Wagner, Tristan und Isolde – Vorspiel und Liebestod
Few opening statements in music are as iconic as that of the opera Tristan and Isolde by Richard Wagner (1813-1883). Musical scholars point to it as a turning point in the musical vocabulary of the 19th century or even as the beginning of modern music. It’s distinctiveness lies not in dissonance but in its ambiguity. The short motive peaks on the chord marked by an asterisk. Theorists have engaged in a longstanding debate about what to call this chord and how to explain its resolution. But most people, including even theorists, just call it the “Tristan chord.”
The opera, completed 1859 and premiered in 1865, is based on a 12th-century romance by Gottfried von Strassburg. Often associated with King Arthur, it has the same basic elements as Arthur, Lancelot, and Guinevere. In this story, King Marke of Cornwall has sent his trusty knight Tristan to fetch his Irish queen-t0-be Isolde. Tristan and Isolde fall in love and things don’t work out well.
The Vorspiel (prelude) and Liebestod (love death) is a concert piece comprised of the very beginning and end of the opera. Liebestod (which begins at 12:32 in this performance) is Isolde’s lament over the death of Tristan and her decision to join him in the next life.
People tend to have strong opinions about Wagner and his music, and some are a little put off by the length of his operas. But Wagner receives credit, deservedly so, for being a master of musical drama. He is not just long-winded, but rather is capable of sustaining dramatic intensity well past the point when others might run out of steam. Writing about Tristan and Isolde for the San Francisco Symphony, James M. Keller said from the very opening “we hear a curious chord, neither consonant nor strikingly dissonant, that will lend an uncanny sense of ambivalence and yearning throughout the opera’s whole immense span.”
The venue for this performance is the 12th-century Cistercian Eberbach Abbey near Wiesbaden, Germany on the Rhine.
