The 'Tristan Chord' as Music-Historical Metaphor

Abstract

Before the curtain rises on the first act of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, many of the opera's key musical ideas have already been presented. In the opening measures of the Prelude, or Vorspiel, we hear the most immediately recognizable phrase of the entire work (see example 1). It renders audible the play of desire and death that permeates the opera. Its yearning melodic contour is articulated initially by the cellos, who are answered by a distinctive configuration of woodwinds. The chord that they play is pungently dissonant by the general standards of mid-nineteenth-century musical aesthetics. Though its sonority is delicious, it begs for resolution. This it receives, but the next chord itself must resolve according to traditional practice. This second chord is a `dominant seventh,' a characteristically penultimate sonority that `normally' leads to a consonant, restful tonic triad — particularly at the end of a piece. It is typical enough of Wagner's harmonic innovation that the dominant seventh chord does not resolve, but is simply left hanging; this procedure is in itself a musical symbol of the unsatisfied longings of the principal characters in the drama. However, it is the first chord of the work that has become an icon of late nineteenth-century harmonic language and has engendered a huge analytical literature. Generally known as the `Tristan' chord, it is itself one of the crucial leitmotifs of the work; its dramatic symbolism is multifaceted and depends largely on its situational and harmonic context.