Tristan chord

Template:Short description Template:Infobox chord The original Tristan chord is heard in the opening phrase of Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde as part of the leitmotif relating to Tristan. It is made up of the notes F, B, DTemplate:Music, and GTemplate:Music:

<score sound="1"> {

\override Score.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f

  \new PianoStaff <<
     \new Staff <<
        \relative c' {
            \clef treble \key c \major \time 4/4
            <dis gis>1
            }
           >>
    \new Staff <<
        \relative c {
            \clef bass \key c \major \time 4/4
            <f b>1
            }
        >>
   >>

} </score> More generally, the term refers to any chord that consists of the same intervals: augmented fourth, augmented sixth, and augmented ninth above a bass note.

BackgroundEdit

The notes of the Tristan chord are not unusual; they could be respelled enharmonically to form a common half-diminished seventh chord. What distinguishes the Tristan chord is its unusual relationship to the implied key of its surroundings.

   {
     \new PianoStaff <<
       \new Staff <<
           \new Voice \relative c {
               \clef treble \key a \minor \time 6/8
               \voiceOne \partial8 r8 R2. \once \override NoteHead.color = #red gis4.->(~ gis4 a8 ais8-> b4~ b8) r r
               }
           \new Voice \relative c' {
               \override DynamicLineSpanner.staff-padding = #4.5
               \once \override DynamicText.X-offset = #-5
               \voiceTwo \partial8 a\pp( f'4.~\< f4 e8 \once \override NoteHead.color = #red dis2.)(\> d!4.)~\p d8 r r
               }
           >>
       \new Staff <<
           \relative c {
               \clef bass \key a \minor \time 6/8
               \partial8 r8 R2. \once \override NoteHead.color = #red <f b>2.( <e gis>4.)~ <e gis>8 r r
               }
           >>
   >> }

</score>

File:Wagner Tristan opening (orchestral).ogg

This motif also appears in measures 6, 10, and 12, several times later in the work,Template:Clarification needed and at the end of the last act.

Template:Ill points out the "chord" in earlier works by Guillaume de Machaut, Carlo Gesualdo, J. S. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, or Louis Spohr<ref>Template:Harvnb, cited in Template:Harvnb</ref> as in the following example from the first movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 18:

   {
     \new PianoStaff <<
       \new Staff <<
           \new Voice \relative c {
               \clef treble \key es \major \time 3/4
               \override DynamicLineSpanner.staff-padding = #4
               \stemUp ces8.^( f,16) f4 r4 ces'8.^( f,16) f4 r4 <es f>^.^(\< <es f>^. <es ges>^.)\! \once \override NoteHead.color = #red aes2.
               }
           \new Voice \relative c' {
               \stemDown <ces es>2 s4 <ces es>2 s4 s2. \once \override NoteHead.color = #red es2_(\> d4)\!
               }
           >>
       \new Staff <<
           \relative c {
               \clef bass \key es \major \time 3/4
               <aes es' f aes>2 r4 <aes es' f aes>2 r4 <aes' ces>4_._( <aes ces>_. <ges ces>_.) \once \override NoteHead.color = #red <f ces'>2.
               }
           >>
   >> }

</score>

File:Beethoven op 31 No 3 (audio only).wav

The chord is found in several works by Chopin, from as early as 1828, in the Sonata in C minor, Op. 4 and his Scherzo No. 1, composed in 1830.Template:Sfn It is only in late works where tonal ambiguities similar to Wagner's arise, as in the Prelude in A minor, Op. 28, No. 2, and the posthumously published Mazurka in F minor, Op. 68, No. 4.Template:Sfn

The Tristan chord's significance is in its move away from traditional tonal harmony, and even toward atonality. With this chord, Wagner actually provoked the sound or structure of musical harmony to become more predominant than its function, a notion that was soon explored by Debussy and others. In the words of Robert Erickson, "The Tristan chord is, among other things, an identifiable sound, an entity beyond its functional qualities in a tonal organization".Template:Sfn

AnalysisEdit

Much has been written about the Tristan chord's possible harmonic functions or voice leading and the motif has been interpreted in various ways. Though enharmonically equivalent to the half-diminished seventh chord FTemplate:Music⁷ (F–ATemplate:Music–CTemplate:Music–ETemplate:Music), the Tristan chord can also be interpreted in many ways. Nattiez distinguishes between functional and nonfunctional analyses of the chord.Template:Sfn

Functional analysesEdit

Functional analyses have interpreted the chord in the key of A minor in many ways: Template:Image frame

The chord is an augmented sixth chord, specifically a French sixth chord, F–B–DTemplate:Music-A, with the note GTemplate:Music heard as an appoggiatura resolving to A. (Theorists debate the root of French sixth chords.) The harmonic function as a predominant is intact, with the chord moving to V7. Note that, in this view, the G# resolving upward to A is the 2nd of 3 consecutive accented dissonances resolving by half step. Alfred Lorenz and others interpret it more broadly as an augmented sixth chord F–A–DTemplate:Music,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn based after Hugo Riemann on the principle that there are only three chord functions: tonic, predominant, and dominant.
The root is the second scale degree, B.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn
The root is the fourth scale degree, D. Arend interprets it as "a modified minor seventh chord"Template:Sfn

F–B–DTemplate:Music–GTemplate:Music → F–CTemplate:Music–ETemplate:Music–ATemplate:Music → F–B–D–A = D–F–A

The chord is a secondary dominant, V/V, and thus also with a root on B.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn This favors the fifth motion from B to E, seeing the chord as a seventh chord with lowered fifth (B–DTemplate:Music(DTemplate:Music)–FTemplate:Music–A).

Vincent d'Indy<ref>Template:Harvnb, cited in Template:Harvnb</ref> analyses the chord as a IV chord after Riemann's transcendent principle (as phrased by Serge Gut:Template:Sfn "the most classic succession in the world: Tonic, Predominant, Dominant" ) and rejects the idea of an added "lowered seventh", eliminates "all artificial, dissonant notes, arising solely from the melodic motion of the voices, and therefore foreign to the chord," finding that the Tristan chord is "no more than a predominant in the key of A, collapsed in upon itself melodically, the harmonic progression represented thus:

{

  \new PianoStaff <<
     \new Staff <<
        \relative c' {
            \clef treble \key c \major \time 3/4
            <d a'>2. <e b'>
            }
           >>
    \new Staff <<
        \relative c {
            \clef bass \key c \major \time 3/4
            <f a>2._\markup { \concat { "IV" \raise #1 \small "6" \hspace #3.5 "V" } } <e gis>
            }
        >>
   >>

} </score>

Template:Interlanguage link, independently, sees the GTemplate:Music as an appoggiatura to A, describing that

Template:Quote Template:Image frameAccording to Jacques,Template:Sfn discussing Dommel-DiényTemplate:Sfn and Gut,<ref>Template:Harvnb, cited in Template:Harvtxt</ref> "it is rooted in a simple dominant chord of A minor [E major], which includes two appoggiaturas resolved in the normal way". Thus, in this view it is not a chord but an anticipation of the dominant chord in measure three. Chailley did once write:

Template:Quote

Fred Lerdahl presents alternate interpretations of the Tristan motive, as either i iiTemplate:Music643 [French sixth: F–B–DTemplate:Music–A] V7 or as VI (iv) (viiTemplate:Music64Template:Music2) [ altered pre-dominant: F–B–DTemplate:Music–GTemplate:Music] V7, both in A minor, concluding that while both interpretations have strong expectation or attraction, that the version with GTemplate:Music is the stronger progression.Template:Sfn

Nonfunctional analysesEdit

Nonfunctional analyses are based on structure (rather than function), and are characterized as vertical characterizations or linear analyses.

Vertical characterizations include interpreting the chord's root as on the seventh degree (VII),Template:Sfn Template:Sfn of FTemplate:Music minor.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Linear analyses include that of NoskeTemplate:Sfn and Schenker was the first to analyze the motif entirely through melodic concerns. Schenker and later Mitchell compare the Tristan chord to a dissonant contrapuntal gesture from the E minor fugue of The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I.<ref>cf. Template:Harvnb</ref>

William Mitchell, viewing the Tristan chord from a Schenkerian perspective, does not see the GTemplate:Music as an appoggiatura because the melodic line (GTemplate:Music–A–ATemplate:Music–B) ascends to B, making the A a passing note. This ascent by minor third is mirrored by the descending line (F–E–DTemplate:Music–D), a descent by minor third, making the DTemplate:Music, like ATemplate:Music, an appoggiatura. This makes the chord a diminished seventh chord (GTemplate:Music–B–D–F).

Serge Gut argues that, "if one focuses essentially on melodic motion, one sees how its dynamic force creates a sense of an appoggiatura each time, that is, at the beginning of each measure, creating a mood both feverish and tense ... thus in the soprano motif, the GTemplate:Music and the ATemplate:Music are heard as appoggiaturas, as the F and DTemplate:Music in the initial motif."Template:Sfn The chord is thus a minor chord with an added sixth (D–F–A–B) on the fourth degree (IV), though it is engendered by melodic waves.

Allen first identifies the chord as an atonal set, 4–27 (half-diminished seventh chord), then "elect[s] to place that consideration in a secondary, even tertiary position compared to the most dynamic aspect of the opening music, which is clearly the large-scale ascending motion that develops in the upper voice, in its entirety a linear projection of the Tristan Chord transposed to level three, gTemplate:Music′–b′–d″–fTemplate:Music″.Template:Sfn

Schoenberg describes it as a "wandering chord [vagierender Akkord]... it can come from anywhere".Template:Sfn

Mayrberger's opinionEdit

After summarizing the above analyses Nattiez asserts that the context of the Tristan chord is A minor, and that analyses which say the key is E major or ETemplate:Music minor are "wrong".Template:Sfn He privileges analyses of the chord as on the second degree (II). He then supplies a Wagner-approved analysis, that of Czech professor Carl MayrbergerTemplate:Sfn who "places the chord on the second degree, and interprets the GTemplate:Music as an appoggiatura. But above all, Mayrberger considers the attraction between the E and the real bass F to be paramount, and calls the Tristan chord a Zwitterakkord (an ambiguous, hybrid, or possibly bisexual or androgynous, chord), whose F is controlled by the key of A minor, and DTemplate:Music by the key of E minor".Template:Sfn

Responses and influencesEdit

Template:Image frame The chord and the figure surrounding it is well enough known to have been parodied and quoted by a number of later musicians. Debussy includes the chord in a setting of the phrase je suis triste in his opera Pelléas et Mélisande.Template:Sfn Debussy also jokingly quotes the opening bars of Wagner's opera several times in "Golliwogg's Cakewalk" from his piano suite Children's Corner.Template:Sfn Benjamin Britten slyly invokes it at the moment in Albert Herring when Sid and Nancy spike Albert's lemonade and then, when he drinks it, the chord "runs riot through the orchestra and recurs irreverently to accompany his hiccups".Template:Sfn Paul Lansky based the harmonic content of his first electronic piece, mild und leise (1973), on the Tristan chord.Template:Sfn This piece is best known from being sampled in the Radiohead song "Idioteque".

Bernard Herrmann incorporated the chord in his scores for Vertigo (1958) and Tender is the Night (1962).Template:Citation needed

Christian Thielemann, the music director of the Bayreuth Festival from 2015–20, discussed the Tristan chord in his book, My Life with Wagner: the chord "is the password, the cipher for all modern music. It is a chord that does not conform to any key, a chord on the verge of dissonance", and "The Tristan chord does not seek to be resolved in the closest consonance, as the classic theory of harmony requires; [it] is sufficient unto itself, just as Tristan and Isolde are sufficient unto themselves and know only their love."Template:Sfn

More recently, American composer and humorist Peter Schickele crafted a tango around the Tristan prelude, a chamber work for four bassoons entitled Last Tango in Bayreuth.Template:Sfn The Brazilian conductor and composer Flavio Chamis wrote Tristan Blues, a composition based on the Tristan chord. The work, for harmonica and piano was recorded on the CD Especiaria, released in Brazil by the Biscoito Fino label.Template:Sfn Additionally, New York-based composer Dalit Warshaw's narrative concerto for piano and orchestra, Conjuring Tristan, employs the Tristan chord in exploring the themes of Thomas Mann's novella Tristan through Wagner's music.Template:Sfn

The prelude of Wagner's opera is prominently used in the film Melancholia by Lars von Trier.Template:Sfn

ReferencesEdit

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SourcesEdit

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