Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" Part 10

"My lord and uncle! look now at her! A softer wife thou ne'er could'st find. I slew her lover and sent her his head; my wound the kindly maid has healed.

My life was in her power, but the gentle maiden gave it to me; her country's shame and dishonour--that she gave as well; all that she might become thy wedded bride. Such thanks for kindly deeds I earned by a sweet draught of atonement offered to me by her favour in expiation of my guilt."

_Sailors_ (_outside_). Stand by the cable! Let go the anchor!

_Tr_. (_starting wildly_). Let go the anchor! Veer her round to the tide! (_he tears the cup from Isolde's hand_).

Well know I Ireland's queen, and the wondrous might of her arts. I took the balsam she once gave to me; now I take the cup that quite I may recover. Mark well the oath of peace in which I say my thanks:

To Tristan's honour--highest faith!

To Tristan's woe--bold defiance![40]

Delusion of the heart; dream of presage; sole comfort of eternal sorrow; kind drink of forgetfulness I drink thee without flinching (_he puts the cup to his lips and drinks_).

_Is_. (_tearing the cup from him_). Treachery again.

Half is mine! Traitor, I drink to thee! (_she drinks and dashes the cup to the earth_).

[Footnote 40: "Ehre" and "Elend" are dative.]

Instead of falling dead, the lovers stand transfixed gazing at each other. Brangane has changed the drinks, and they have drunk the draught of love for that of death. Wagner sometimes expects his artists to possess powers beyond those which are allotted to man. The actors have here to express by gesture the change of feeling which gradually comes over them. They start, tremble, the love-motive steals into and at last dominates the orchestra, and they fly into one another's arms.

The increasing commotion outside and the cheers of the men indicate that King Marke has put out from the sh.o.r.e and is nearing the ship. An aside of Brangane at this moment is not without significance. She has been sitting apart in suspense and confusion; now, as she begins to realize the consequences of what she has done, she gives way to despair. How much better would a short death have been than the prospect of the life that is now before them! The fact of her courage giving way so soon shows that she was only acting under a momentary impulse.

Little more need be said of the rest of the scene. The lovers raise their voices in a jubilant duet. Almost unconscious of their surroundings they are dragged apart. The royal garments are hastily laid over them, and the curtain falls to the joyful shouts of the people as King Marke steps on board.

CHAPTER XII

OBSERVATIONS ON THE TEXT AND MUSIC CONTINUED

Tu sentiras alors que toi-meme tu environnes tout ce que tu connais des choses qui existent, et que les existantes que tu connais existent en quelque sorte dans toi-meme.--_Avicebron_ (MUNK).

ACT II.--If the essence of the drama lies in contrast and surprises, then _Tristan und Isolde_ may be called the most dramatic of Wagner's works. In the first act we had the picture of a woman of volcanic temperament goaded to fury by cruelty and insult; in the second we have the same woman gentle, light-hearted, caressing, with nothing left of her past self except the irresistible force of her will. Isolde is not restrained by any scruples about honour, nor need she have any; in full possession of the man she loves, she can abandon herself to the moment. The music almost shows the flush upon her cheek, and she seems twenty years younger. She is quite conscious of the inevitable end, and quite prepared to meet it, but that is as nothing in the fulness of the present moment. Her words and her actions are characterized by a playful recklessness, an _abandon_ which finds admirable expression in a characteristic motive (No. 9).

Thematically related to this is another motive which we shall meet with very frequently in the sequel (No. 10). It is not directly connected with any definite dramatic event except generally with the first scene. The halting fourth quaver in each half-bar imparts a nervous restless character which at the meeting of the lovers becomes a delirium of joy.

The events of the second act seem to take place on the evening of the day after the landing, or at least very soon after--exact chronology is not necessary. The lovers have arranged a meeting in the palace garden in front of Isolde's quarters after the night has set in. A burning torch is fixed to the door; its lowering is to be the signal to Tristan to approach. King Marke and the court are out on a hunt, and the signal cannot be given until they are out of the way.

The Prelude opens with an emphatic announcement of the princ.i.p.al motive of the act (the "daylight"--No. 3) in the full orchestra without bra.s.s. A cantabile strain in the ba.s.s wood-wind continued in the violoncelli with a broken triplet accompaniment in the strings seems to tell of the expected meeting. The new motive (No. 9) is heard in its proper instrument, the flute, but gives way to No. 10, which is worked in conjunction with the love-motive, settling again in B flat as the curtain rises. It is a clear summer night; the horns of the hunting-party grow fainter in the distance. Brangane, with anxiety in her expression, is listening attentively and waiting for them to cease when Isolde enters.

A word must be said about the music of the hunting motive. The key is, as has already been said, B flat major. In the ba.s.s a pedal F is sustained by two deep horns or by the violoncelli, while six horns (or more) on the stage play a fanfare on the chord of C minor alternating with that of F major. A very peculiar colouring is imparted to the first chord, partly by the very dissonant G (afterwards G flat), partly by the minor third of the chord. This is a completely new effect obtained from the valve horn, fanfares on horns and trumpets having before always been in the major, since the natural scale contains no minor chord. Brangane and Isolde listen intently: Isolde thinks the horns are gone, and what they hear is only the murmuring of the stream and the rustling of the leaves. The fanfare is taken up by wood-wind (K.A. 85'2(1)), and at last melts into a new sound, with clarinets in 6-8 time against muted violins and violas in 8-8, beautifully suggestive of the rustling of leaves. Then the horns are heard no more. Brangane, who has been on the alert, suspects a trap behind this hunting-party, which has been arranged by Tristan's friend Melot, but she doubts his good faith. Isolde gaily laughs at her cares; her heart is bursting and she recks of nothing but the approach of Tristan. The music is almost entirely made up of her joyful motive, and there begins a first indication of that wonderful lyric outpouring which continues until it culminates in the Nocturne, and which has placed the second act of _Tristan_ on an eminence of its own, apart and unapproached. She throws open the flood-gates of her heart as in words recalling Lucretius:

Te, dea, te fugiunt venti, te nubila caeli Adventumque tuum, tibi suavis daedala tellus Summitt.i.t floras, tibi rident sequora ponti.

She tells of the all-ruling, all-subduing might of "_Frau Minne._" The ode is full of lyric inspiration, and is generally recalled in the sequel by the motive No. 11, which consists of two parts, the melody in the first and second violins, and that in the ba.s.s--strictly a horn pa.s.sage, but here in the lower strings. The accompaniment of the ode is throughout in keeping with the rhapsodical character of the words and melody: note the long, persistent A of the first and second violins in octaves at the words "_des kuhnsten Muthes Konigin, des Weltenwerdens Waltering_," followed by their joyous upward flight; the broken chords of the harp; the swelling upward semitones of flute, oboe, and clarinet bringing forth the germ of No. 11_b._; the trombone chords at the words "_Leben und Tod sind unterthan ihr_"; the arpeggio accompaniment of the violas, and the wonderfully poetic climax at the end, "_des Todes Werk ... Frau Minne hat es meiner Macht entwandt._" Brangane's entreaties are vain; again she cannot feel what Isolde feels--notice the difference between her melody and the soaring freedom of Isolde's. A little later (K.A. 99'4 seq.) Isolde's immovable resolution is admirably expressed by her persistence on one note. At last she seizes the torch and hurls it to the ground to a terrific downward rush of the strings and the yell of the death-motive in the trumpets, the entire orchestra with drums being heard together for the first time.

SCENE II.--Isolde signals to her lover with her white scarf to music redolent of Weber's _Oberon_, and of the transition to the final movement of Beethoven's sonata _Les Adieux_. From the moment when he enters, neither words nor music come to full articulation; all is swept away in the whirlwind of the dominant rhythm

[Music]

a variant of the motive No. 10, in still more rapid tempo. For a great part of the time the entire orchestra is occupied, and until far into the scene the voices are quite unable to pierce the volume of sound from the orchestra.[41]

[Footnote 41: I convinced myself in 1906 that this is not the case in Bayreuth theatre, the acoustic qualities of which are unique.]

We take up the scene again when the storm has in some measure subsided at the words "_wie lange fern, wie fern so lang_" on p. 109 of the piano score. To make anything like a detailed a.n.a.lysis of the elaborate working out of the daylight motive with other subsidiary motives which now follows would be impossible here, and would only be of use to the student of composition. The music wanders through many keys, but C major is generally discernible as the centre round which the tonality oscillates. The words demand closer attention, and I must invite those of my readers who have been driven back by the difficulties of the road to accompany me along the dull path of literal translation and comment.

The keynote of the dialogue is the opposition of day and night, typifying delusion and reality, avidya and Atman. In the words of Aeschylos:

[Greek: eudousa gap phraen ommasin lamprunetai.

e'n haemera de moir aproskopos broton.]

The dialogue cannot be understood by the light of the rationalist theory that love and marriage are things to be contracted for the sake of the benefits which they bring to both parties. Those who approach it from this standpoint must be content with the explanation sometimes heard that "lovers are to be excused if they behave like lunatics, since it is part of their condition." This is not quite the poet's intention. With Wagner love is a _sacrifice_--or for those who so prefer it, a _sacrament_. Hence the deep mystery of the kinship of love, the vivifying principle, with death, typified in the Hindu emblem of the _ling_. In the present scene it is often difficult to tell whether the strains denote the languishing of love or the fading away of life. The best preparation would be to read the opening portion of the seventh book of Plato's _Republic_. It is difficult to think that this pa.s.sage was not in Wagner's mind when he composed the scene; although the imagery is rather different, the thought is similar. Plato is speaking of the roots of knowledge; Wagner conceives of Love as Plato does of knowledge, and in the minds of both love and knowledge are the same, as are also music and philosophy. The idea comes at once to the front in Isolde's enigmatical

Im Dunkel du, im Lichte ich.

We remember that according to Plato there are two kinds of blindness: one is from living in the dark, the blindness of ignorance; the other from having gazed too steadfastly at the sun when the eyes were not strong enough to bear it. Tristan was dazzled with the light of the sun, and therefore unable to see the truth. For with Wagner the sun is not, as with Plato, the source of all light and truth, but rather the enemy of love and truth. To put it more shortly, the meaning of the line which I have quoted is: "You were blinded by ambition; I saw more clearly." Tristan understands her as meaning the light of the torch for the extinction of which he was so long waiting. Then follows a discussion in which she urges that it was through her act, in pulling down the torch, that he was led from the light of day to the darkness of love. Porges here makes the true remark that the mainspring of Tristan's life is ambition; that love is naturally foreign to him, but that he is at last drawn to it by Isolde.

We resume at p. 114 of the piano arrangement. The German construction is exceedingly difficult and confusing. I translate literally:

_Tr._ The day, the day that glossed thee o'er, that carried Isolde away from me thither where she resembled the sun in the gleam and light of highest glory. What so enchanted my eye depressed my heart deep down to the ground. How could Isolde be mine in the bright light of day?

_Is_. Was she not thine who chose thee? What did the wicked day lie to thee that thou shouldst betray thy beloved who was destined for thee?

_Tr_. That which glossed thee o'er with transcendent splendour, the radiance of honour, the force of glory, the dream of hanging my heart upon these held me in bonds. The day-sun of worldly honours, which, with the clear refulgence of its shimmer, shone bright upon my head with the vain delight of its rays, penetrated through my head into the deepest recess of my heart. That which there watched darkly sealed in the chaste night, that which unconscious I received there as it dawned, an image which my eyes did not trust themselves to look at, when touched by the light of day, lay open gleaming before me.

In these mysterious words Tristan indicates the impression which Isolde had made upon him at their first meeting. He regarded her through the spectacles of his political ambition, with its vain delight of personal glory, which had penetrated from his head to his heart. It illumined the image of Isolde slumbering yet unconscious (_ohne Wiss' und Wahn_) in his breast, and revealed it to the day--namely, as a prize in the political game which he was playing:

That which seemed to me so glorious and so n.o.ble, I glorified before the whole a.s.sembly; before all people I loudly extolled the most lovely royal bride of the earth. The envy which the day had awakened against me, the jealousy which became alarmed at my good fortune, the misfavour which began to weigh down my honour and my glory, I defied them all, and faithfully determined, in order to uphold my honour and my glory, to go to Ireland.

_Is_. Oh vain slave of the day.

Here (K.A. 119'3 at the words "_Getauscht von ihm...._") there begins a new development of the same motive which has occupied us. .h.i.therto (No. 3) with the first indications of the syncopated accompaniment which forms so prominent a feature of the following part. Explanations are now finished. The words begin to find wings.

For moments it seems as if all consciousness of earthly things were lost and the lovers were dissolved into dreamland:

Wo des Trugs geahnter Wahn zerrinne.

K.A. 122. The modulation into the key of the death-motive, A flat, is effected through the chord of the augmented sixth. The violins keep up a broken triplet accompaniment, trombones entering on the A major chord, oboe lightly breathing the princ.i.p.al motive (No. 3), while the voice follows its independent melody, to us a simile of Wagner's like a boat designed to move exactly upon that sea, and under those conditions. The whole pa.s.sage is a vision of the death which they are awaiting, but without its bitterness, only as the portal of eternity.

On p. 123 the voice brings the intervals of the chord which throws an atmosphere over the whole of the rest of the scene, and which has already been mentioned as "the soul of the Tristan music." The intervals are enharmonically the same as those of the chord in the first bar of Prelude--F, A flat, C flat, E flat,=F, G sharp, B, D sharp--but the treatment and surroundings are very different.

A reference to the draught occasions a joyful outburst on the part of Tristan, which is of importance as explaining its real significance:

_Tr_. Oh hail to the drink.... Through the door of death whence it flowed it divulged to me wide and open the joyful kingdom of night, wherein before I had only dreamed as one awake.

The words are accompanied by a violin figure in very rapid tempo, which was already prominent in the early part of the scene at the meeting. The exultant episode soon ends, the stormy tempo continuing, and by degrees all subsides into the discordant motive which I have quoted as the fourth of the fundamental dramatic-musical motives, and seeming to indicate the agony of death (No. 4).

Already there have been indications of a characteristic accompanying rhythmic figure consisting of one note repeated in triplets, and now as the lovers sink on a bank of flowers in half-conscious embrace, its nervous character is enhanced by a complex syncopation. The pa.s.sage beginning 131'4 is in the mystic mood of Beethoven's last sonatas and quartets. The triplet movement seems inspired by the similar movement in the sonata Op. 110 from the beginning of the slow movement _Adagio ma non troppo_ to the end. In both the feverish pulsation indicates a morbid condition, leading in Beethoven to a calmly triumphant end. The second movement of the quartet Op. 127, _Adagio ma non troppo_, with which Porges compares the scene, gives a different side, from which the morbid element is absent. The rhythm which dominates this scene is a development of the preceding triplet rhythm and must be taken quite strictly--3-4 time, the first two crotchets being divided into triplet quavers, the last into two. The syncopated chords are on the four strings, all muted, and each divided into two parts. In the tenth bar (counting from the double bar _ma.s.sig langsam_ 3-4) the woodwind (Cl. Hr. f.a.g.) enter, sustaining the chord "_sehr weich_," the first clarinet having the upper note, quite soft, like a sigh, forming a cadence after each phrase of the voice part. The extreme nervous tensity is emphasized almost beyond endurance by the incessant syncopated triplets of the strings. The lovers are raised entirely away from the external world; it is the sleep of approaching death into which they sink; rather dissolution into eternity. The words begin to lose coherence and meaning, and are often purely interjectional.