The prelude to Tristan and Isolde will always be one of the most heartbreakingly beautiful pieces of classical music for me. The chromaticism, expressivity of drawn out dissonances (especially the appoggiaturas that are dissonant on downbeats), and the leaps in the melodic line are what I find particularly haunting.
It was interesting to note that one of the main themes from Mahler 5 (specifically present in the adagietto) was basically taken note for note from one of the themes present about 3-4 minutes into Wagner’s overture. I guess that makes sense though. The moment with the #11 voicing stood out to me as being somewhat harmonically definitive of a new era in music.
The prelude of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde shows Wagner’s famous wide range of musical expression, instrumentation and harmonic use. Everything is “big”. And there is, of course, the Tristan chord, which he repeats 3 times, starting in a minor, then A Major and E Major, which makes the beginning so spectacular.
I find Wagner’s operas to be really interesting and pretty revolutionary for his time. Instead of having a collection of charming little arias placed one after another, he really makes an effort to unite the whole work using various motifs that pervade the entire opera. I also found it interesting how singers and the orchestra seem to work together in this opera, whereas in earlier operas have the singers singing these marvelously complex and ornamented arias on top of some running 8th-notes (I have played a couple of these operas in the pit… it is boring).
Tristan and Isolde is just an incredible piece of music. Its huge orchestration and relentless refusal to resolve are perfect paradigms of Wagner’s writing.
Certainly very interesting to see how Wagner wrote this great orchestra part, expressing all the emotions and telling the stories. I can totally feel the pain for both characters’s love in the story by just listening to the music!
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