This page was last
edited on 16/01/06
This page was last
edited on 16/01/06
Topics To Research
- 19th century Opera
- Music Drama
- Wagner's works and style
- Wagner's influence on the development of "modern" music
- Chromatic harmony
- Romantic orchestration
- The German vocabulary - see appendix
Bibliography
- Grout pp. 595-617
- CMG pp.345-356
- Wagner - New Grove Biographies
- Wagner - Master Musician Series
Questions
- State the meaning of the following terms:-
- Langsam und schmachtend (bar 1)
- Bog. (bar 17)
- auf d. G (bar 22)
- get. (bar 36)
- allmahlich im Zeitmass etwas zuruckhaltend (bar 84)
- Write out, at concert pitch, the orchestral parts of bars 48 to 49 for the...
you may do this on a 4 stave score.
- Cor Anglais
- Horns in F
- Horns in E
- Bass Clarinet
- Outline the form of this work.
- What features of this Prelude justify the comment that the music for "Tristan" is a landmark in the history of Western music?
- Describe Wagner’s use of melodies, motifs and melodic fragments.
- Analyse and comment upon the harmony in bars 1-17.
- Describe how Wagner uses the orchestra in the Prelude.
Wagner used what he called 'unending melody' like a thread running through the Concert prelude. Nearly every note of this melody owes a debt to one of three motifs. Although there leitmotivs have been given names, because they are associated with particular words or phrases, anyone hearing the Prelude 'cold' would not be aware of the extra-musical associations.
The motives are:-
x = a rising chromatic scale (bars 2-3) "Desire" which has 3 notes.
y = a rising 6th and a falling semitone, the first notes heard in the prelude ("Grief")
z = ("Glance") in which can be identified two smaller fragment a and b, the dotted rhythm and a falling 7th. [Heard in bars17-18 an octave lower than shown]
In the music, the motifs are constantly mutated to form the long melody. This happens as early as bars 2-3 (under x) where y continues to fall chromatically, though in the Cor Anglais, not the 'cellos. The result is an inversion of x, a downward chromatic line.
In bars 8-11 the second of two sequences, Wagner extends both x and y by one note each.
x undergoes another transformation in bars 16-17 when an appoggiatura is added.In theme z the quaver+dotted+quaver-semiquaver rhythm provides continuity whilst the line from 172 to 25 can be seen as a string of various guises of a and b; an effect which seems to reinvent z. Easily spotted changes include the rising 7th in bar 20.
Wagner is able to create an apparently new theme in bars 25-32 "Love Potion" but the material can be shown to derive from z while the chromatic lines remind the listener of x.
During the Prelude, motives are combined in counterpoint. In bars 28-31 we hear y (reversed). In bars 53-56 we find x with augmented notes values. From 63-71 Wagner exploits a triadic version of z in the strings with x keeping it company in the woodwind.
From 76 the motives appear in many parts as the music approaches the Coda. In the code itself, Wagner introduces fresh material which actually comes from Act II Scene 2, but x is included from time to time and at the close it finally rises to the C# of the final A major chord.
