PRELUDE AND LIEBESTOD FROM “TRISTAN UND ISOLDE”
The subject of Tristan und Isolde was first mentioned by Wagner in a letter to Liszt in the latter part of 1854; the poem was written at Zürich in the summer of 1857, and finished in September of that year. The composition of the first act was completed at Zürich, December 31, 1857 (some say, but only in the sketch); the second act was completed at Venice in March, 1859; the third act at Lucerne in August, 1859.
Wagner himself frequently conducted the prelude and Love-Death, arranged by him for orchestra alone, in the concerts given by him in 1863. At those given in Carlsruhe and Löwenberg the programme characterized the prelude as Liebestod and the latter section, now known as Liebestod, as Verklärung (Transfiguration).
The prelude, langsam und schmachtend (slow and languishingly), in A minor, 6-8, is a gradual and long-continued crescendo to a most sonorous fortissimo; a shorter decrescendo leads back to pianissimo. It is free in form and of continuous development. There are two chief themes: the first phrase, sung by violoncellos, is combined in the third measure with a phrase ascending chromatically and given to the oboes.
These phrases form a theme known as the “Love Potion” motive, or the motive of “Longing”; for passionate commentators are not yet agreed about the terminology. The second theme, again sung by the violoncellos, a voluptuous theme, is entitled “Tristan’s Love Glance.”
The prelude is scored for three flutes (and piccolo), two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums, harp, and the usual strings.
Wagner wrote this explanatory programme:
“A primitive old love poem, which, far from having become extinct, is constantly fashioning itself anew, and has been adopted by every European language of the Middle Ages, tells us of Tristan and Isolde. Tristan, the faithful vassal, woos for his king her for whom he dares not avow his own love, Isolde. Isolde, powerless to do otherwise than obey the wooer, follows him as bride to his lord. Jealous of this infringement of her rights, the Goddess of Love takes her revenge. As the result of a happy mistake, she allows the couple to taste of the love potion which, in accordance with the custom of the times, and by way of precaution, the mother had prepared for the husband who should marry her daughter from political motives, and which, by the burning desire which suddenly inflames them after tasting it, opens their eyes to the truth and leads to the avowal that for the future they belong only to each other. Henceforth, there is no end to the longings, the demands, the joys and woes of love. The world, power, fame, splendor, honor, knighthood, fidelity, friendship, all are dissipated like an empty dream. One thing only remains: longing, longing, insatiable longing, forever springing up anew, pining and thirsting. Death, which means passing away, perishing, never awakening, their only deliverance.... Powerless, the heart sinks back to languish in longing, in longing without attaining; for each attainment only begets new longing, until in the last stage of weariness the foreboding of the highest joy of dying, of no longer existing, of the last escape into that wonderful kingdom from which we are furthest off when we are most strenuously striving to enter therein. Shall we call it death? Or is it the hidden wonder-world from out of which an ivy and vine, entwined with each other, grew up upon Tristan’s and Isolde’s grave, as the legend tells us?”