The Tristan Chord

[Beethovenian]

As many of you most likely know, Wagner's bicentennial was this past Wednesday. As my classical music aficionados friends and I celebrated one of the most joyful days known to us, I attempted to imitate his Liebestod on my piano. Sadly, my sight reading isn't at the level where I can breeze through resolving Tristan chords in B major, among other things, so I gave up and played the Ride of the Valkyries instead.

However, today I tried again, which led me to think more about the Tristan chord. Unfortunately in my music lit classes, we never covered its importance, so while I knew that the unresolved progression served as a giant precursor for the dissolution of tonality, it never really hit me until today on how innovative it was for Wagner to introduce it and utilize it throughout Tristan und Isolde, so to be frank, I'm half-freaking out in awe on the beauty of keeping the audience in a tense state, interrupting the resolution in the Act II duet, and finally bringing it back to consonance in the final aria.

So, all you experts, I wanted to ask what the chord means to you. I'm just an amateur when it comes to classical music, so I'm sure there's tons of wonderful stuff about the Tristan chord that I've yet to learn.

[jochanaan]

Wagner was by no means the first to use a half-diminished 7th chord; possibly he wasn't even the first to use it in that particular position; yet he was the first to give it such prominence.

Harmonically, the important thing is not the use of a single chord, but rather the progressions, sequences and resolutions--or avoidance of resolutions, as here.  Most music from the Baroque period to Tristan uses many "dominant-tonic" resolutions, giving a strong sense of tonal solidity even when the harmony is changing; but in the entire Tristan prelude there is only ONE such resolution, so de-emphasized in phrasing and orchestration that it might as well not be there.  This, plus Wagner's supreme orchestral skills, give the music its fabled "yearning."

(As an oboist who plays in orchestras, I am very gratified that Wagner chose my instrument to play the fabled "yearning" theme, both at the beginning of the Prelude and at the very end of the opera. )

[some guy]

Straight outta Berlioz' Romeo et Juliette symphony.

Time to give that another spin. It's been two months already. Too long.

[ibanezmonster]

Harmonically, the important thing is not the use of a single chord, but rather the progressions, sequences and resolutions--or avoidance of resolutions, as here.  Most music from the Baroque period to Tristan uses many "dominant-tonic" resolutions, giving a strong sense of tonal solidity even when the harmony is changing; but in the entire Tristan prelude there is only ONE such resolution, so de-emphasized in phrasing and orchestration that it might as well not be there.  This, plus Wagner's supreme orchestral skills, give the music its fabled "yearning."

This is all great, and Tristan und Isolde is my favorite opera and all, but it would be cool have a chart seeing the comparison of dates between Liszt and Wagner's works, because to me it seems like Liszt pretty much wrote most of the styles of music up to 1910 or so (and some later) before they were invented. I wonder if Wagner just followed Liszt very closely and fed on his ideas but made them better, because he was a better composer in general.

I do need to revisit a lot of Wagner, but... any earlier examples of Late Romantic yearning than Liebestraum no.3? Was this the seed that produced Tristan, which in turn produced Mahler's adagios?

[some guy]

Someone needs to just CALM DOWN! I think.

Of course, a world of extremes is simpler and easier to grasp. But really, there is more to the world than "absolute genius" and "total crap," fun though the superlatives are.

[jochanaan]

This is all great, and Tristan und Isolde is my favorite opera and all, but it would be cool have a chart seeing the comparison of dates between Liszt and Wagner's works, because to me it seems like Liszt pretty much wrote most of the styles of music up to 1910 or so (and some later) before they were invented. I wonder if Wagner just followed Liszt very closely and fed on his ideas but made them better, because he was a better composer in general.

I do need to revisit a lot of Wagner, but... any earlier examples of Late Romantic yearning than Liebestraum no.3? Was this the seed that produced Tristan, which in turn produced Mahler's adagios?

Liszt was perhaps one of the most progressive musicians of the nineteenth Century, in some ways even more so than Wagner himself (who was heavily indebted to Berlioz and Meyerbeer though he refused to acknowledge this!).  I have read that even the "Tristan chord" occurs nearly note-for-note in one of Liszt's songs.  Liszt's works also contain indeterminate tonality (the Etude sans Tonalité and probably some others) and even an extraordinary anticipation of twelve-tone serialism (the Faust Symphony's main theme).

Timewise, Liszt was born two years before Wagner and outlived him by three.

[Karl Henning]

. . . though he refused to acknowledge this!)

Oh, gawd, and the Wagnerrhoids who squeal, "He was such a Supernal Geeenius that there is noooo question of any mere mortal influencing him!"

[kishnevi]

Liszt was perhaps one of the most progressive musicians of the nineteenth Century, in some ways even more so than Wagner himself (who was heavily indebted to Berlioz and Meyerbeer though he refused to acknowledge this!).  I have read that even the "Tristan chord" occurs nearly note-for-note in one of Liszt's songs.  Liszt's works also contain indeterminate tonality (the Etude sans Tonalité and probably some others) and even an extraordinary anticipation of twelve-tone serialism (the Faust Symphony's main theme).

Timewise, Liszt was born two years before Wagner and outlived him by three.

If you mean S.216a, Wikipedia says it was written in 1885,  after Wagner's death and not long before Liszt's own.  I believe many of these harmonically advanced works were written in Liszt's later years.  At any rate, there is the distinct possibility that Cosima's second husband and Cosima's father cross fertilized each other's music,  and the certainty that Liszt in his later years was moving down a road most  musicians did not take for another twenty or thirty years, and was willing to go further down that road than his son in law was.

[Parsifal]

Straight outta Berlioz' Romeo et Juliette symphony.

Time to give that another spin. It's been two months already. Too long.

Never made it through that piece.

[jochanaan]

If you mean S.216a, Wikipedia says it was written in 1885,  after Wagner's death and not long before Liszt's own.  I believe many of these harmonically advanced works were written in Liszt's later years.  At any rate, there is the distinct possibility that Cosima's second husband and Cosima's father cross fertilized each other's music,  and the certainty that Liszt in his later years was moving down a road most  musicians did not take for another twenty or thirty years, and was willing to go further down that road than his son in law was.

Indeed.  And the Faust Symphony was first performed in 1857.

[Dax]

Vogel points out the "chord" in earlier works by Guillaume de Machaut, Carlo Gesualdo, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, or Louis Spohr,[2] as in the following example from Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 18, tempo allegro:

Wiki, of course.

[some guy]

Well, Wagner got it, as he got quite a lot of things, from Berlioz.

And there was once a time when everyone knew this.

(How soon we forget!)

[some guy]

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

[snyprrr]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_chord

F-B-D#-G#

Oh, that's the chord that usually follows here (transposed to A-minor key):

A-minor, A-minor +7, A-minor7, A-minor +6

Is that right? It's the progression in 'Harlem Nocturne'. (F#-C-E-A)

So, you call it a half-dim. 7th chord? It's also a 'minor +6', right?

[North Star]

At least Wagner said it loudest.

[Karl Henning]

.... it being called the 'Tristan' chord stuck for very obvious reasons afterall.

Yes, as the phrase is just those two chords. When Bach used it, those two chords are in a phrase of richer harmonic activity.

[snyprrr]

What's the... gulp... other chord?!?!

[Ten thumbs]

But Wagner did it best (and everyone knows this), it being called the 'Tristan' chord stuck for very obvious reasons afterall.

The obvious reason is that no one had bothered to name it before and Tristan is an easy handle to cling to.

[The Six]

Scriabin's Mystic Chord is better.

[jochanaan]

What's the... gulp... other chord?!?!

A very ordinary dominant 7th, but very special since it's played entirely by double reeds.