; 2000, 73–74] Meyerbeer, Les Huguenots, Never’s address; RW, Daland’s scene [1984, 14] Meyerbeer, Robert le Diable, act I, Raimbault’s ballad, “Jadis régnait en Normandie”; RW, Senta’s ballad [1963, 111; 1984, 14; 1991a, 73–87; 1991b, 128; 1992, 75–76; 1997, 557; 2000, 73–74; 2001, 357] Schwabian folksong of the three Röslein, “Jetzt gang’ i ans Brünelle, trink aber net”; RW, chorus of Norwegians, “He! Seeleute, wollt ihr nicht frischen Wein?” [1914, 19] Weber, Der Freischütz, act I, Max’s aria “Durch die Wälder”; RW, Erik’s cavatina (“Willst jenes Tag’s”) [1995, 208–9] Weber, Der Freischütz, act I, no. 2, chorus “O laß Hoffnung”; RW, First version of the refrain to Senta’s ballad (“Doch kann dem bleichen Manne”) [1982b, 165, 170; 1995, 209] Weber, Der Freischütz, act II, beginning; RW, act II, beginning [1986; 210] Weber, Oberon, Oberon’s Fatal Vow; RW, act I, first appearance of the Dutchman, the 6/8 section of “Die Frist ist um” [1979, 94]

bibliographic key (full citations are provided in works cited) 1883. Ferdinand Pfohl, “Der fliegende Holländer.” 1914. Max Chop, Ähnlichkeiten und Gleichklingendes in der Musik. 1940. Gerald Abraham, “Marschner and Wagner.” 1963. Martin Cooper, “Giacomo Meyerbeer, 1791–1864.” 1965. Linda Siegel, “Wagner and the Romanticism of E. T. A. Hoffmann.” 1967. Gertrud Strobel and Werner Wolf, eds., Richard Wagner: Sämtliche briefe, vol. 1. 1968. Robert W. Gutman, Richard Wagner: The Man, His Mind, and His Music. 1975. Klaus Kropfinger, Wagner und Beethoven: Untersuchungen zur BeethovenRezeption Richard Wagners. 1979. Robert T. Laudon, Sources of the Wagnerian Synthesis. 1982a. John Deathridge, “An Introduction to The Flying Dutchman.” 1982b. Werner Breig, “Das ‘verdichtete Bild des ganzen Dramas’: Die Ursprünge von Wagners ‘Holländer’-Musik und die Senta-Ballade.” 1984. Berndt W. Wessling, Meyerbeer: Wagners Beute–Heines Geisel. 1986. Michael C. Tusa, “Richard Wagner and Weber’s Euryanthe.” 1988. Carolyn Abbate, “Erik’s Dream and Tannhäuser’s Journey.” 1991a. Carolyn Abbate, Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century.

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1991b. Sieghart Döhring, “Meyerbeer: Robert le Diable (1831).” 1992. Thomas Grey, “Musical Background and Influences.” 1995. Arthur Groos, “Back to the Future: Hermeneutic Fantasies in Der fliegende Holländer.” 1997. Sven Friedrich, “Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer (1843).” 1999. Reiner Naegele, “Der Vampyr–Held oder Traumbild? Zur Funktionalität des Bösen in den Opern von Marschner und Lindpaintner.” 2000. Thomas Grey, “Romantic Opera as ‘Dramatic Ballad’: Der fliegende Holländer and Its Generic Contexts.” 2001. Sieghart Döhring, “Meyerbeer’s Grand opéra: Historische Oper als Ideendrama.”

appendix 2

Contrary Motion Counterpoint in the First Movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony

In each listing below a motive is spelled out by pitch names, with the paired motives (downward moving and upward moving) appearing one above the other. The measure numbers in which a motivic pair first occurs appear on the left, and measures in which the motive is immediately varied or repeated appear in parentheses. For the purposes of counting measures, eighth-note pick-up and downbeat arrival notes are not included in the tally. Arrows (↑ or ↓) placed between two notes indicate rising or falling motion from the note before the arrow to the note after. Measure Nos. (Repeated/Varied)

Exact Pitches or High and Low Pitches

Ambitus

Interval(s) Involved

Exposition (16 measures of contrary motion = 10% of exposition): 64–66 (68–70) 92–94 (96–101) 131

G ↓ CG ↑ G–f CG ↑ G ↓ CG–D BH ↓ AH BH ↑ AH GH, A, C, BH EH, C, A, BH

tritone tritone 2 8ves + 3rd 15th tritone tritone

steps steps 16th note scales 16th note scales

Development (43 measures of contrary motion = 30% of development): 198–201 (202–5) 213 219–21 (225–27, 233–35, 237–40)

174

D↓G G↑G AH–G–F F–G–AH F–D, EH–C, D–B B–D, C–EH, D–F

1–2 8ves + 5th 2 8ves 3rds 3rds tritone tritone

triadic steps steps 3rds 3rds

Contrary Motion in the Ninth Measure Nos. (Repeated/Varied)

Exact Pitches or High and Low Pitches

231

G ↓ EH, D ↑ F C ↑ EH, A ↓ F D–E–F, D–C–B (×2); C–B–A, E–C–D F–E–D, B–C–D (×2); A–B–C, C–D–E C–F F–C

253–58 (263–66, 291–96)

287–89 (290)

Ambitus

Interval(s) Involved

3rds 3rds 3rds

steps steps steps

3rds

steps

4th 4th

steps steps

|

175

Recapitulation (51 measures of contrary motion = 40% of recapitulation): 301–03 (305–7, 309–12) 315–18 329–38 359–61 (363–68)

387–90 (391–98) 400 401–5

D ↓ A, D ↓D FG ↑ FG ↑ FG D↓D F↑D A ↓ C; G ↓ BH, etc. CG ↑ A; B ↑ G, etc. D↓A D ↑ A, FG ↑ BH BH ↓ E; B ↓ D CG ↑ G; FG ↑ D BH, CG, E, D G, E, CG, D G ↓ E ↑ G, A ↓ F ↑ A . . . D↓ BH E ↑ G ↓ E, F ↑ A ↓ F . . . BH ↑ D

8ve + 4th, 2 8ves 2 8ves 2 8ves 13th 6ths 6ths 2 8ves + 4th 8ve + 5th, 8ve + dim 4th tritone, 6th tritone, 6th tritone tritone 10th

4ths and 5ths 8ves triadic triadic steps steps 16th note scales 16th note scales

10th

10th

2nds + 3rds tritones, 6ths

10th

Coda (63 measures of contrary motion = 52% of coda): 427–52 ↓triads, then ↓dim. decreases from 2 8ves to tritone triads ↑triads, then ↑dim. decreases from 2 8ves to dim. 7th triads 453–55 (457–62) BH ↓ E 2 8ves + tritone 16th note scales A↑F 2 8ves + 6th 16th note scales 470–71, 473 CG ↑ E, D ↑ FG / D ↑ FG 3rds G ↓ E, FG ↓ D / FG ↓ D 3rds 474–76 E ↓ CG, FG ↓ D, E ↑ tritone steps, 3rds G↓E CG ↑ E, D ↑ FG, G ↓ tritone steps, 3rds E↑G (continued)

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Measure Nos. (Repeated/Varied)

Exact Pitches or High and Low Pitches

482–91 (478, 480, 493)

CG ↑ E, D ↑ F, D ↑ F, E↑G... G ↓ E, F ↓ D, F ↓ D, G↓E... A↓E A↑A BH–A–G G–A–BH

495–96 (501–4) 506 (509–10)

Ambitus

Interval(s) Involved 3rds 3rds

2 8ves +4th 8ve third third

Total = contrary motion in 173 of 547 measures = 32%

16th note scales 16th note scales steps steps

appendix 3

Contrary Motion Counterpoint in The Flying Dutchman

In each listing below a motive is spelled out by pitch names, with the paired motives (downward moving and upward moving) appearing one above the other. The location of the counterpoint appears on the left. Arrows (↑ or ↓) placed between two notes indicate rising or falling motion from the note before the arrow to the note after. The designation “mirror” in the pitches column indicates mirror counterpoint on the same pitches. This table does not include the Overture. Location of Counterpoint

Dramatic context

Act I, Intro, beginning

violent storm raging

, no. 2

Dutchman describes repeated attempts to kill himself

Act II, Senta’s Ballad

B-flat section “Wann wirst du, bleicher Seemann, es finden?” Senta: “Ich sei’s . . . ”

Exact Pitches or High and Low Pitches GH ↓ BH F ↑ DH Cm triads ↓ then dim. 7ths ↓ Cm triads ↑ then dim. 7ths ↑ F, EH, D, C, D, F–EH, D BH, C, D, EH, D, C, D

F, EH, D, C BH, C, D, EH Senta: “das Heil erreichen” AH ↓ D by step D ↑ AH by step

(continued)

177

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Appendix 3

Location of Counterpoint Act II, response to Ballad

Act II, Dutch sailors (mm. 504, 508, 532) Act III, Senta and Erik

Act III, trio

Act III, Dutchman after Trio

Dramatic context

Exact Pitches or High and Low Pitches

BH, G, E, DH dim. 7ths ↓ G, BH, DH, E dim. 7ths ↑ Maidens: “Helft Erik, uns!” GG, B, D, F F, D, B, GG Mary: “Ich fühl’ ins mir das E, GG, B, D Blut gerinnen!” D, B, A, GG, F, E Sailors: “sieben Jahre sind GG, FG, EG ↓ vorbei!” E, FG, GG ↑ Erik: “reichest deine Hand FG, A, C, EH ↑ then Cm dem Mann” triad ↑ Mirror Senta: “zweifelst du an F ↓ C, chromatic meiner Treue?” Dutchman: “Fort auf das F ↑ C, semi chromatic Meer” Senta: “Treue? Unsel’ger” GH ↓ DH + triad Dutchman: “treibt es mich F ↑ BH + triad auf’s Neue!” Senta: “Unsel’ger! Halt ein!” F ↓ C, chromatic Dutchman: “Dahin! Ewig F ↑ C, semi chromatic dahin!” “Verdammt bin ich” A ↓ E, BH ↓ F, chromatic A ↑ E, F ↑ BH, chromatic “Wohl hast du Treue D ↓ A, EH ↓ BH, chromatic mir gelobt” D ↑ A, EH ↑ BH, chromatic Maidens: “Hilf Himmel!”

appendix 4

Contrary Motion Counterpoint in the Fourth Movement of Schumann’s Second Symphony

In each listing below a motive is spelled out by pitch names, with the paired motives (downward moving and upward moving) appearing one above the other. The measure numbers in which a motivic pair first occurs appear on the left, and measures in which the motive is immediately varied or repeated appear in parentheses. For the purposes of counting measures, eighth-note pick-up and downbeat arrival notes are not included in the tally. Arrows (↑ or ↓) placed between two notes indicate rising or falling motion from the note before the arrow to the note after. Measure Nos. (Repeated/Varied)

Exact Pitches or High and Low Pitches

Ambitus

Exposition (25 measures of contrary motion = 21% of exposition): 19–21 25–27 29–31 32–36 38–39 40–43

D–C–B–A FG–G–A–B–C B–C–D–E–F F–E–D–C–B D–E–D–E, F–G–F–G–A F–E–F–E, D–C–D–C–B A–E–G, G–D–F–CG–E G–C–F, F–B–E–A–D E–F–G–A BH–A–G–F A–D–G, G–C–F–B F–B–E, E–A–D–GG

4th Dim. 5th Dim. 5th Dim. 5th 5th Dim. 5th 6th 7th 4th 4th 6th 6th (continued)

179

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Appendix 4

Measure Nos. (Repeated/Varied)

Exact Pitches or High and Low Pitches

Ambitus

104–5

F↑G F↓G D–C–B–A FG–G–A–B–C

scale, 9th scale, 7th 4th Dim. 5th

115–17

Development, part 1 (mm. 119–279) (54 measures of contrary motion = 33%) 120–22 124–26 136–41 158–60 160–61 174–77 178–79 179–91 233–34 249–54 257–59 263–66 269–71

CG–D–E–F G–F–E–D GG–A–B–C D–C–B–A EH ↓ D, D ↓ C, C ↓ BH C ↑ C, BH ↑ BH, A ↑ BH D–C–BH–A–G G–A–BH–C–G D–BH–A BH–CG–D BH–AH–G, EH–F–G EH–F–G, G–F–EH C–CG–D A–G–FG D↑G D↓G F–EH–D–C B–C–D–EH G–A–B–C, D–EH–F–G–E G–FG–F–EH, F–EH–D–C–DH C–BH–AH AH–BH–C D–EH–F–G–F F–EH–D–C–DH AH–F–G F–AH–G

4th 4th Dim. 4th 4th scales, 9th scales, 8ve, 9th 5th 5th 4th 4th 5th 3rd 2nd 3rd scale, 2 × 8ve + 4th scale, 2 × 8ve + 5th 4th Dim. 4th 4th, 4th 3rd, 4th 3rd 3rd 4th 4th 3rd 3rd

Development, part 2 (mm. 280–393) (53 measures of contrary motion = 46%) 299–301 316–17 (320–21) 324–25 (328–29) 331–33 335–38

B ↑ AH G↓B E–F–AH BH–AH–F B–C–E F–E–C E–F–G–A BH–A–G–F E–D–E–F–A–F–D E–F–E–D–CG–D–F

7th 6th Dim. 4th 4th 4th 4th 4th 4th 7th 7th

Contrary Motion in Schumann’s Second Measure Nos. (Repeated/Varied)

Exact Pitches or High and Low Pitches

Ambitus

339–41

E–F–G–A BH–A–G–F G↑E EH ↓ G G–GG–A–E G–F–E–A DG–E–B–C C–B–F–E G↑G G↓G

4th 4th scale, 6th scale, 6th 4th 4th 4th Dim. 5th 2 8ves 2 8ves

352–59 361–62 (365–66, 369–70) 373–75 (375–83) 389–91

Recapitulation (9 measures of contrary motion = 9%) 411–12 443–45 459–60 484–85

E–D–C C–D–E F–E–D–C D–E–F–G C–BH–A–G A–BH–C–D–E G–F–E–C A–B–C–E

3rd 3rd 4th 4th 4th 5th 5th 5th

Coda (7 measures of contrary motion = 6%) 512–13 563–64 567–69

A–BH–C A–AH–G BH–A–G–F CG–D–E–F CG–D–E–F–G BH–A–G–F–E

3rd 2nd 4th Dim. 4th Dim. 5th Dim. 5th

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appendix 5

Contrary Motion Counterpoint in the First Movement of Brahms’s First Symphony

In each listing below a motive is spelled out by pitch names, with the paired motives (downward moving and upward moving) appearing one above the other. The measure numbers in which a motivic pair first occurs appear on the left, and measures in which the motive is immediately varied or repeated appear in parentheses. For the purposes of counting measures, eighth-note pickup and downbeat arrival notes are not included in the tally. Arrows (↑ or ↓) placed between two notes indicate rising or falling motion from the note before the arrow to the note after. Measure Nos. Direction of wedge (Repeated/Varied) or mirror

Exact Pitches or High and Low Pitches

Slow Introduction (13 measures of contrary motion = 35% of introduction): 1–7

Wedge out and in:

11 (15)

3-note mirror in:

25–27

Wedge out:

28–29

Wedge out:

C ↑ BH ↓ AH (= 7th ↑ 9th ↓) C ↓ D ↑ AH (= 7th ↓ dim. 12th ↑) and G ↓ BH ↑ F (= 6th ↓ 12th ↑) CH–BH–CH F–GH–F G ↑ EH G ↓ BH EH–D–C–B E–F–FG–G

Exposition (47 measures of contrary motion = 31% of exposition): 38–42

182

Wedge out and in:

C–CG–D–F–EH FG–F–EH–D–B–C

Contrary Motion in Brahms’s First Measure Nos. Direction of wedge (Repeated/Varied) or mirror

Exact Pitches or High and Low Pitches

53–56

CH–BH–CH, B ↑ EH F–GH–F, F ↓ C GG ↑ GG ↓ A ↑ A ↓ AG ↑ AG ↓ B ↑ B D ↓ D ↑ CG ↓ CG ↑ C ↓ C ↑ B ↓ B A–AH, G ↓ EH ↓ C ↓ G E–F–FG, G ↑ C ↑ EH ↑ G FG–G–AH, AH–A–BH AH–G–F, BH–A–AH–G BH–A–AH–G–F, DH–C–CH–BH BH–C–D–E–F, BH–C–D–EH A–BH–CH CH–BH–AH 3 dim. 7ths ↓ Same 3 dim. 7ths ↑ 3 dim. 7ths ↑ Same 3 dim. 7ths ↓

63–67

3-note mirror in + wedge out: Wedge out:

84–87

Wedge in:

123–27

Wedge out:

130–38

Wedge in:

145–48

Wedge out:

163–68

Wedge in:

171–77

Wedge out:

|

183

Development (40 measures of contrary motion = 27% of development) 196–97

Wedge in:

200–202 (208–9) 5-note mirror in: 253–54 (255–56) 3-note mirror out: 258–63 263–65 (265–73) Wedge in: 274–75 (277–79) Wedge out: 281–83 (285–87) Wedge in: 334–39

Wedge out:

EH–CG–B–AG CG–E–EG–FG CG–B–AG–B–CG AG–B–CG–B–AG C–D–C C–BH–C C–DH–C–DH–C, DH–C–BH–F–EH–D C–BH–C–BH–C, BH–C–DH–F–FG–G DH–C–B F–FG–G F–FG–G DH–C–B D–DH–C–B F–FG–G F–FG, FG–G–GG, A–BH–B G–FG, FG ↓ BH, A ↓ DH

Recapitulation (47 measures of contrary motion = 38% of recapitulation) 339–41

Wedge in: Wedge out:

345–47

Wedge out and in:

AH–G–FG C–CG–D (= continuation of mm. 334–39) C–CG–D (= continuation of mm. 334–39) C ↓ D (= continuation of mm. 334–39) B–C–D–C D–C–B–C (continued)

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Appendix 5

Measure Nos. Direction of wedge (Repeated/Varied) or mirror

Exact Pitches or High and Low Pitches

354–57

CH–BH–CH, B ↓ EH F–GH–F, F ↓ C GG ↑ GG ↓ A ↑ A ↓ AG ↑ AG ↓ B ↑ B D ↓ D ↑ CG ↓ CG ↑ C ↓ C ↑ B ↓ B DG–E–F, F–FG–G–GG F–E–D, G–FG–F–E G–FG–F–E, E–D G–A–B–CG, CG–D FG–G–AH AH–G–F 3 dim. 7ths ↓ Same 3 dim. 7ths ↑ 3 dim. 7ths ↑ Same 3 dim. 7ths ↓

364–68

3-note mirror in + wedge out: Wedge out:

396–400

Wedge out:

403–7 (408–14)

Wedge in:

418–21

Wedge out:

436–41

Wedge in:

444–50

Wedge out:

Coda (18 measures of contrary motion = 36% of coda) 465–74

Wedge out:

495–97 (497–503)

Wedge out:

E–FG–G–AH, G–FG–G–AH, G–A–B–C BH–A–G–F, G–AH–G–FG, G–FG–F–E C– DH–D–C × 4 E–EH–DH–B–C × 4 + BH–A–AH × 4

Total = Contrary motion in 165 of 511 measures = 32%

Abbreviations

19CM GSD

JAMS NZfM Wagner’s Prose Works

19th-Century Music Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen von Richard Wagner, 10 vols. Third edition. Leipzig: E. W. Fritzsch, 1897–1998. Journal of the American Musicological Society Neue Zeitschrift für Musik Richard Wagner’s Prose Works. Translated by William Ashton Ellis. 8 vols. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1895–1912.

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Notes

preface 1. Willi Reich, “A Guide to Wozzeck.” 2. These studies have appeared (or in the last case, is scheduled to appear) as Reynolds, “Porgy and Bess: An ‘American Wozzeck’ ”; Reynolds, “Brahms Rhapsodizing: The Alto Rhapsody and Its Expressive Double”; and Reynolds, “Überlegungen zur Bedeutung von ‘Reworkings’ in der Komposition von Rockliedern.”

introduction 1. Reich, Clara Schumann: The Artist and Woman, 45–46; Litzmann, Clara Schumann: An Artist’s Life, 1:50. 2. In general, on the relations of Schumann and Wagner, see Konrad, “Robert Schumann und Richard Wagner: Studien und Dokumente,” 211–320; on Wagner’s writings for the NZfM, see esp. 216–27. 3. See Vazsonyi, Richard Wagner: Self-Promotion and the Making of a Brand, 22. 4. See, for example, Grey, “Musical Background and Influences,” 64–92; Jost, “Schumanns und Wagners Opernkonzeptionen: Genoveva versus Lohengrin,” 133–52; Paley, “Dramatic Stage and Choral Works,” 195–222. 5. “Noch heute kann ich das Glück kaum fassen, das mir dadurch zuteil ward, dass mir Beethoven selbst durch diese Andeutungen zum vollen Verständnis seiner riesenhaften letzten Symphonie verhalf, die damals höchstens eben erst vollendet, keinem aber noch bekannt war.” My translation. See Eine Pilgerfahrt zu Beethoven, in GSD, 1:111. 6. Cosima Wagner, Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 1:491. This conversation took place on 28 May 1872. 187

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7. Wagner, My Life, 35–36, 175, 429. These are discussed in Kropfinger, Wagner and Beethoven, 31. The first passage is quoted more fully below. Wagner wrote his autobiography between 1865 and 1880. 8. These events are recounted in Kropfinger, Wagner and Beethoven, 31–37; and Eichhorn, Beethovens Neunte Symphonie, 71–73. 9. Wagner, My Life, 329. The rehearsals were for a performance that took place on 8 March 1840. And see also Wagner’s comments on hearing Habeneck conduct the Ninth in “On Conducting,” 55, where he recounts that Habeneck “spent a whole winter rehearsing the symphony” with poor results, which led him then “to devote two more years to a study of the symphony and not to give up until the new Beethovenian melos had been understood and properly executed by his players.” 10. Wagner, My Life, 329–30. 11. Burnham, “On the Programmatic Reception of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony,” 3. 12. I will be quoting from Thomas Grey’s translation of Wagner, “Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.” 13. Brockhaus, Allgemeine deutsche Real-Encyclopädie, 4:545: “Gegenbewegung nennt man in der Musik einen solchen Gang mehrer stimmen, bei welchem die eine steigt, indessen die andre fällt, oder deren Taktfolgen in einer nach der Höhe, in der andern nach der Tiefe, oder so auch umgekehrt, von der Höhe und Tiefe gegen die Mitte zu gerichtet sind. Durch sie kann man manchen fehlerhaften Fortschreitungen und unharmonischen Sängen entgehen.” 14. Agawu, Playing with Signs, 137. On topics, see also Ratner, Classic Music; Allanbrook, Rhythmic Gesture in Mozart; Hatten, Musical Meaning in Beethoven; Monelle, The Sense of Music; and Caplin, “On the Relation of Musical Topoi to Formal Function.” 15. See esp. Monelle, The Musical Topic: Hunt, Military and Pastoral. 16. Monelle, The Sense of Music, 36. See also his The Musical Topic, esp. the chapters in part 3, “Soldiers.” 17. See Howard, War in European History; Duffy, The Military Experience in the Age of Reason; and Showalter, The Wars of Frederick the Great. 18. Franz Joseph Adolph Schneidawind, Die Feldzüge in den Jahren 1812, 1813, 1814 und 1815, 4, pt. 2:83: “Ein Schlacht hat, wie eine dramatische Handlung, ihren Anfang, ihre Mitte und ihre Entwickelung. Der Anfang veranlasst Gegenbewegungen des Feindes, wordurch Zwischenfälle entstehen, die man überwinden muss und die auf die letzten Bewegungen, welche die Schlacht entscheiden, Einfluss haben.” 19. Anonymous, “War,” in the Supplement to the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 6:767. 20. Quoted in Anderson, The War of the Austrian Succession, 1740–48, 36. 21. Kalbeck, Johannes Brahms, 1:443, n. 15, “Mit ihnen zu spielen, sie in verschiedenen Reihen aufzustellen und zu formieren, diente dem Knaben zur Anregung seiner musikalischen Phantasie.” 22. Wagner, “Music of the Future,” 38. 23. Ibid.

Notes to Chapter 1

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chapter 1 1. See Thomas Grey’s translation of the relevant passages of A Communication to My Friends, in Richard Wagner, Der fliegende Holländer, 181–85. 2. Ibid., 182–83. I have slightly altered Grey’s translation. 3. Grey, “Return of the Prodigal Son,” 16. 4. Regarding when Wagner heard Habeneck, see Wagner, My Life, 329. Kropfinger, Wagner and Beethoven, 33–34, discusses the likely dates. See also Eichhorn, Beethoven’s Neunte Symphonie, 74. Eichhorn questions whether Habeneck would have begun rehearsing several months before the performance, which took place on 8 March 1840. In this case I find Wagner credible, as does Kropfinger, because of the debt of the Faust Overture to the first movement of the Ninth and the fact that he began composing this work in mid-December, because the difficulties of the Ninth Symphony as it was first encountered by musicians required extraordinary measures to prepare for performance, and tellingly, because Wagner himself began rehearsing months in advance in preparation for the Dresden 1846 performance. 5. GSD, 2:50–64, “Bericht über die Aufführung der neunten Symphonie von Beethoven im Jahre 1846 in Dresden, nebst Programm dazu.” Aside from Grey’s translation, it was previously translated by William Ashton Ellis as “Report on the performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at Dresden in the year 1846, together with a Programme,” in Wagner’s Prose Works, 7:239–55. 6. Grey, “Romantic Opera as ‘Dramatic Ballad’ ” 65; GSD, 4:323. “Gewebe” in this passage is more often translated as “web.” The metaphor of a net better suits the implication of my musical analysis below. 7. Deathridge, “An Introduction to The Flying Dutchman,” 14. See also Groos, “Back to the Future,” 191–211. 8. Groos, “Back to the Future”; Rehding, “Apologia for Erik,” 416–29. On the similarities between the two arias, see 425–27. 9. Abbate, Unsung Voices, 85. 10. Kropfinger, Wagner and Beethoven, 179–80; Deathridge, “An Introduction to The Flying Dutchman,” 15 and 17. 11. Borchmeyer, Richard Wagner: Theory and Theatre, 193. 12. Vazsonyi, Richard Wagner: Self-Promotion and the Making of a Brand, 71; Eichhorn, Beethovens neunte Symphonie, 48, 61, and 75. 13. Grey, Richard Wagner and His World, 482. 14. Ibid., 482–83. I follow Grey’s incorporation of the 1870 verse translation of Goethe’s Faust by Bayard Taylor, from the Modern Library edition (New York, 1912). 15. Ibid., 483–84. 16. Ibid., 486–87. 17. I alter Taylor’s translation here from “no longer” to “not yet.” The German is “Befriedigung noch nicht aus dem Busen quillen!” 18. Grey, Richard Wagner and His World, 486. 19. Ibid., 487. 20. Ibid., 487. 21. Ibid., 490. 22. Grey, “Text, Action, and Music,” 54.

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23. Grey, Richard Wagner and His World, 484. 24. Ibid., 485. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid. 27. For the scherzo, Wagner drew from Goethe, Faust, Part 1, lines 2162–64 precede lines 1750–59; for the Finale from Part 1, lines 1210–11 and 454–59. 28. Wagner assembled the slow movement passages from Part 1, lines 771– 78, 762–64, and 783–84. 29. My translation, modifying that of William Ashton Ellis in Wagner, “The Art-Work of the Future,” 96.

chapter 2 1. Letter of 27 November 1852 to Uhlig; quoted in Kropfinger, Wagner and Beethoven, 182. 2. Deathridge discusses this sketch page in his “Wagner’s ‘Pale’ Senta,” 458. This article also appears as chapter 2 of Deathridge, Wagner Beyond Good and Evil. 3. “und stärker noch als vorher dringt der wilde, chaotische Aufschrei der unbefriedigten Leidenschaft an unser Ohr”; GSD, 2:61. 4. Wagner, “On Performing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony,” 95–127. For the passage regarding the scoring of the Schreckensfanfare, see 107–9. 5. Grey, “Text, Action, and Music,” 58. 6. In his autobiography, My Life, Wagner attributed this melody to a song he heard sailors sing aboard the Thetis in 1839: “The sharp rhythm of their call stuck with me as an omen of good fortune and soon resolved itself into the theme of the Sailor’s Chorus.” I quote from Thomas Grey, in “The Return of the Prodigal Son,” 2. This in no way precludes the possibility that Wagner chose to “resolve” a song heard on this voyage in such a way that allowed him to pattern it after Beethoven’s scherzo. 7. Wagner, My Life, 35–36. Wagner wrote the publisher Schott on 6 October 1830, offering for publication his piano arrangement of the Ninth Symphony for two hands. His description in My Life refers to a full score. See the discussion in Kropfinger, Wagner and Beethoven, 31. 8. Wagner, My Life, 330. 9. “Diesem gewaltigen Feinde gegenüber erkennen wir einen edlen Trotz, eine männliche Energie des Widerstandes, der bis in die Mitte des Satzes sich zu einem offenen Kampfe mit dem Gegner steigert,” GSD, 2:57. William Ashton Ellis translated this as “Against this mighty foe we find a noble forwardness, a manly energy of defiance, advancing in the middle of the piece to an open fight with its opponent.” “Report on the performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at Dresden in the year 1846, together with a Programme,” 248. 10. Eichhorn, Beethovens Neunte Symphonie, 263–64. Eichhorn proposes that “Wagners polare Gegenüberstellung zweier antagonistischer Kräfte reflektiert den formalen Sachverhalt der doppelchörigen Verarbeitung des thematischen Kerngedankens poetisch” (264). 11. The percentage for Symphony no. 8 is hardest to reckon, because the counterpoint is so different from that in the Ninth, including much oppositional

Notes to Chapter 2

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motion in nonthematic fanfare and cadential passages. Counting all occurrences, the total is 22 percent, but eliminating the instances that are essentially voices moving in various directions within a static chord, the total is 13 percent. 12. Tovey, Essays in Musical Analysis, 2:1–44; Treitler, “History, Criticism, and Beethoven’s Ninth,” 196; and Cook, Beethoven: Symphony No. 9, 30. 13. Other than this instance I have not counted instances of contrary motion that only involve notes leaping from one octave to another. 14. In calculating the percentage of measures with contrary motion in appendix 1, I have counted only counterpoint that opposed lines of equal interval (e.g., tritone against tritone). I therefore didn’t count the freer counterpoint in measures 120–29 and 132–37. Had I included these sixteen measures, the percentages for oppositional counterpoint in the exposition, development, recapitulation, and coda would have been: 20 percent, 30 percent, 40 percent, and 52 percent. 15. “Die führt, wie zu einem freudigen Kampfe, durch Instrumente allein ausgedruckt; wir sehen die Jünglinge mutig sich in eine Schlacht stürzen, deren Siegesfrucht die Freude sein soll; und noch einmal fühlen wir uns gedrungen, Worte Goethes anzuführen: ‘Nur der verdient sich Freiheit wie das Leben, Der täglich sie erobern muss.’ Der Sieg, an dem wir nicht zweifelten, ist erkämpft.” Wagner, GSD, 2:62. Regarding other interpretations of this music, both those supporting Wagner’s reading and those with other suggestions, see Hofer, “Zwischen ‘Engleskonzert’ und ‘frecher Kriegsmusik,’ ” 563, n. 17. 16. My translation. “indem ich mich auf die vorangehenden ermutigenden, wie auf Kampf und Sieg vorbereitenden Strophen bezog, faßte ich dieses Fugato wirklich als ein ernst-freudiges Kampfspiel auf und ließ es anhaltend in äußerst feurigem Tempo und mit angespanntester Kraft spielen”; Wagner, Mein Leben, 1:393–94. 17. The return of this bass line in the final movement, minus the treble part that it had first accompanied in the first movement, anticipates Robert Schumann’s use of this strategy in his song cycle Frauenliebe und-leben (1840). At the end of the eighth song, “Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan,” the accompaniment of the first song, “Seit ich ihn gesehen,” returns without the vocal part, symbolizing, however, the loneliness of the widow rather than the unity of the joyous victors. 18. In two insightful articles on Schubert, Edward Cone coined the term promissory note to refer to a “variety of musical gestures that, by demanding eventual formal or rhetorical completion, make effective pledges for the future.” See Cone, “Schubert’s Promissory Note,” and “Schubert’s Unfinished Business.” The quotation is from the latter, p. 223. 19. See the facsimile edition, Beethoven, Neunte Symphonie: Facsimile-Wiedergabe der Partitur. This passage is also discussed in Sanders, “Form and Content in the Finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony,” 62–63. 20. Even Senta’s Ballad in its revised key of G minor hinders the normal functioning of FG, avoiding all but one opportunity for the leading tone to resolve, emphasizing melodic CGs, and in the BH interludes, FJ. 21. It is possible that Beethoven is also the model for this passage, since he contracted the motives at the beginning of the first movement coda, as described

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above; that, however, is on such a much grander scale, involving several voices and many more measures, that it seems unrelated to Wagner’s usage in the trio. 22. Grey, “Text, Action, and Music,” 38.

chapter 3 1. Grey, “Romantic Opera as ‘Dramatic Ballad,’ ” 65. 2. Ibid., 72–73; Breig, “Musical Works,” 435–37. 3. Heine’s story is published in English translation in Grey, Richard Wagner, Der fliegende Holländer, 166–69. Barry Millington discusses it and the other textual sources for Wagner’s libretto in his “The Sources and Genesis of the Text,” 25–35. The French and German prose drafts are also available in English translation, the former by Peter Bloom, the latter by Stewart Spencer, in Grey, Richard Wagner, Der fliegende Holländer, 169–78. 4. Grey, Richard Wagner and His World, 485. 5. Grey, “Return of the Prodigal Son,” 14. 6. Groos, “Back to the Future,” 194. 7. Goehr, “Undoing the Discourse of Fate,” 433. 8. Grey, Richard Wagner and His World, 486–87. 9. Stephen Hinton examines a variety of differing views in “Not Which Tones?” 10. Wagner, “Opera and Drama,” 2:290. See, on this remark, Solomon, “Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony,” 11; and Parsons, “ ‘Deine Zauber binden wieder’ ” 28. 11. Kropfinger, Wagner and Beethoven, 35–38. 12. Voss, Richard Wagner; Kropfinger, Wagner and Beethoven, 180–81. 13. Wagner was clearly familiar with the Third Symphony by 1840. That is when he wrote his novella Ein glücklicher Abend, in which he discussed the Eroica. 14. Marx, Ludwig van Beethoven, 1:247–48. For a discussion of Marx’s analysis and Alexandre Oulibicheff, see Burnham, “On the Programmatic Reception.” 15. Wagner had in his very first draft broken off with the CG in measure 421 and followed immediately with the final D-minor triad. This version dated from December 1840. Already by early January he had revised the ending to create the twelve-measure extension of the CG and the shift to D Major. See Voss, Richard Wagner, 12–13; and also his remarks in the commentary to his edition of the movement, in Faustsymphonie, erster Satz (Eine Faust-Ouvertüre, 1. Fassung), in Richard Wagner, Sämtliche Werke, 18/2:xxxii. 16. Richard Wagner, Sämtliche Briefe, 6:328–29. Wagner also told Mathilde von Wesendonck; her recollection of this was published finally in 1896; see Eine Faustouvertüre (2. Fassung), in Sämtliche Werke, 18:3:xiv. 17. Bülow, Ueber Richard Wagner’s Faust-Ouverture, 4. 18. Ibid., 11. 19. Ibid. “Wagner’s Faust-Overture wurzelt also gewissermassen in Beethoven’s neunter Symphonie.” 20. This allusion to the Ninth is discussed in Kropfinger, Wagner and Beethoven, 180–81; and Millington, Wagner, 277. See also Tovey, Essays in Musical Analysis, 4:120.

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21. Wagner, “Report on the performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at Dresden,” 7:241–43. 22. Ibid., 7:243. 23. This segment is transcribed in Robert Bailey, “Method of Composition,” 281. The deleted passage occurred shortly after the choir of men sings “Elsa! Wie mochte das gescheh’n? Wie konntest so du dich vergeh’n?” and before Lohengrin sings “nun muss ich künden wie mein Nam’ und Art.” 24. In The Flying Dutchman I count five distinct two- to three-octave scales, each from four to seven measures long. They always occur in one voice only, while other voices are static, often with a pedal. In the early version of Tannhäuser there are also five, three of which are only one octave. They are also between four and eight measures long and involve one voice only, usually over or under a pedal. 25. Wagner, “Vorspiel zu ‘Lohengrin’,” in GSD, 5:180: “Er sinkt nieder in anbetender Vernichtung. Doch über den in Liebeswonne Verlorenen giesst der Gral nun seinen Segen aus, mit dem er ihn zu seinem Ritter weiht: die leuchtenden Flammen dämpfen sich zu immer milderem Glanze ab, der jetzt wie ein Atemhauch unsäglichter Wonne und Rührung sich über das Erdental verbreitet, und des Anbetenden Brust mit nie geahnter Beseligung erfüllt.” 26. Ibid., “als der ‘Gral’ aus seinem göttlichen Inhalte weithin die Sonnenstrahlen erhabenster Liebe, gleich dem Leuchten eines himmlischen Feuers, aussendet.” 27. Lohengrin, act II, scene 1, “auf den Palas deutend, in dem das Licht verlöscht ist.”

chapter 4 1. Schumann wrote this phrase in his Kurztagebuch sometime after July 1846; see Daverio, Robert Schumann, 305. 2. Daverio, Robert Schumann, 306. 3. Das Paradies und die Peri is Schumann’s secular oratorio for large orchestra, eleven soloists, solo quartet, and choir, opus 50, based on the poem LallaRookh (1817) by Thomas Moore. Hugely popular in the nineteenth century, it was premiered in Leipzig on 4 December 1843, Schumann conducting. 4. Alfred Dörffel, in NZfM 28 (1848), 100; as quoted in Daverio, Robert Schumann, 316. 5. Anonymous, NZfM 30 (1849), 187–88. Quoted from Thym, “Schumann in Brendel’s Neue Zeitschrift für Musik,” 27 and 34. 6. Gottschald, NZfM 32 (1850), 159; quoted in Daverio, Robert Schumann, 316. 7. Regarding the form of this movement: I divide the development into two formal units at the complete halt that occurs on the strong C-minor cadence and three grand pauses in measures 273–79. The first iteration of the An die ferne Geliebte theme then follows in measure 280 and thereafter. Further, “recapitulation” is a problematic label for this formally unusual movement, since the point of arrival introduces a thematic idea that was not “exposed” in the exposition. For discussions of why what begins in measure 394 functions as a

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recapitulation, see Finson, “Sketches for the Fourth Movement,” 153–54; Newcomb, “Once More,” 244–46; and Dahlhaus, “Studien zu romantischen Symphonien,” 112–15. 8. I am not counting the main theme, in which outer voices move in contrary motion but with intervals of differing size, usually thirds against fourths. 9. A facsimile of Schumann’s own annotated copy of Cherubini’s Theorie des Contrapunktes (Leipzig, 1835) is available in Robert Schumann, Studies in Counterpoint. 10. Letter of 12 November 1845. It is quoted in Finson, “Schumann, Popularity,” 5. 11. See Finson, “Schumann, Popularity,” 8–24, for a discussion of the changes. 12. Holoman, Berlioz: A Musical Biography, 99. 13. In Grey, Richard Wagner, Der fliegende Holländer, 186–88; see the letters of Wagner to Schumann, first of presentation, later in bitter response. 14. “Opera and Drama,” in Wagner’s Prose Works, 2:290. See also my comments in the introduction, p. 000 above. 15. Newcomb, “Once More,” 236, 237. 16. Ibid., 244–46. Already in 1850 the critic Gottschald had recognized the teleological process that Schumann had seen in Beethoven’s Ninth: the fourth and also the third movements were richest in ideas “because it [the third movement] like this [the finale], had both of the first two movements as a fundamental prerequisite and both reflect the principle idea in its full essence” (weil er wie dieser die beiden ersten Sätze zur principiellen Voraussetzung hat und beide die Idee in ihrem vollen Dasein spiegeln) (236). Jon Finson, in his study of the sketches, also has a music example in which he charts the “derivation of themes” in the finale. See Finson, “Sketches for the Fourth Movement,” 166. 17. Breig, “Musical Works,” 437; quoted from Wagner’s On the Application of Music to the Drama (1879). 18. Newcomb, “Once More,” 244–46, esp. 236. 19. Ibid., 246, n. 25. 20. Wagner, My Life, 319. 21. The correspondence between Wagner and Schumann is printed and discussed in Konrad, “Robert Schumann und Richard Wagner.” Regarding the probable destruction of letters and the role of Wagner in initiating exchanges, see 276–77. 22. See Reynolds, Motives for Allusion, 162, 165.

chapter 5 1. Gutman, Richard Wagner, 112, 377. 2. Paley, “Dramatic Stage and Choral Works,” 209. 3. Grey, “Musical Background and Influences,” 81–82. 4. Tusa, “Richard Wagner and Weber’s Euryanthe,“ 206–21; Jost, “Schumanns und Wagners Opernkonzeptionen,” 142–43. 5. Jost, “Schumanns und Wagners Opernkonzeptionen,” 150: “[sie] belegt aber, dass Schumann in dieser Beziehung durchaus auf der Höhe der Zeit stand.

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Das ‘wissende’ Orchester zeigt sich in Nr. 6 ‘Rezitativ und Szene,’ in der Szene des geraubten Kusses im 1. Akt.” 6. “The underlying metrical and rhythmic asymmetries in Schumann’s superficially square phraseology merit a separate study. Such a study would help to revise the oft-heard charge of rhythmic metrical monotony leveled at this piece and many others by Schumann.” Newcomb, “Once More,” 242, n. 20. 7. Sams, “The Songs,” 154. Sams compared “Heiss’ mich nicht reden” to Wagner (154–56), as did Billington, Robert Schumann’s Genoveva, 172–74. 8. Finscher, “Bach’s Posthumous Role,” 18. 9. See example 6.14 and the discussion there, esp. n. 21. 10. Among those who have commented on the resemblance of Wagner’s “Day” motive and Schumann’s “Rittersman” motive are Abert, “Robert Schumann’s Genoveva,” 286; Kroyer, “Die circumpolare Oper,” 16–33; and Ewert, Anspruch und Wirkung, 286–87. 11. Schumann, Haushaltbücher, 401. See table 4.3. 12. In Reynolds, Motives for Allusion, I discuss this and other examples, 29–32. 13. I do not count the two statements of the long form that involve an inexact sequence of pitches, as for example when Kurwenal sings “Wahn! Wie ist’s um dich getan!” to the notes D–CG–EG–E. 14. The AH motto is sung by Tristan (mm. 822–23). There is also one played by doublebass nearly simultaneously. It lasts four measures (mm. 820–23), finishing at the same time as Tristan’s. 15. I proposed that Mendelssohn had planted this BACH as an answer to a similar one his sister Fanny had composed in her then unpublished Sonata in C Minor (1824), in Reynolds, Motives for Allusion, 131. 16. This figure also returns on EH. It is discussed by, among others, Newcomb, “Once More,” 247; and Finscher, “ ‘Zwischen absoluter und Programmusik,’ ” 112. 17. Thorau, “Richard Wagners Bach,” 163–200; Geck, “Richard Wagner und die ältere Musik,” 123–46; Geck, “Bach und Tristan,” 190–96; Dahlhaus, “Wagner und Bach,” 440–58. 18. Cosima Wagner, Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 1:543; 2:272–73, 941. 19. Ibid., 2:855. 20. Ibid., 2:861. 21. The following translations of Tristan are my own. 22. I use the translation here and in the pages that follow of Pamela Dellal: www.emmanuelmusic.org/notes_translations/translations_cantata/t_bwv021. htm#pab1_7, accessed on 22 July 2014. 23. Abbate, “Opera as Symphony,” 106. 24. Cosima Wagner, Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 1:232; 2:276. 25. Bittman, “Reconciling God and Satan,” 502–3. 26. Ibid., 502, 505. 27. Ibid., 512. 28. Ibid., 501. Reger was one of many who wrote about the meaning of Bach for the music journal Die Musik in 1905–6.

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29. Perhaps for Wagner’s use of the “broken” form of BACH to represent the broken Tristan, his source was not just Schumann’s Fourth BACH Fugue, but by association, Schumann himself. 30. GSD, 8:318: “Nun hatte ich wohl gewusst, was mir von Liszt am Klaviere zu erwarten stand; was ich jetzt kennen lernte, hatte ich aber von Bach selbst nicht erwartet, so gut ich ihn auch studiert hatte. Aber hier ersah ich eben, was alles Studium ist gegen die Offenbarung.” 31. Dahlhaus, “Wagner und Bach,” 440; Thorau, “Richard Wagners Bach,” 171. 32. Thorau, “Richard Wagners Bach,” 184–85. 33. For a summary of these views, see Reynolds, Motives for Allusion, 41.

chapter 6 1. Bonds, After Beethoven. 2. As quoted in Brinkmann, Late Idyll, 33. 3. Quoted in Brodbeck, Brahms, Symphony No. 1, 31. 4. Ibid., 82. 5. The totals figured to the thousandth are as follows: Brahms’s entire first movement = .322; the Allegro alone = .320; Beethoven’s first movement = .316. 6. On resonances of the Fifth Symphony, see Brodbeck, Brahms, Symphony No. 1, 32–3. And Michael Musgrave has heard the influence of two piano sonatas (“Les Adieux” and the Appassionata); see his, Music of Brahms, 132; also Musgrave, “Die erste Symphonie von Johannes Brahms,” 538–39. 7. See, for example, Frisch, Brahms: The Four Symphonies, 49: “The development section of the first movement contains a fine example of another characteristically Brahmsian device, what might be called the procedure of thematic fulfillment, whereby a previously fragmentary or jagged motive becomes smoothed out and regularized into a genuine theme.” 8. Cook, Beethoven, Symphony No. 9, 28. 9. Bonds, After Beethoven, 163. 10. A repetition in Beethoven would have brought this back approximately in measure 57, in Brahms in measure 89. 11. Brodbeck, Brahms, Symphony No. 1, 35. 12. Raymond Knapp identified the next entrances of this motive as anticipating “the opening shape of the main theme of the finale (mm. 148f and 421f).” See Knapp, Brahms and the Challenge of the Symphony, 207. 13. Quoted in Brodbeck, Brahms, Symphony No. 1, 10. 14. In measures 75–77, 97–101, and 372–74. 15. Compare also the cellos’ leaps of tenths up and down (mm. 132–33) to Brahms (mm. 446–49), both of which have off-beat accents on the upper EH and F; the diminished seventh wedges (in Beethoven, mm. 431ff., and in Brahms, mm. 163–69 and 436–41), which appear as end gambits in both, placed just after the beginning of the closing sections of the exposition and recapitulation of Brahms and the coda of Beethoven; and, lastly, the ostinatos in the codas. 16. Brodbeck, Brahms, Symphony No. 1, 38. 17. Brinkmann, Late Idyll, 44.

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18. Bonds, After Beethoven, 148. 19. Ibid., 166. 20. See Brodbeck, Brahms, Symphony No. 1, 57–58; see also Fink, “Desire, Repression, and Brahms’s First Symphony,” 75–103. And Richard Taruskin, endorsing Fink’s reading, has declared the allusions to Tristan “pervasive”: “The very fact that Brahms was allegedly Wagner’s antagonist has led some to suppose that the apparent (and pervasive!) allusions to Tristan in Brahms’s First was an instance of unwitting mimicry and transformation.” See Taruskin, Music in the Nineteenth Century, 695. 21. Brodbeck has also argued persuasively that the sequential tritone and fourth motive in Brahms alludes to Astarte’s music at the end of Schumann’s Manfred; Brodbeck, Brahms, Symphony No. 1, 46–50, 103–4. The possibility thus exists that this constitutes another instance in Tristan of Wagner alluding to Schumann (or at the very least another instance of overlap in the styles of the two composers). Brodbeck’s association of Brahms and Schumann’s Manfred music has been repeated by Geck, Robert Schumann, 245; and Tunbridge, “Schumann’s ‘Manfred’ ” 174–75. 22. See also, for instance, Musgrave, Brahms Reader, 100. 23. Brinkmann, Late Idyll, 42. 24. Brodbeck, Brahms, Symphony No. 1, 72–76. 25. Brinkmann, Late Idyll, 43. 26. Rosen, “Influence,” 87–100.

chapter 7 1. On the dating of Wagner’s work on Lohengrin, see Deathridge, “Through the Looking Glass,” 57. 2. The articles in order of appearance are Hirschbach, “Beethoven’s neunte Symphonie” (17, 24, and 27 July 1838); Otten, “Beethoven’s neunte Symphonie: Eine andere Ansicht” (21 and 24 August 1838); Hirschbach, “An Hrn. O. in Hamburg” (7 September 1838); Otten, “Beethoven’s neunte Symphonie: An Herrn Hirschbach” (20 and 23 November 1838). 3. “Das Thema an sich ist zwar durch nichts ausgezeichnet, kündigt aber den energischen Charakter des ganzen Satzes schon im Voraus an.” Hirschbach, “Beethoven’s neunte Symphonie,” NZfM 9/5 (17 July 1838): 20. 4. Otten, “Beethoven’s neunte Symphonie: Eine andere Ansicht,” NZfM 9/15 (21 August 1838): 59. “Ich dagegen theile hoffentlich mit recht Vielen die wohlbegründete Ueberzeugung, daß das Thema jeder Anforderung für ein Allegro genügt, dessen Charakter unbestreitbar: heroische Kraft, männlicher Ernst, ja beinahe tragischer Untergang sind.” 5. Otten, “Beethoven’s neunte Symphonie: Eine andere Ansicht,” NZfM 9/15 (21 August 1838): 59–60. “S[eite] 5, 7ter Tact ist die Gegenbewegung in der 1sten Violine und den Bässen, wobei die 2ten Violinen und Violen mit dem Baß in Sept-Accorden gehen, ausgezeichnet schön.” 6. Otten, “Beethoven’s neunte Symphonie: Eine andere Ansicht,” NZfM 9/15 (21 August 1838): 60. “Nun geht es erst recht an. Hören Sie nur das verkündende a der Trompeten, zu denen sich nun auch die Pauken gesellen. Sehen Sie ihn

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nicht heranschreiten, fühlen Sie es nicht beben vor dem Tritte des Heros, der gewaltsam ringend vor unsern Augen stürzen wird?—Gleich S. 14 im 5ten Tact das Fis im Baß . . . dieses unbeschreiblich schöne Fis dringt wie ein Lichtstrom herein und erfüllt mit leisem Beben.” 7. Otten, “Beethoven’s neunte Symphonie: Eine andere Ansicht,” NZfM, 9/16 (24 August 1838): 63: Unter fortgesetzter Behandlung der einzelnen Theile des Themas geht es immer crescendo zum Sturmgemälde S. 24. Hier nun fehlen die Worte so Gigantisches zu schildern. Der Gipfelpunct des großartigen Kampfes ist erreicht in dem Augenblick, wo gleich krachendem Donner der D-Dur-Septen-Accord einfällt und dann unter unaufhörlichem Brausen der Blasinstrumente und der Pauken alle Streichinstrumente jene einem Blitz ähnliche Figur dazwischen schneiden. . . . Und dann das unermeßliche: [the main theme in the recapitulation]. Ist es nicht als zögen Erd’ und Himmel gegen einander zum Vertilgungskampf? Und das Thema ist “durch nichts ausgezeichnet”?—Mehre Seiten lang tobt der Sturm so fort; endlich stürzt alles zusammen vor der Kraft der Götter.—Alles wankt—immer leiser rollen die Pauke im Orgelpunct fort, bis (S. 27, 5ter Tact) die schmerzliche Wehklage ertönt. Noch einmal erscheinen alle die früheren Gedanken, noch einmal kehren strebender Muth und belebende Hoffnung zurück:—aber vergebens!

8. Nattiez, Wagner Androgyne, 136. 9. Ibid., 40. 10. Letter to Karl Gaillard of 30 January 1844. Quoted from Nattiez, Wagner Androgyne, 107. 11. Among those who have discussed the impact of Euryanthe on Wagner, see especially Tusa, “Richard Wagner and Weber’s Euryanthe”; Deathridge, “Through the Looking Glass”; and Warrack, Carl Maria von Weber. 12. A Communication to My Friends, quoted from Grey, Richard Wagner, Der fliegende Holländer, 183. 13. Wagner, My Life, 330.

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Index

Page numbers in italic indicate music examples and tables. Works are listed under the composer’s name (unless cross-referenced there to the title). Abbate, Carolyn, 127 Abert, Hermann, 110 Agawu, Kofi, 7 Alighieri, Dante, 22, 131 Bach, Johann Sebastian, 15, 87, 110, 115–16, 119–20, 133–34, 195n28; as force of nature, 120–21, 125, 129–30; as Medieval composer, 120, 130–31, 166; Cantata 21, Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, x, 126–29; St. John Passion, 105; The Well-Tempered Clavier, 120–21, 130, 132 BACH motto, 87, 102–3, 115, 116–19, 120–22, 122, 123, 124–25, 126, 129–33, 133, 134, 166, 195n13–15, 196n29 Bayreuth, 20, 36 Beethoven, Ludwig van, ix–xi, 17–18, 20, 32–33, 86, 98, 104, 134; An die ferne Geliebte, 15, 91, 167, 193n7; contrary motion, use of, 3, 7–11, 13, 43–54, 57, 65, 69–70, 79–80, 80, 83, 137–38, 162, 174–76; Fidelio, 171; invertible counterpoint, 48, 136; Missa solemnis, 10–11, 12; Piano Concerto no. 3 in C Minor, 156; Symphony no. 3 in EH Major, 5, 45, 67, 67–69, 192n13; Symphony no. 4 in BH Major, 45;

Symphony no. 5 in C Minor, 45, 89, 140, 145, 196n6; Symphony no. 6 in F Major, 45; Symphony no. 7 in A Major, 45; Symphony no. 8 in F Major, 45, 190–91n11; thematic dispersion, use of, 3, 11, 13–14, 39, 52–54, 63, 142–43; Wellington’s Victory, 8, 8. See also Symphony no. 9 in D Minor Berg, Alban, ix–x Berlioz, Hector, 67, 97, 105, 135, 163–65; Roméo et Juliette, 67, 165 Bewegungskrieg, 9 Billroth, Theodor, 136 Bittman, Antonius, 131 Boieldieu, François-Adrien, 20, 22, 171 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 9–10 Bonds, Mark Evan, 135, 140, 147 Borchmeyer, Dietrich, 22 Brahms, Johannes, ix, 10, 15, 34, 88–89, 98, 134–59, 162, 168; Beethoven, influence of, 15, 136–47, 145–47; contrary motion, use of, 136–39, 144, 149, 149–50, 156–57, 182–84; Schumann, influence of, 154–56; thematic dispersion, use of, 14, 135, 140, 142–43; Wagner, influence of, 145–54, 158, 197n20. See also Piano Concerto no. 1 in D Minor; Symphony no. 1 in C Minor

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Breig, Werner, 59, 100 Brinkmann, Reinhold, 147, 154–55 Brockhaus, Friedrich Arnold, 6 Brodbeck, David, 110, 141–42, 154, 197n21 Bülow, Hans von, 69, 136 Burnham, Scott, 5–6 Cherubini, Luigi, 87, 91, 161; Cours de contrepoint et de fugue, 91–92, 94, 96, 102, 194n9 Chop, Max, 20 Cone, Edward, 53, 191n18 contrary motion, x–xi, 6, 42–58, 65, 73–80, 85–97, 99, 135–36, 149–50, 156–57, 160–62, 167, 174–84, 191n14, 196n5; as topic for power of God, 10–11, 12–13, 79, 80, 83; as topic for war, 7-8, 9–10, 43–46, 48–49, 75–77, 77, 83; types of, 6–8, 43–45, 191n11. See also Gegenbewegung; entries under Beethoven; Brahms; Faust Overture; The Flying Dutchman; Lohengrin; Ouverture, Scherzo and Finale; Schumann, Symphony no. 1; Symphony no. 2 (Schumann); Symphony no. 9 (Beethoven); Wagner Cook, Nicholas, 140 countermaneuver, xi, 9 counterpoint: invertible, 48, 92, 136; oblique, 9 Dahlhaus, Carl, 19, 132 Dante, 22, 131 Daverio, John, 87, 100, 107 David, Ferdinand, 86 Deathridge, John, 19, 22, 190n2 Dietrich, Albert, 10 Dresden, 1–3, 5, 15, 19, 32, 67, 84, 86, 89, 99–105, 115, 134, 189n4 Dürer, Albrecht, 130–31 Eichhorn, Andreas, 44, 189n4, 190n10 Ellis, William Ashton, 43, 190n9 Eschenbach, Wolfram von, 131 Faust Overture (Wagner), x, 5–8, 14, 18, 19, 35, 58, 59, 67–68, 153–54, 192n15; contrary motion, in, 65, 69, 71-72, 73, 85, 149–50; Eroica Symphony, influence of, 67–68; influence on Brahms, 136, 148–49, 149, 150–51, 154, 158; motto from Faust, 6, 69, 70, 85; Ninth Symphony, influence of, 65, 67, 69,

70–72, 84–85, 149–50; revised version, 67, 69, 70–72, 73, 149–50 Fink, Robert, 153, 197n20 Finscher, Ludwig, 110 Finson, Jon, 194n16 The Flying Dutchman (Wagner), ix–x, 2, 5, 17–20, 22–34, 35–42, 52–58, 62, 65, 72, 79, 99, 153–54, 164–65, 192n24; compared to Lohengrin, 7, 64, 74–75, 76; contrary motion, in, 55–56, 56–57, 73, 177–78; contrast between FG/GH, 54–55, 59, 84; Dutchman’s theme, 22, 23, 35, 55–57, 57; Faust, influence of, 14, 18, 24–34; Faust Overture, influence of, 68; French prose draft, 28–29, 30–31, 59–60; German prose draft, 60–61; influence on Brahms, 136, 150, 150–51, 152, 154, 158; musical-dramatic interruptions, 26, 41–42, 42, 55, 59, 61–62; Ninth Symphony, influence of, 5, 14, 18, 22, 23, 26–34, 35–42, 53–57, 59–64, 84, 150, 156, 160, 164, 190n6; Schreckensfanfare chord, 26, 36–37, 37–38, 40, 54–56, 59–60, 98, 151, 156, 158, 165, 167; thematic dispersion, 11, 19–20, 53–54, 59, 160–61; Wagner’s remarks on, 17, 35–36, 59 —sections of: act I, beginning, 38, 39; act II duet, Senta and Dutchman, 27, 28–29, 30–34, 55, 60–61, 84; act III trio, 26–27, 36, 38, 40, 55–56, 56, 57, 60, 191–92n21; chorus of Dutch sailors, 19, 26, 39, 41, 53, 59–60; chorus of Norwegian sailors, 19, 20, 21, 26–27, 39–42, 42, 59–60, 166, 172, 190n6; Erik’s cavatina, 20, 21, 172; Overture, 5, 22, 23, 35–36, 54, 56–57, 57, 171; Senta’s Ballad, 18–20, 22, 25, 35–36, 36, 39, 53–55, 59–63, 64-65, 66, 171–72, 191n20; Spinning Song, 61–63, 171; “Wie oft in Meeres tiefsten Schlund,” 37-38, 54, 56–58, 64, 64–65, 66, 68–69, 150–51, 152 Frederick the Great, 9 Frisch, Walter, 196n7 Geck, Martin, 120 Gegenbewegung, x–xi, 6, 44, 85, 92, 99, 162; as military term, 9–10. See also contrary motion Gershwin, George, ix–x Glasenapp, Carl Friedrich, 73 Goehr, Lydia, 62

Index Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 24, 32, 35, 59; Faust, 4–6, 14, 18, 22, 24–33, 38–39, 65, 68–69, 70, 84–85, 97–98, 104, 165–67; Faust, chorus of Angels, 60–61 Gottschald, Ernst, 89, 194n16 Grey, Thomas, 18, 20, 27, 39, 56, 59, 61, 107–8, 189n1 Groos, Arthur, 20, 61 Gutman, Robert, 107 Habeneck, François-Antoine, 5, 14, 18, 22, 65, 188n9, 189n4 Halévy, Fromental, 75 Hanslick, Eduard, 136 Heine, Heinrich, “The Fable of the Flying Dutchman,” 59–60 Hiller, Ferdinand, 2, 104 Hinton, Stephen, 192n9 Hirschbach, Hermann, 161–63 Hoffmann, E. T. A., 20, 171 “Jetzt gang’ i ans Brünnele,” 20, 21, 166, 172 Joachim, Joseph, 136, 143 Jost, Peter, 108 Knapp, Raymond, 196n12 Konrad, Ulrich, 2, 102 Kotzebue, August von, 10 Kropfinger, Klaus, 22, 65, 69, 189n4 Leipzig, 1–2, 5, 101 Liszt, Franz, 15, 69, 85, 120, 126, 132, 134, 164; Eine Faust-Symphonie, 67; Ninth Symphony, piano transcription of, 37, 40, 42, 47, 79, 80; Prelude and Fugue on the Name BACH, 132 Lohengrin (Wagner), 3, 14, 19, 59, 65, 73–85, 86, 99, 103–4, 107–10, 112, 127, 134, 136, 161, 163–65, 167, 192n23; compared to The Flying Dutchman, 7, 64, 74–75, 76; contrary motion, in, 16, 75–77, 77, 78–81, 81–82, 83, 85; Ninth Symphony, influence of, 73–81, 83–85; octave FGs, 76, 78, 158; Prelude, 79–81, 81; Prelude, Wagner’s program for, 79–80, 83; Schreckensfanfare chord, 73–74, 74, 75; verse draft, 5, 15, 102–5, 161, 163 Luther, Martin, 131 Magdeburg, 2 Mahler, Gustav, 135

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Marschner, Heinrich, 20, 22, 171–72; Der Vampyr, 20, 22, 166 Marx, Adolf Bernhard, 192n14 Mendelssohn, Fanny, 195n15 Mendelssohn, Felix, 86, 93, 101–3, 105, 118, 135, 137, 163, 195n15; Reformation Symphony, 156; String Quartet in F Minor, 118, 119 Meyerbeer, Giacomo, 20, 22, 98, 126, 172 Millington, Barry, 192n3 Monelle, Raymond, 7–9 Moore, Thomas, 193n3 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 89 Musgrave, Michael, 196n6 Napoleon Bonaparte, 9–10 Nattiez, Jean-Jacques, 164 Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, 2, 89, 161 Newcomb, Anthony, 99, 108, 195n6 Otten, Georg Dietrich, 161–63, 198n7 Ouverture, Scherzo and Finale, op. 52 (Schumann), 15, 93–94, 102, 161, 163, 168; contrary motion, in, 93–94, 95, 97; Ninth Symphony, influence of, 93, 96–97; octave FGs, 95, 96, 158 Paley, Elizabeth, 107 Paris, 2, 5, 14, 18–19, 22, 65, 84 Piano Concerto no. 1 in D Minor (Brahms), 15; contrary motion, in, 156–57, 157, 158; octave FGs, 156, 157 Pohlenz, August, 5 Reger, Max, 131, 195n28; Phantasie und Fuge über den Namen BACH, 131–32, 133 Rehding, Alexander, 20 Reich, Willi, ix Rosen, Charles, 156 Rubinstein, Joseph, 1, 120 Sams, Eric, 108 Schenker, Heinrich, 43 Schiller, Friedrich, 4, 50, 52, 62 Schreckensfanfare chord, 26, 34, 36–37, 37, 38, 40, 54–56, 59–60, 63, 73–74, 74, 75, 98, 98, 145, 147, 155–56, 158, 167 Schubert, Franz, 89, 102, 104, 191n18 Schumann, Clara, 1–2, 91, 101, 104, 143 Schumann, Marie, 102 Schumann, Robert, x–xi, 1–3, 11, 15–16, 34, 86, 110, 121, 135, 158–59, 168; as editor, 2, 161; contrary motion, use of,

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Schumann, Robert (continued) 10, 15, 87–97, 137, 179–81; counterpoint studies of, 3, 86–87, 91; Haushaltbücher, 101, 103–4, 105, 115; stylistic evolution, 3, 86–87, 99–100; thematic dispersion, use of, 11, 14, 97–99, 134 —compositions of, “Auf einer Burg,” op. 39, no. 7, 112; Carnaval, op. 9, 99, 116; Four Fugues, op. 72, 87; Frauenliebe und -leben, 191n17; Fugue no. 4 for Organ on BACH, 103, 115–16, 116, 121, 163; Genoveva, 3, 100–101, 107–10, 118; Rittersmann motive, 112–13, 112–13; “Heiss’ mich nicht reden,” op. 98a, no. 5, 108, 109; Manfred, 108, 110, 197n21; Nachtstücke, op. 23, 87–88; Das Paradies und die Peri, 87–88, 88, 91, 100, 167, 193n3; Piano Quartet in EH Major, op. 47, 89, 90; Piano Quintet in EH Major, op. 44, 89, 90; Piano Trio in D Minor, op. 63, 89, 90, 109–10, 111; Piano Trio in F Major, op. 80, 90; Der Rose Pilgerfahrt, 108; Scenen aus Goethes Faust, 97–98, 98, 156; Six Fugues for organ on BACH, op. 60, 87, 102–3, 115–16, 121, 131–32, 133, 134, 161; Six Studies for Pedal Piano, op. 56, 87; Symphony in G Minor, 2; Symphony no. 1 in BH Major, 89, 90, 93, 161; Symphony no. 3 in EH Major, 89, 90; Symphony no. 4 in D Minor, 89, 90. See also Ouverture, Scherzo and Finale; Symphony no. 2 in C Major —and Wagner, 160–69, 196n29; correspondence with, 98, 102–3, 194n13, 194n21; meetings with, 2–3, 15, 99–101, 103–5, 109, 115, 163, 168–69; stylistic similarities with, 3, 11, 15, 99–100, 107–23, 134, 158–59 Spontini, Gaspare, 126 Switzerland, 32, 133–34 Symphony no. 1 in C Minor (Brahms), x, 7, 15, 136–54, 156–58; early reviews of, 136 —movement 1, 150; coda, 144, 148–49, 151; contrary motion in, 136–39, 144, 149, 149–50, 156–57, 182–84; development, 139, 140, 144–45, 148–49, 149, 150–51; exposition (Allegro), 137–38, 138–39, 140–41, 141, 144, 145–46, 148, 153, 154, 155; introduction, 136, 138, 141, 151-52, 157; Ninth Symphony, influence of, 15,

136–50, 155; octave FGs, 139, 144, 148, 158; recapitulation, 137–38, 139, 141–42, 143, 144–45, 148; Schumann, influence of, 154; Schreckensfanfare chord, 145, 147, 148, 151, 155–56, 158; Wagner, influence of, 137, 145–51, 153, 155, 197n20 —movement 4, 155; Ninth Symphony, influence of, 136, 140, 142, 146–47; thematic dispersion, 140, 142–43, 160 Symphony no. 2 in C Major (Schumann), x, 3, 15, 86, 88–89, 94, 99–100, 102, 104–5, 108–9, 113, 158, 160–61, 167; early reviews of, 88–89, 194n16; influence on Brahms, 154–56, 158; influence on Wagner, 15, 109, 114, 114, 119, 122, 123, 134, 158–59 —movement 2, BACH motive, 119, 122, 123, 134 —movement 3, 114, 115, 154 —movement 4, 114, 114, 155, 155, 193–94n7; allusion to An die ferne Geliebte, 15, 91, 99, 155; contrary motion in, 15, 89, 91–92, 92–93, 179–81; Ninth Symphony, influence of, 89, 91, 98–99, 154; stylistic similarities to Wagner, 114; thematic dispersion, 98–99, 114, 134, 154, 160 Symphony no. 9 in D Minor (Beethoven), ix–x, 3–4, 14, 18, 22–34, 35–59, 97, 154, 158, —movement 1, 4, 10, 32, 161–62, 198n7; coda, 45, 49–50, 51, 57–58, 72, 72, 79-80, 91; contrary motion in, 10–11, 13, 43–54, 57, 69–70, 79–80, 80, 83, 136, 162, 174–76, 190–91n11, 191n14; development, 11, 13, 44–46, 47, 48, 142; exposition, 11, 13, 22, 23, 24–25, 43–46, 47, 48–49, 72, 141, 141, 142, 143, 144 146, 156, 171; main theme, 11, 13, 46, 57, 69, 144, 161–62; motto from Faust, 5–6, 14, 18, 24–25, 65, 69, 70, 85; octave FGs, 48, 52–53, 53, 59, 142, 156, 158; recapitulation, 11, 13, 44–45, 48, 49, 50, 50, 69, 72; Wagner’s comments on, 3–4, 32–34, 42–43, 72–73, 168; Wagner’s program for, x, 6, 24–25, 43–46, 50, 53, 55, 57, 61–62, 69, 70, 162–63 —movement 1, influence on: Brahms, Piano Concerto no. 1, 156–57; Brahms, Symphony no. 1, 15, 136–50, 155; Schumann, Symphony no. 2, 89, 91; Wagner, Faust Overture, 6, 69, 84; Wagner, Flying Dutchman, 5, 22, 23,

Index 36, 53, 55–58, 59, 64; Wagner, Lohengrin, 73–79, 83 —movement 2, 32, 63; influence on The Flying Dutchman, 26, 39–42, 59–60, 166, 190n6; interruptions in, 26, 41–42, 42, 166; Wagner’s program for, 25–26, 39, 62 —movement 3, 31–32, 33, 63, 145; influence on The Flying Dutchman, 27–34, 35, 36, 60–61, 84; Wagner’s program for, 27–34, 60, 62, 84 —movement 4, 32, 91, 96, 135; contrary motion in, 51, 96, 97; influence on Brahms, 136; influence on Flying Dutchman, 36–38, 37–38, 53–56, 60–63, 165; influence on Schumann, 89, 96–98; octave FGs, 52–53, 52–53, 96–97; Ode to Joy, 3–4, 11, 16, 27, 50, 53–54, 62–63, 98, 136, 140, 142, 146–47; preparation in third movement, 31; Schreckensfanfare, 26, 34, 36–38, 37–38, 40, 63, 74–75, 98, 98, 145, 147, 156, 165; thematic dispersion, 11, 52–54, 63, 142–43, 160; Turkish music, 9–10, 51; Wagner’s program for, 26–27, 32, 36, 50, 52–53, 59, 62 Taruskin, Richard, 197n20 thematic dispersion, 11, 13–14, 15–16, 19–20, 39, 52–54, 59, 63–65, 84, 97–99, 114, 133–34, 140, 142–43, 154, 160–61. See also Beethoven; Brahms; The Flying Dutchman; Schumann, Symphony no. 1; Symphony no. 2 (Schumann); Symphony no. 9 (Beethoven); Tristan and Isolde; Wagner Thorau, Christian, 120, 132–33 topics, musical, 7 Tovey, Donald Francis, 69 Tristan and Isolde (Wagner), x, 15, 105, 112, 112, 127, 166, 197n20; act II, sc. 1, 121–22, 122, 123–25, 129–30, 133; act II, sc. 2, 113, 113–14, 115, 121–22, 125–26, 126, 127–30, 133; act III, sc. 1, 113–14, 114, 115–16, 117–18, 118–19, 119, 122–25, 129–30, 133; “Die alte Weise,” 110, 114–15, 118, 153, 153–54; Bach, influence of, 15, 110, 119–22, 126–34; Leitmotif for “Day,” 112–13, 112–13, 118; Liebestod, 120; Nature, as expression of, 121, 125, 129–30; Prelude, 111, 151, 153, 155; thematic dispersion, 133–34 —Schumann, influence of, 15, 109–10; BACH motive, 116–26, 195n13–14,

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196n29; Fugue no. 4 for Organ on BACH, 109, 115–19; Genoveva, 109, 112–13, 112–13, 118–19; late style, 15, 108–19; Manfred, 110; Symphony no. 2 in C Major, 15, 109, 114, 114, 119, 122, 123, 134, 158; Piano Trio in D Minor, op. 63, 109–10, 111 Tusa, Michael, 108 Urhan, Chrétien, 22 Vienna, 87, 89 Wagner, Cosima, 4, 120–21, 130, 132 Wagner, Richard, ix–xi, 1–7, 13–16, 20, 22, 32–34, 59–60, 86, 98, 132–33, 135, 145, 147; An Webers Grabe, 19; as Royal Saxon Kapellmeister, 5, 43, 168; Bach, conception of, 120–21, 125, 129–33; composition, views on, 164–67; contrary motion, use of, 10, 55–56, 56–57, 65, 69, 71, 72–73, 75–77, 77, 78–81, 82, 83, 85, 149–50, 167, 177–78; Faust Symphony, 5–6, 14, 22, 35, 65, 68–69, 72, 84, 148; Die Götterdämmerung, 127; Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, 120; Rienzi, 2, 18, 19, 102; Der Ring des Nibelungen, 165; stylistic evolution, 3, 86; Symphony in C Major, 2; Tannhäuser, 3, 15, 18, 19, 65, 73, 79, 100–103, 105, 164–65, 192n24; thematic dispersion, use of, 11, 19–20, 53–54, 59, 133–34; Trauermusik, 19 —and Beethoven’s Ninth, comments on, 3–4, 32–34, 42–43, 72–73, 168, 188n9; conductor of, 3, 5, 14–15, 19, 32, 43, 73, 101, 104, 163; deepening understanding of, 4–5, 15, 60, 65, 84, 86, 190n7; Palm Sunday 1846 concert, preparations for, 72–73, 84, 102–5, 168, 188n9, 189n; program for (“Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony”), 4–6, 10–11, 14–15, 18, 22–34, 36, 39, 42–43, 50, 52–53, 55, 57, 60–62, 69–70, 72, 83–84, 104–5, 162–63 —and Schumann, 160–69, 196n29; correspondence with, 98, 102–3, 194n13, 194n21; denigration of, 1, 101, 107, 159; meetings with, 2–3, 15, 99–101, 103–5, 109, 115, 163, 168–69; stylistic similarities with, 3, 11, 15, 99–100, 107–23, 134, 158–59. See also Faust Overture; The Flying Dutchman; Lohengrin; Tristan and Isolde

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Index

Wagner, Richard (continued) —prose works: The Artwork of the Future, 32, 164; A Communication to My Friends, 17–19; Ein glücklicher Abend, 192n13; Judaism in Music, 1; Music of the Future, 13–14; My Life, 2, 42–43, 52, 100–101, 168, 190n6, 190n7; “On Conducting,” 132; “On Performing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony,” 4, 36–37; Opera and Drama, 11, 63, 98–99; A Pilgrimage to Beethoven, 4–5; “Report on the

performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony,” 43, 72–73 Weber, Carl Maria von, 20, 102–3, 108, 126, 166, 172; Euryanthe, 19, 164–65; Der Freischütz, 20, 21 Wesendonck, Mathilde von, 192n16 Wieck, Clara, 2 Wieck, Friedrich, 1 Wolfram von Eschenbach, 131 Würzburg, 22 Zwickau, 2