Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" Part 9

Death to us both!

She subsides exhausted amidst a stormy tutti of the orchestra with the trombones _ff_.

_Br_. (_with impetuous tenderness_). Oh, sweet, dear, beloved, gracious, golden mistress! darling Isolde!

hear me! come, rest thee here (_she gently draws her to the couch_).

The music presents no special difficulties in this scene. It is so complete in itself that, as has been truly remarked, it might well be performed as an instrumental piece without the voice. It would be impossible to follow here the endless subtleties of the working out, nor is it necessary, since they will reveal themselves to every musical hearer who is familiar with the methods of Beethoven. The whole movement is in E minor, and is built on a motive which has grown out of the love-motive by contrary movement, with a characteristic triplet accompaniment. Throughout it follows the expression of the words closely, using the previous motives, and is a model of Wagner's musical style in the more lyric portions. Wagner has remarked in one of his essays how Beethoven will sometimes break up his motives and, taking one fragment, often consisting of not more than two notes, develop it into something entirely new. The following scene is built on motives developed out of the last two notes of the love-motive, either with or without the falling seventh:

[Music]

It must here be noted how entirely Brangane misunderstands the situation. Wagner has intentionally represented her as a complete contrast to Isolde, as one of those soft, pliable natures who are capable of the most tender self-sacrificing devotion, but are utterly wanting in judgment. Woman-like, she thinks that it is only a pa.s.sing storm which she can lull with caressing words. Her scarcely veiled suggestion that, though Isolde may marry King Marke, she need not cease to love Tristan, shows the enormous gulf which separates her from her terrible mistress. She suggests administering the philtre which her mother has prepared for Marke to Tristan. The music, in which, so long as Brangane is speaking, gaiety and tenderness are mingled, is permeated with the love-motive. Isolde thinks of her mother's spells with very different feelings; the music becomes more gloomy, and with the words, "Vengeance for treachery--rest for my heart in its need," the death-motive, with its solemn trombone-chords, betrays the thought in her mind. She orders Brangane to bring the casket. Brangane obeys, and innocently recounts all the wonderful remedies which it contains:

_Br_. For woe and wounds is balsam; for evil poisons antidotes. The best of all I hold it here (_holding up the love-potion_).

_Is_. Thou errst. I know it better (_seizing the black bottle containing the death-drink and holding it aloft_).

_This_ is the drink I need!

A motive already heard in the Prelude (bar 29, ba.s.soons and ba.s.s clarinet) now becomes very prominent in the bra.s.s:

[Music]

The falling seventh here carries an air of profound gloom appropriate to the deadly purpose of Isolde.

At this moment a diversion occurs outside. The s.h.i.+p is nearing the port, and the crew are heard taking in the sails preparatory to anchoring. Kurwenal enters abruptly.

SCENE IV.--I have already remarked how happily Wagner has contrived to hit off the character of the board-s.h.i.+p life. Here it is the clatter and bustle of coming into port that is represented; people hurrying about the deck, the young sailors' motive joyously ringing from the violins and wood, sailors hauling, and the colours fluttering in the breeze (semiquaver motives in clarinets and ba.s.soons), all are preparing for the sh.o.r.e. Kurwenal enters and roughly orders the "women" to get themselves ready to land. Isolde is to prepare herself at once to appear before King Marke escorted by Tristan. Isolde, startled at first by Kurwenal's insolence, collects herself and replies with dignity:

Take my greetings to Sir Tristan and deliver him my message. If I am to go at his side to stand before King Marke, I cannot do so with propriety unless I first receive expiation for guilt yet unatoned.

Therefore, let him seek my grace. (_On Kurwenal making an impatient gesture, she continues with more emphasis._) Mark me well and deliver it rightly: I will not prepare to land with him; I will not walk at his side to stand before King Marke unless he first ask of me in due form to forgive and forget his yet unatoned guilt. This grace I offer him.

Kurwenal, completely subdued, promises to deliver her message and retires.

The orchestral accompaniment during Isolde's speech has a very solemn character imparted to it by slow chords of the trombones, _piano_, with somewhat feverish semiquaver triplets on the strings, s.n.a.t.c.hes of the love-motive and other motives being heard in the wood-wind; while in the pauses, runs on the violins mark Kurwenal's impatience. The death-motive will be noted at the words "_fur ungesuhnte Schuld_."

SCENE V.--This is a scene of great pathos. Like Elektra[38] when she recognizes Orestes, so Isolde, when left alone with the only friend who is true to her, throws aside all her haughty manner, forgets her wild thirst for revenge, and for a moment gives way to all the tenderness which is hidden under that fierce exterior. Death is just before her; she throws herself into Brangane's arms, and delivers her last messages to the world. The unhappy girl, still quite in the dark as to her mistress's intentions, only vaguely feeling the presage of some impending calamity, is told to bring the casket and take out the death-potion, Isolde significantly repeating the words in the previous scene. Brangane, almost out of her senses, obeys instinctively, and in the midst of her entreaties Kurwenal throws back the curtain and announces Sir Tristan.

[Footnote 38: Soph., _Elektra_, 1205 seq.]

SCENE VI.--My purpose in these notes is to explain what may at first seem difficult; it is no part of my plan to expound the obvious. The following scene, where for the first time the two princ.i.p.al personages stand face to face, though the most important that we have met with so far, is perfectly clear, both in the music and the words. No one could mistake the force of the blasts of the wind instruments with which it opens (No. 8). The device of repeating a motive in rising thirds was adopted by Wagner from Liszt, and is very common in _Tristan_. We first met with it in the opening bars of the Prelude, where the love-motive is so repeated.

The first part of the scene is a trial of wits between Isolde and Tristan, in which the latter is helpless as a bird in the claws of a cat. The dialogue as such is a masterpiece, unrivalled in the works of any dramatic poet except Shakespeare. At last, crushed by her taunts, Tristan hands her his sword, asking her to pierce him through, only to be answered with scorn still more scathing than before. "No," she says. "What would King Marke say were I to slay _his best servant_?" There is not a trace of love in the scene; nothing but anger and contempt. In other parts of the act there are indications of smouldering fire which threatens to break out upon occasion, but there is nothing of the kind when they are together. If once, when he lay helpless and in her power, she was touched with pity for so n.o.ble a hero, that has long ago been overcome, or only remains as a distant memory of something long past and gone. It has been truly observed that Tristan and Isolde are not like Romeo and Juliet, two children scarcely conscious of what they are doing. Both are in the full maturity of life and in the vigour of their intellectual powers.

In keeping with the dialectic, argumentative character of the dialogue, the music is generally dry and formal, but broken through occasionally with rending cries of agony, and interpolated with moments of tender emotional beauty. The orchestra generally gives the tone to the situation, only occasionally departing from that role to enter at critical moments to support and enforce specific words or actions. The leading motive throughout is the one which I have quoted: "vengeance for Morold."

After some preliminary _persiflage_, in which she laughs to scorn the excuse which he offers for having kept away from her from a sense of propriety, she at once comes to the point:

_Is_. There is blood-feud between us!

_Tr_. That was expiated.

_Is_. Not between us!

_Tr_. In open field before all the host a solemn peace was sworn.

_Is_. Not there it was that I concealed Tantris, that Tristan fell before me. There he stood n.o.ble and strong; but I swore not what he swore; I had learned to be silent. When he lay sick in the silent room speechless I stood before him with the sword.

My lips were silent, my hand I restrained, but the vow pa.s.sed by my hand and my lips, I silently swore to keep. Now I will perform my oath.

_Tr_. What didst thou vow, oh woman?

_Is_. Vengeance for Morold.

_Tr_. Is that what is troubling you?

Once, and once only, does the victim turn to retort upon her with her own weapon of irony. The attempt is disastrous. At once changing her tone she a.s.sumes the air of an injured woman. Tristan has taken her lover from her, and does he now dare to mock her? As her thoughts wander back to past days of happiness she continues in strains of surpa.s.sing tenderness, mingled with hints of warlike music in the trumpets:

_Is_. Betrothed he was to me, the proud Irish hero; his arms I had hallowed; for me he went to battle.

When he fell, my honour fell. In the heaviness of my heart I swore that if no man would avenge the murder, I, a maiden, would take it upon me. Sick and weary in my power, why did I not then smite thee?

She states the reason why she did not slay him when he was in her power in language so strange that I can only give a literal translation:

I nursed the wounded man that, when restored to health, the man who won him from Isolde should smite him in vengeance.

Such is the German; what it means I must confess myself unable to explain, and can only suspect some corruption in the text.

There is a solemn pause in the music; the love-motive is uttered by the ba.s.s clarinet. Nothing is left for the vanquished and humbled hero but to offer her what atonement he can. He hands her his sword, bidding her this time wield it surely and not let it fall from her hand. But she has not yet finished with him:

_Is_. How badly I should serve thy lord! What would King Marke say if I were to slay his best servant who has preserved for him crown and realm?

... Keep thy sword! I swung it once when vengeance was rife in my bosom, while thy measuring glance was stealing my image to know whether I should be a fit bride for King Marke. I let the sword fall. Now let us drink atonement.

The motive of the drink of death is here heard in trombones and tuba.

It recurs constantly in the following portion.

She then signs to Brangane to bring the drink. The noise of the sailors furling the sails outside becomes louder.

_Tr_. (_starting from a reverie_). Where are we?

_Is_. CLOSE TO THE PORT! (_death-motive_). Tristan, shall I have atonement? What hast thou to answer?

_Tr_. (_darkly_). The mistress of silence commands me silence. I grasp what she conceals, and am silent upon what she cannot grasp.

Another dark saying, of which, however, we fortunately have the explanation from Wagner himself. "What she conceals" is her love for Tristan; "what she cannot grasp" is that his honour forbids him from declaring his love for her.[39]

[Footnote 39: Glasenapp's Biography, v. 241 (footnote).]

Even now, on the brink of dissolution, while actually holding the cup which is to launch them both into eternity, Isolde cannot bridle her sarcasm:

_Is_. We have reached the goal; soon we shall stand ... (_with light scorn_) before King Marke! (_death-motive_).

With dreadful irony she repeats the words with which she supposes Tristan will introduce her: