Chapter 23

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 responsibility now resting upon his shoulders, have brought out the finer qualities of his nature. There is noticeable in his melody all through the act an air of freedom and lofty devotion quite different from his former self. He is, as it were, transfigured, and there is a refinement in his tenderness which may surprise those who have never observed what delicacy and sensitiveness are often hidden beneath a rough exterior among the lower classes.

After a short conversation between Kurwenal and the shepherd, who looks over the wall to ask how the patient is progressing, Tristan awakes, asking with feeble voice where he is. Kurwenal relates how he has brought him to his own home in Kareol, where he is soon to recover from wounds and death. It is some time before Tristan fully understands, and as memory begins to awaken, he tells of where he has been, speaking as one inspired:

I was there where I have ever been, whither for ever I go, in the wide realm of the world-night, where there is but one knowledge--divine utter oblivion,

i.e. in that Brahm, that eternal negation, in which all physical life has its existence. The words are accompanied by _pianissimo_ chords of trombones with tuba. It is the first time that the heavy brass has been heard in this act, and the effect is excessively solemn. He continues:

How has this foretaste (of eternal night) departed from me? Shall I call thee a yearning memory that has driven me once more to the light of day?

The music of this and the following part is very interesting, but the modulations are too subtle and too evanescent for analysis. The motive, which has throughout been associated with the metaphor of daylight, is united with the languishing love-motive and with No. 4, of which three motives the following part is chiefly made up. The combination is expressed in Tristan's word, _"Todeswonne-Grauen,"_ "the awful joy of death." The culminating point is reached at the strongly alliterative words, _"Weh' nun wächst bleich und bang mir des Tages wilder Drang,"_ when for the moment there is quite a maze of real parts in wood-wind and strings. Immediately following is a very curious passage, nothing else than a succession of augmented chords in an upward chromatic scale, seemingly illustrating the words _"grell und täuschend sein Gestirn weckt zu Trug und Wahn mein Hirn."_ For a moment Kurwenal seems overawed by the words and sufferings of his beloved master. His free bounding spirits are gone, and he speaks like a broken man. But he soon recovers his former mood as he tells of Isolde's expected arrival. The news, scarcely comprehended at first, is the signal for an outburst of joy on the part of Tristan expressed in a new motive, No. 17, p. 193'4. His joy is so violent that it brings on a return of delirious raving. He seems to see the ship, the sails filling to the wind, the colours flying, but at that moment the sad strains of the shepherd's song tell him that the ship has not yet appeared. He knows the tune, which once bewailed his father's death and his mother's fate when she brought him forth and died. And now it tells of his own lot:

to long--and die; to die--and to long. No! Not so! rather to long and long, dying to long, and _not_ to die of longing.

He cannot find the death for which he longs.

In the following soliloquy the plaintive melody is woven into the orchestral accompaniment and taken by various instruments in turn. I resume at the words _"Der Trank, der Trunk, der furchtbare Trank"_ (p. 207'1), where the full orchestra accompanies with brass and drums, the tempo being still rather slow.

The draught! the draught! the terrible draught! How it raged from my heart to my head.... Nowhere, nowhere may I rest. The night casts me back on the day for ever to feed the sun's rays on my suffering.... The fearful draught which has consigned me to this torment, I, I myself brewed it! Out of [my] father's woe and [my] mother's anguish, out of tears of love ever and aye, out of laughing and weeping, joys and wounds, I have gathered its poisons. Thou draught which I brewed, which flowed for me, which I joyfully quaffed, accursed be thou, accursed he who brewed thee.

He sinks once more into unconsciousness. This drink, this fearful draught which has brought him into his present state, is the work of his whole life, the outcome of all his former deeds. The despair which he feels now as his end approaches is expressed in the motive No. 18, in unison in the wood-wind. Both music and words of this soliloquy offer great difficulties and need close study, with special attention to the tempo.[44] It ends with the F sharp minor chord in the 6-4 position with full brass and drums; then sudden silence in the orchestra as the voice sings the words _"furchtbarer Trank."_

[Footnote 44: This is the passage which perplexed the greatest of all Wagner singers, Schnorr von Carolsfeld, so much that it hindered him from taking the part of Tristan until light came to him from Wagner himself. See the interesting account in Wagner's _Reminiscences of Schnorr von Carolsfeld_ in his collected works, viii. 221.]

As he lies in a swoon the wood-wind in turns continue the malediction. The tone then changes as Kurwenal stands beside him, uncertain whether he is alive or dead. The wood softly sound the chord which we have so often heard before, No. 12, in syncopated triplets, as in the great duet in the second act (pp. 131 seq.). Above there floats a melody of exquisite tenderness, first in the oboe, then in the clarinet, continued later in a solo violin. A horn quartet then begins the soft theme No. 13, Tristan's failing voice telling how he sees the vision of Isolde floating towards him over the sea. It is as if the strains of the garden scene were hovering in his dreams and calming his troubled thoughts. As he reads in Kurwenal's looks that she is not yet in sight, he once more threatens to become violent, when suddenly the joyful tune, the signal of Isolde's approach, is heard.