Richard Wagner His Life and His Dramas / A Biographical Study of the Man and an Explanation of His Work

by W. J. Henderson

The composer sought in this drama to free himself from all the restrictions of historical detail, and to centralise the music upon the expression of the emotions of his personage, to make the play of emotions, and not the succession of incidents, the real material of the drama. This had always been his ideal of the lyric drama, but he had not been certain of its practicability. In the letter just quoted he says on this point:

"All doubt at last was taken from me when I gave myself up to the 'Tristan.' Here, in perfect trustfulness, I plunged into the inner depths of soul events, and from out this inmost centre of the world I fearlessly built up its outer form. A glance at the volumen of this poem will show you at once that the exhaustive detail work, which a historical poet is obliged to devote to clearing up the outward bearings of his plot, to the detriment of a lucid exposition of its inner motives, I now trusted myself to apply to these latter alone. Life and death, the whole import and existence of the outer world, here hang on nothing but the inner movements of the soul. The whole affecting action comes about for reason only that the inmost soul demands it and steps to light with the very shape foretokened in the inner shrine."

In beginning the work, he wrote the text without any thought of operatic style. The reader will note that it is written in a freely formed rhymed verse, the rhythms being few, but elastic, and of such a nature that the poetry suggests the form of the melody without hampering the composer. This result could have been achieved only by the procreation of both verse and music by one mind. The organic union of text and tone was conceived in Wagner's brain before pen touched paper. In reference to this he says in the "Music of the Future":

"Whereas the verses were there [in the Italian opera] intended to be stretched to the length demanded by that melody through countless repetitions of words and phrases, in the musical setting of 'Tristan' not a trace of word repetition is any longer found, but the weft of words and verses foreordains the whole dimensions of the melody, i.e., the structure of that melody is already erected by the poet."

At a first glance this seems to be a contradiction of Wagner's theory that the poem should not impose its form on the music. But we must bear in mind that this poetry was prepared with the avoidance of text domination in the poet's mind. Wagner wrote to Villot that he found that his melody and its form were wholly freed from the old shackles. He composed with the utmost liberty.

Before noting a few of the most significant phrases of this score, which is a shimmering web of leading motives, let us take a glance at the general plan. Here is a work constructed upon a model diametrically opposed to the familiar one of Meyerbeer, the one regnant in Europe at the date of "Tristan und Isolde's" production. Meyerbeer built entirely for the succession of incidents, musical and pictorial. The dramatic idea had to conform itself to this scheme. Wagner built wholly on the ground of the thought and feelings of his personages, and the action and the music had to place themselves as explicators wholly at the service of these inner governors. Yet we shall find that each act of the drama has a clear and symmetrical musical shape, and that although this form is prescribed by the emotional movement, it is none the less grounded upon the fundamental laws of musical form.

Each of the three acts begins with a musical mood picture, in which the elements of external description and inner feeling are skilfully combined. The first act opens with the quaint, peaceful song of the sailor, which suggests a calm sea and a pleasant voyage. The second begins with the hunting music dying away in the forest, music which establishes a nature mood, a mood of moonlight and rustling leaves. The third is ushered in with the music of the empty sea, a descriptive lament whose profound melancholy is not equalled in any other score. Starting from each of these pictures, Wagner develops an act. The sailor's song in Act I. is followed by a sudden interruption of the peaceful mood. Isolde's passion begins to play. It bursts into tumult. The curtain is thrown back, and to accompany the motionless picture of Tristan at the helm, the sailor's song is repeated. Again the music gradually rises in emotional force, till another climax is reached, when Kurvenal trolls his ditty and the insulted Isolde has the curtain closed. Another point of repose, and again with Isolde's passion the music rises, but sinks to languorous yearning as she tells of the glance that won her soul. The wave mounts again as she curses Tristan and cries for vengeance. The music sinks into impressive depths as Isolde proclaims her purpose to administer the drink of death, and here Wagner relieves the strain and makes a sharp contrast by introducing the cries of the seamen outside. Then follow Kurvenal's boisterous entrance, and at length the entrance of Tristan, which is heralded by an orchestral passage voicing the heroism and the fate of the hero, a passage of extraordinary power. The scene between Tristan and Isolde begins reposefully and rises to a climax of passion at the taking of the drink. Then comes a moment of expectancy, followed by an upheaval, and then each utters the other's name in a phrase of deepest yearning. The sailor's music again affords the necessary relief, and the act comes to an end in a turmoil of tone.

The musical scheme of the second act is simpler because the emotions are less complex. After the opening mood picture, Isolde has a brief scene of contest with Brangäne, and at the extinction of the torch the musical wave, which has been growing, curls and breaks. The next one starts with Isolde's waving her scarf. Now we have a rapid, agitated movement, depicting the wild haste of Tristan, the eagerness of Isolde. The lover enters and this movement becomes tumultuous. When its climax is reached the necessary point of repose is made as Tristan leads Isolde to the seat. We have had an allegro agitato; now follows an adagio appassionata, the love duet. Its long-drawn, melting measures are broken once by the watch-cry of Brangäne—so composed that it does not interrupt, but intensifies the mood—and at last the rude interruption of Kurvenal. The contrast here is short and sharp. The dramatic situation is enough. Then follows another slow movement,—the coda of the adagio,—Mark's speech, Tristan's answer, his appeal to Isolde, her answer. With the few crashing measures of Melot and of Tristan's self-impalement, the musical scheme is completed. Its form is perfect; its organic union with the mood scheme of the act complete.

The musical plan of the third act has again more detail, because the story is more incidental. With the melancholy music of the empty sea as a starting-point, Wagner develops a long adagio, whose wave-crests are the summits of Tristan's delirious outbursts. This adagio ends when the shepherd's pipe proclaims the sighting of the sail. Then enters the allegro agitato of the act, the wild rhapsody of Tristan, the tearing off of the bandages, and the death of the hero. With Isolde's mourning over the body we get a point of repose and contrast. The shepherd announces a second ship. Descriptive music of rapid movement follows, till the fight is interrupted by Mark's entrance, and the final slow movement is begun. This movement comes to its majestic climax with the "Liebestod," and with a few bars of finale by the orchestra the work ends, like Tschaikowsky's sixth symphony, with its adagio lamentoso.