Building a Collection #21
Tristan und Isolde
By Richard Wagner
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“I am not made like other people. I must have brilliance and beauty and light. The world owes me what I need. I can’t live on a miserable organist’s pittance like your master, Bach.”
-Richard Wagner
Dear reader, we have arrived at #21 in our Building a Collection series, and our entry here is Richard Wagner’s groundbreaking opera Tristan und Isolde. The biographical information below on Richard Wagner is edited for length, but if you would like to read more about Wagner, I refer you to one of my earlier posts here: https://open.substack.com/pub/classicalguy/p/42-richard-wagner-tristan-und-isolde?r=avz62&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Richard Wagner
German composer Richard Wagner was born in 1813 in Leipzig, Germany and died in 1883 in Venice, Italy. Wagner remains one of the most important, influential, and controversial composers in the history of classical music. In addition to composing, Wagner was also a theater director, conductor, and polemicist. Wagner is remembered primarily for his operas, or as he liked to call them “music dramas”. In addition to writing the music for his operas, unusually and astonishingly he also wrote the libretto for each. Wagner’s music is known for its rich harmonic textures, complex themes, and his extensive use of leitmotifs, defined as musical phrases associated with individual characters, places, ideas, or plot elements. Wagner is credited with contributing new ideas in music such as shifting tonal keys, his further development of chromaticism, and his innovative use of language. His opera Tristan und Isolde is often considered to be the beginning of modern music.
Of all the great composers, Wagner was one of the latest bloomers. He really didn’t begin taking a more significant interest in music until 1828 when he attended a performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony “Choral” at the Gewandhaus Leipzig. Wagner was indelibly impressed by this experience, and Beethoven became a lifelong inspiration. Other musical experiences that were formative include hearing Mozart’s Requiem, and a performance by dramatic soprano Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient. Later recalling this moment Wagner wrote, "When I look back across my entire life I find no event to place beside this in the impression it produced on me," and claimed that the "profoundly human and ecstatic performance of this incomparable artist" kindled in him an "almost demonic fire."
As a music student, Wagner was like a sponge, quickly learning everything he was taught and picking up music theory and composition extraordinarily quickly. He was largely self-taught, eventually giving up other pursuits entirely to devote himself to music. Wagner’s first opera to achieve success was Rienzi from 1842, followed by Die Fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman) in 1843 and Tannhauser in 1845. The next big opera was not until 1851 with Lohengrin, and then Tristan und Isolde was the next big success many years later in 1865. The primary reason for the big gap in time was that during most of the 1850s Wagner was working on what would become the four operas of The Ring Cycle.
By most accounts, on a personal level Wagner was a rather loathsome man and possessed some of the most unpleasant human characteristics. Harold Schonberg in The Lives of the Great Composers says,
“There was something messianic about the man himself, a degree of megalomania that approached actual lunacy…he radiated power, belief in himself, ruthlessness, genius. As a human being, he was frightening. Amoral, hedonistic, selfish, virulently racist, arrogant, filled with the gospels of the Superman and the superiority of the German race…”
Wagner was a controversial figure during his lifetime, and that has continued to the present day. Wagner’s anti-semitic thoughts and writings reflected common trends of the day in 19th century Germany. Some scholars give examples of Jewish stereotypes present in his operas. Despite this, throughout his life Wagner had Jewish friends and colleagues. In his final years, Wagner became interested in the philosophy of Arthur de Gobineau. Gobineau believed that Western society was doomed because of the miscegenation between superior and inferior races. Whether Wagner took up these beliefs, or incorporated them into his operas, is a matter of debate.
Still other interpretations of Wagner exist, notably those claiming that his art was influenced by his early socialist leanings, and that there are socialist ideas present in some of his operas. There are several leftist authors that have identified Wagner as part of the left-wing German bourgeois radicalism in the mid-19th century born out of Karl Marx’s writings. If Wagner was a revolutionary while younger, it is clear he became more of a reactionary in his older age, wanting to uphold the order that he had once railed against.
Tristan und Isolde
In 1857 Wagner put work on The Ring aside for a time to work on a new idea: the tragic love story of Tristan und Isolde based on the Arthurian love story Tristan and Iseult. The inspiration for Tristan und Isolde seems to also have its roots in Wagner’s interest in the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer and especially his book The World as Will and Representation. Wagner would later consider being introduced to these writings the most important moment of his life. Given the struggle of his life, it is perhaps not surprising that this philosophy appealed to Wagner, especially because it presents a pessimistic view of life. One important concept that came from Schopenhauer that changed the course of Wagner’s work was the idea that music held the highest place in the arts as an expression of the world’s essence…that being blind, impulsive will. Scholars point out that prior to his discovery of Schopenhauer, Wagner believed that the music was subservient to the drama. After Schopenhauer, Wagner’s work changed so that the music was given the primary role in his musical dramas. Thus, we hear in Tristan und Isolde and Wagner’s later operas including the latter half of the Ring cycle more developed and sensuous music, and indeed some of the greatest music Wagner composed.
Around the time Wagner was working on Tristan, he began an affair with a poet named Mathilde Wesendonck. The Wesendoncks were great admirers of Wagner, and from 1853 they began to give him financial support, which included building a cottage on his estate that he could use for working. Wagner for his part became infatuated with Mathilde, and in 1858 his wife Minna intercepted a letter of his to Mathilde. Wagner decided to leave Zurich and head to Venice, where he rented an apartment. Minna returned to Germany. Wagner now considered Minna a burden, and an obstacle to his peace of mind. However, he continued his correspondence with Mathilde and her husband, confiding in Mathilde about his work on Tristan und Isolde, “Child! This Tristan is turning into something terrible. This final act!!!—I fear the opera will be banned ... only mediocre performances can save me! Perfectly good ones will be bound to drive people mad."
In terms of Wagner’s influence on music, his importance cannot be overstated. Wagner’s music from Tristan und Isolde onward paved the way for modern music by introducing “atonality” turning traditional tonal theory on its head with the so-called “Tristan chord”. The Tristan chord is a chord made up of the notes F, B, D♯, and G♯. It looks like this in musical notation:
The chord appears in the Prelude to Tristan und Isolde, and recurs as the leitmotif representing Tristan. The importance of the chord is not so much for the combination of notes themselves, which had been used before, but rather the chord’s relationship to what comes before and after it. Without getting into lots of music theory, the chord is unusual in that, based on what listeners were used to hearing up to that point in time, it was not really the “expected” chord to be played at that time. It is somewhat “atonal”, and this represented a significant break with tradition. Moving forward through the second half of the 19th century, Wagner would come to be seen as rather progressive and more modern, which would result in some tension with more traditional composers of the time such as Brahms.
Tristan und Isolde is an opera in three acts set to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the 12th-century romance Tristan and Iseult by Gottfried von Strassburg (itself an adaptation of the Arthurian legend). Wagner completed it between 1857 and 1859, but it was not premiered until 1865 due primarily to the challenge of finding musicians that could perform the demanding work. Considered one of the pinnacles of opera, Tristan und Isolde was groundbreaking in its use of chromaticism, tonal ambiguity (beginning with the “Tristan chord” as was mentioned), and suspended harmony. Again, many musicians and musicologists see Tristan und Isolde as a turning point in classical music directed toward the 20th century and modernism.
Perhaps due to the influence from reading Schopenhauer, Wagner decided to boldly emphasize the more tragic aspects of the love story. In a letter to Franz Liszt, Wagner wrote:
“Never in my life having enjoyed the true happiness of love I shall erect a memorial to this loveliest of all dreams in which, from the first to the last, love shall, for once, find utter repletion. I have devised in my mind a Tristan und Isolde, the simplest, yet most full-blooded musical conception imaginable, and with the ‘black flag’ that waves at the end I shall cover myself over – to die”.
Tristan und Isolde has the following roles and voices:
Tristan (tenor) a Breton nobleman, adopted heir of Marke
Isolde (soprano) an Irish princess betrothed to Marke
Brangäne (soprano) Isolde's maid
Kurwenal (baritone) Tristan's servant
Marke (bass) King of Cornwall
Melot (tenor) a courtier, Tristan's friend
A shepherd (tenor)
A steersman (baritone)
A young sailor (tenor)
Sailors, knights, and esquires
Editing for space, you can read the synopsis of the opera in a number of places online, but below is a link for a summary I like. If you wish to really understand this opera, I encourage you to follow along with the libretto with the music. https://www.glyndebourne.com/opera-archive/explore-our-operas/explore-tristan-und-isolde/tristan-und-isolde-synopsis/
The initial reaction to Tristan und Isolde was unfavorable, with some calling it repugnant or distasteful. Richard Strauss famously said of Tristan that it "would kill a cat and would turn rocks into scrambled eggs from fear of its hideous discords." While at first dismissive of the opera, Strauss would later conduct it at Bayreuth, calling it the most wonderful day of his life.
The conductor Bruno Walter heard his first Tristan und Isolde in 1889 as a student:
“So there I sat in the topmost gallery of the Berlin Opera House, and from the first sound of the cellos my heart contracted spasmodically.... Never before has my soul been deluged with such floods of sound and passion, never had my heart been consumed by such yearning and sublime bliss... A new epoch had begun: Wagner was my god, and I wanted to become his prophet.”
Schoenberg, Proust, and Nietzsche all praised the opera, and how much it moved them. Tristan und Isolde has grown in popularity ever since. Isolde’s famous Liebestod is used in the soundtrack of the third episode of the first season of The Crown.
Recommended Recordings
In contrast with most pieces of classical music, the vast majority of recordings of Tristan und Isolde were made live rather than in the studio. The opera places tremendous demands on the performers, and at nearly four hours, its length can also test the patience of the audience. Therefore, the casting of Tristan and Isolde is vitally important to the success of a recording.
I am not an expert on Wagner recordings by any means, and so my recommendations below don’t include many of the historical, live recordings made between 1930 and 1970. However, Ralph Moore on MusicWeb International released a partial survey of recordings in 2018 that I believe is very helpful in analyzing many of the finest recordings of this essential opera, here is the link to that survey: https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2018/Aug/Wagner_Tristan_survey.pdf.
Top Overall Choice
For me the top choice for recordings of Tristan und Isolde was recorded live at the 1966 Bayreuth Festival in Germany by the Deutsche Grammophon label. The Bayreuth Festival Orchestra is conducted by Karl Böhm, with soprano Birgit Nilsson in an incendiary performance of Isolde and Tristan sung by Wolfgang Windgassen. The stellar cast is rounded out by Christa Ludwig, Martti Talvela, and Eberhard Waechter.
On other occasions I have found the conducting of Karl Böhm on record to be rather boring. Böhm had a wide repertoire, but focused mostly on Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and Schubert. He was reliable and solid, but for me often didn’t bring any great insights to his interpretations. His Mozart recordings are especially fine, and he made some other excellent recordings. However, Wagner seemed to bring out the best in Böhm, and that is especially true with this recording of Tristan und Isolde.
The recording became an instant favorite as it features the great Birgit Nilsson in an intense and heartbreaking performance. Nilsson really was the Isolde in the 1960s, bringing clarity and pathos to the role. The role of Isolde is very taxing, and on this recording remarkably she shows no sign of strain or compromise. She also sounds younger than the great Kirsten Flagstad on the classic 1952 Furtwangler recording. She is partnered with the Tristan of Wolfgang Windgassen, 52 years old at the time. Even though his voice had lost some of its lustre, and he no longer possessed the heroic timbre the role requires, he still sings very well and brings a poetic and dramatic character to the recording. The contributions of the more minor roles, Christa Ludwig as Brangane, Martti Talvela as Marke, and Eberhard Wachter as Kurwenal, are equal to or better than any rivals. Talvela’s Marke is extremely well done and he brings personality to the role. Wachter’s performance is strong and convincing.
This is an exciting reading, and one of the fastest on record. But it feels exactly right to me. While one might occasionally want Böhm to let the power and poetry linger, he brings out all the drama superbly. Although the acoustic at Bayreuth does not provide the clearest detail, the orchestra plays exceedingly well.
Gramophone magazine said of this performance:
“Böhm's recording is a live Bayreuth performance of distinction, for on stage are the most admired Tristan and Isolde of their time, and in the pit the 72-year-old conductor directs a performance which is unflagging in its passion and energy. He has a striking way in the Prelude and Liebestod of making the swell of passion seem like the movement of a great sea, sometimes with gentle motion, sometimes with the breaking of the mightiest of waves. Nilsson characterizes strongly, and her voice with its cleaving power can also soften beautifully. Windgassen's heroic performance in Act 3 is in some ways the crown of his achievements on record, even though the voice has dried and aged a little. Christa Ludwig is the ideal Brangäne, Waechter a suitably forthright Kurwenal and Talvela an expressive, noble-voiced Marke.”
Nilsson’s voice was noted for its overwhelming force, reserves of power, and the gleaming brilliance and clarity in the upper register. Many listeners thought she was best heard in person, and she herself was often disappointed with how she sounded on recordings. This Tristan und Isolde certainly proves to be an exception to that notion. Nilsson’s longevity was also something amazing, and she claimed it was purely genetics. She was also a shrewd businesswoman, mostly negotiating her own fees and holding out until she was paid what she thought she was worth. Nilsson was also known for standing up to conductors. When on some occasion von Karajan urged a retake "but this time with more heart. That's the place where you have your purse", Nilsson replied, "I'm so pleased to find we have something in common." When Georg Solti, in Tristan and Isolde, insisted on tempos too slow for Nilsson's taste, she made the first performance even slower, inducing Solti to a change of heart. After a tiff with Hans Knappertsbusch, Nilsson reported: "He called me by a name that begins with "A" and ends with 'hole'".
Other Recommended Recordings
Wilhelm Furtwangler’s 1952 EMI (now Warner) recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London with the legendary Kirsten Flagstad as Isolde holds a special place in the history of Wagner recordings. Many still consider it the greatest recording of Tristan und Isolde, and it is a recording every Wagner devotee should have in their collection. Ultimately the mono sound and Flagstad’s matronly tone lowers its standing for me when compared to the Bohm version with Nilsson, but it is still one of the best.
Reliable German conductor Ferdinand Leitner is at the helm of a live mono recording from 1959, recorded with the Concertgebouw Orchestra from Amsterdam and Die Haghesanghers chorus. Isolde is Martha Mödl in good voice, and Tristan is Ramón Vinay here adding to his marvelous list of Tristan performances. From the golden age of Wagner singing, the sound is better on this recording than on many of the live recordings of this opera, and in addition the rest of the cast is above average. This recording is consistently impressive, and the primary singers carry a lot of satisfying emotional weight. I’m not sure if this is available on CD, but it is on streaming services.
Carlos Kleiber’s recording with the Staatskapelle Dresden on Deutsche Grammophon from the early digital years of the 1980s is another competitive version. Margaret Price, not especially known for her Wagner, is an interesting choice but proves worthy of the selection. I also love the Marke as sung by Kurt Moll. The Tristan of Rene Kollo is not as distinguished, and the rest of the cast is not the equal of the Bohm or Furtwangler sets. But having Kleiber on the podium alone makes it something to hear.
Next up in the Building a Collection series is #22, J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. See you then, and as always thank you for your readership!
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Notes:
Blyth, Alan. Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. Gramophone Magazine. October 1998. Reprinted January 2015 at www.gramophone.co.uk.
Brennan, Gerald. Schrott, Allen. Wise, Brian. Woodstra, Chris. All Music Guide to Classical Music, The Definitive Guide. All Media Guide. Pg. 1473. Backbeat Books, San Francisco. 2005.
Burton, Jonathan. Tristan und Isolde Synopsis. Glyndebourne Opera. https://www.glyndebourne.com/opera-archive/explore-our-operas/explore-tristan-und-isolde/tristan-und-isolde-synopsis/.
Carr, Jonathan (2007). The Wagner Clan. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-20790-9.
Chandler, Andrew; Stokłosa, Katarzyna; Vinzent, Jutta. Exile and Patronage: Cross-cultural Negotiations Beyond the Third Reich. Münster: LIT Verlag. p. 4.
Classen, Albrecht (20 May 2003). "Tristan and Isolde (also known as Tristan and Iseult, Tristan and Isolt, Tristram)". The Literary Encyclopedia. ISSN 1747-678X.
Conway, David (2012). Jewry in Music: Entry to the Profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-01538-8.
Dahlhaus, Carl (1979). Richard Wagner's Music Dramas. Translated by Mary Whittall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-22397-3.
Daverio, John (2008). Tristan und Isolde: essence and appearance. (In Grey 2008, pp. 115–133).
Deathridge, John (2008). Wagner Beyond Good and Evil. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-25453-4.
Everett, Derrick (18 April 2020). "Parsifal and Race – claims and refutations: Wagner, Gobineau and Parsifal – Gobineau as the inspiration for Parsifal". Retrieved 10 May 2020.
Goulding, Phil G. (16 March 2011). Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers and Their 1,000 Greatest Works. Random House Publishing Group. p. 148. ISBN 978-0-307-76046-3.
Gregor-Dellin, Martin (1983). Richard Wagner – His Life, His Work, His Century. London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ISBN 978-0-15-177151-6.
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Karlsson, Jonas (2012). "'In that hour it began'? Hitler, Rienzi, and the Trustworthiness of August Kubizek's The Young Hitler I Knew". The Wagner Journal. 6 (2): 33–47. ISSN 1755-0173.
Kennedy, Michael (Cambridge University Press, 2006), Richard Strauss: Man, Musician, Enigma, p. 67. Google Books
Lunacharsky, Anatoly (1965) [1933]. "Richard Wagner (On the 50th Anniversary of His Death)". On Literature and Art. Translated by Pyman, Avril. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Magee, Bryan (2000). Wagner and Philosophy. London: Allen Lanes. ISBN 978-0-7139-9480-3.
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Millington, Barry (2001a) [1992]. The Wagner Compendium: A Guide to Wagner's Life and Music (Revised ed.). London: Thames and Hudson Ltd. ISBN 978-0-50-028274-8.
Moore, Ralph. https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2018/Aug/Wagner_Tristan_survey.pdf. August 2018.
Newman, Ernest (1976). The Life of Richard Wagner (4 vols.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nilsson, B.; Popper, D.J. (2015). La Nilsson: My Life in Opera. University Press of New England. p. 113. ISBN 978-1-55553-859-0. Retrieved 29 April 2018.
Schonberg, Harold C. The Lives of the Great Composers (Revised Edition). Pp. 274-277. W. W. Norton & Company, New York. 1981.
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von Westernhagen, Kurt (1980). "(Wilhelm) Richard Wagner". In Sadie, Stanley (ed.). Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol. 20. London: Macmillan Publishers.
Wagner, Richard (1911). Family Letters of Richard Wagner. Translated by Elli, William Ashton. London: Macmillan. p. 154. ISBN 978-0-8443-0014-6.
Wagner, Richard (1992). My Life. Translated by Gray, Andrew. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-80481-6.
Wagner, Richard (1994c). The Artwork of the Future and Other Works. Vol. 1. Lincoln (NE) and London: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-9752-4.
wagnerdiscography.com/reviews
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birgit_Nilsson