Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde": An Essay on the Wagnerian Drama

Dr. Milman, in his great _History of Christianity_, observes that no religious revolution has ever been successful which has commenced with the Government. Such revolutions have...

Nothing probably has more tended to discredit Wagner's art with thoughtful people than the statement sometimes made by his following that he has created a new art. Wagner himsel...

"Art, properly so called, is no recreation; it cannot be learned at spare moments, nor pursued when we have nothing better to do. It is no handiwork for drawing-room tables, no...

The distinction so often made with a genius between the "man" and the "artist" has been justly ridiculed by Wagner himself. For the truest individuality of an artist is in his a...

A new work on Wagner requires some justification. It might be urged that, since the _Meister_ has been dead for some decades and the violence of party feeling may be assumed to...

Wagner's treatment of his material is worth a closer consideration because it is characteristic of his conception of the drama. Like every poet of the first order he regards it...

Before beginning the detailed consideration of our work, I wish to say a few words on some features of the music. As I am writing for the general reader and not for the musician...

We have already seen that the drama is distinguished from all other forms of art by its essential quality of directly enacting the things to be communicated instead of merely de...

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 ful...

The origin of the Tristan myth is lost in antiquity. The Welsh Triads, of unknown date, but very ancient, know of one Drystan ab Tallwch, the lover of Essylt the wife of March,...

In this chapter I propose to consider certain criticisms which are often made on Wagner's treatment of the drama, which differ from some of those mentioned before, in being inte...

seem difficult; it is no part of my plan to expound the obvious. The following scene, where for the first time the two principal personages stand face to face, though the most i...

It remains for us now to examine the work itself, scene by scene, that we may see how the principles of art which we have been considering in the preceding chapters are illustra...

importance far beyond what he had in the first and second acts. He, too, is changed; he is no longer the rough, unmannerly servant, the events which have passed and the responsi...

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...

terrible ever conceived by a dramatist. Directly Kurwenal is away, Tristan begins to toss in his bed; he seems almost to rise from the dead. Strange, restless orchestration and...

Wagner always looked upon himself as one who had broken a new path in art and done some of the first rough work, not as having completed the road. Those who seek to continue his...

closed._) Isolde has heard the interview, and makes Brangäne repeat everything as it happened. Inexpressibly pathetic is the turn which she gives to the words of the song as she...

the crew grouped around Tristan, who is steering,[37] his man Kurwenal reclining near him. The refrain of the sailors' song is again heard. Isolde's eyes are fixed upon Tristan...

ship. Isolde is reclining on a couch, her face buried in the pillows. Brangäne's listless attitude as she gazes across the water, the young sailor's ditty to his Irish girl as h...

may be noted that a great part of Marke's address is in strophic form, with four lines of two accents followed by one of three accents. Tristan stands before Isolde screening he...

sharp minor quartet as the saddest music ever written. If there is anything sadder, it is the instrumental introduction to the third act of _Tristan und Isolde_. Tristan, after...

hit off the character of the board-ship life. Here it is the clatter and bustle of coming into port that is represented; people hurrying about the deck, the young sailors' motiv...

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 momen...

Tu sentiras alors que toi-même tu environnes tout ce que tu connais des choses qui existent, et que les existantes que tu connais existent en quelque sorte dans toi-même.--_Avic...