# Is Tristan too intense for anyone else out there?



## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

I can only listen to it sporadically when I feel I can handle it.
Anyone else?:tiphat:


----------



## interestedin (Jan 10, 2016)

No, in general, that is when listening on CD, I can always handle Tristan. 

It only happened to me once during a live performance when my heart started beating so fast (because of the waves of Tristan act III) that I actually panicked for a moment and started counting the seats to my right and my left, thinking about the quickest way to leave the theater. But since people do not die of heart attacks at my age, I calmed down and stayed.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

interestedin said:


> No, in general, that is when listening on CD, I can always handle Tristan.
> 
> It only happened to me once during a live performance when my heart started beating so fast (because of the waves of Tristan act III) that I actually panicked for a moment and started counting the seats to my right and my left, thinking about the quickest way to leave the theater. But since people do not die of heart attacks at my age, I calmed down and stayed.


That heartbeat thing happened to me once when listening to _Siegfried_, act 3. A momentary scare.

To the OP: I feel much the same way, but then a lot of Wagner can be more than I want to submit myself to at times. To enter fully into his world takes energy, and I used to have more of that than I do now. It's good to discover Wagner when we're young and don't know the meaning of overstimulation.


----------



## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Well, I certainly discovered Wagner when I was young, so maybe that's the reason why I never have had this kind of feeling. I enjoy a lot _Tristan und Isolde_, that's one my favorite operas, but don't have any problem at all to handle it.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

When I was a college student I loaned my copy of _Tristan_ (the Bohm/Bayreuth recording) to a psychologist I knew who was a Mahler devotee and didn't know much Wagner. A logical next step in his musical experience, I thought. He told me that he had to stop it after about fifteen minutes because it was too intense! Of course I found that incomprehensible. I couldn't get too much of the "voluptuousness of hell" (Nietzsche) in those days. Given four free hours and a stiff belt of something (to make my backside insensible), I can still survive the blissful agony.


----------



## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

schigolch said:


> Well, I certainly discovered Wagner when I was young, so maybe that's the reason why I never have had this kind of feeling. I enjoy a lot _Tristan und Isolde_, that's one my favorite operas, but don't have any problem at all to handle it.


Me neither, not every week but I do have "now it's Tristan " time moments.


----------



## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Tristan is a very intense experience because of the way it is written in that the music doesn't resolve. I remember listening to Karajan 52 before bed and I couldn't sleep as it is so disturbing. The other opera that does that to me is Tosca. I must confess I don't listen to Tristan that much because I don't care for it that much. Admire - yes. Love - no.


----------



## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

I definitely have to be in the right mindset to take it all in. I find it to be a gut-wrenching experience, as much emotionally draining as soul-fulfilling.


----------



## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

No. Well, maybe. I am taking a break from the first act of the Kleiber 1976 Bayreuth recording because it demands undivided attention. It wasn't that long ago I watched the first act of the Barenboim/Chéreau video and had a hard time communicating with other people afterward.


----------



## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Faustian said:


> I definitely have to be in the right mindset to take it all in. *I find it to be a gut-wrenching experience, as much emotionally draining as soul-fulfilling*.


Second that. The same goes for Parsifal and Götterdämmerung.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Wagner's world can be entered into fully only if we can set the everyday world aside. If the performance is a worthy one we may have a hard time coming back. The first time I heard _Parsifal_ I think it took me fifteen or twenty minutes to get reoriented, and I wasn't even sure I wanted to. After _Tristan_ I recommend a brisk walk outdoors, with great care taken in crossing streets.


----------



## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Wagner's world can be entered into fully only if we can set the everyday world aside. If the performance is a worthy one we may have a hard time coming back. The first time I heard _Parsifal_ I think it took me fifteen or twenty minutes to get reoriented, and I wasn't even sure I wanted to. *After Tristan I recommend a brisk walk outdoors, with great care taken in crossing streets*.


I did that after listening to Keilberth's recording of Götterdämmerung for the first time. By the end, I had a feeling as if the fire that had consumed Walhalla, was burning right next to me.


----------



## Guest (Jan 25, 2017)

The first time I listened to Parsifal,it was the Karajan recording,the music stayed with me for weeks.
Jaap van Zweden directed Parsifal and became one with the music,there was no division,no ego so to speak,oneness,a kind of extasy.Is that not what every musician or musiclover wants and only happens once and awhile?


----------



## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Traverso said:


> The first time I listened to Parsifal,it was the Karajan recording,the music stayed with me for weeks.
> Jaap van Zweden directed Parsifal and became one with the music,there was no division,no ego so to speak,oneness,a kind of extasy.Is that not what every musician or music lover wants and only happens once and awhile?


Very wise words!


----------



## Tuoksu (Sep 3, 2015)

Too intense? For Lars Von Trier, yes..


----------



## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Traverso said:


> The first time I listened to Parsifal,it was the Karajan recording,the music stayed with me for weeks.
> Jaap van Zweden directed Parsifal and became one with the music,there was no division,no ego so to speak,oneness,a kind of extasy.Is that not what every musician or musiclover wants and only happens once and awhile?


Karajan did an even better live performance in Vienna which is available. Unfortunately the sound is limited


----------



## mathisdermaler (Mar 29, 2017)

ISOOOOOOOOOLDE!!!!!!!!!!!!




TRIIIIIIIIISTAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just the right intensity for me


----------



## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

mathisdermaler said:


> ISOOOOOOOOOLDE!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> TRIIIIIIIIISTAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> Just the right intensity for me


HEIL KÖNIG MARKE; HEIL!!!!!

That scene at the end of Act I, where the potion first takes effect, is for me just about the most intense of all. Sends shivers down my back every time.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

For me the most intense passage in the opera is during Tristan's mounting, self-lacerating delirium when, as he listens to the shepherd's melancholy piping, he remembers his childhood and sees how the events of his life led inevitably to the drinking of the potion. The way Wagner builds the music out of the shepherd's tune through passages of wildly vertiginous tonal instability and brings it to a peak of hysteria before Tristan collapses unconscious has no parallel in opera. But then, this whole opera has no parallel!


----------



## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

I keep coming back towards the "love duet", I can keep hearing it and get so moved about it.


----------



## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

Yeah, for me this opera is all about Act II. Most of the third Act is just waiting for the Liebestod as far as I'm concerned.


----------



## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> But then, this whole opera has no parallel!


You said it - I couldn't agree more.


----------



## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

gardibolt said:


> Most of the third Act is just waiting for the Liebestod as far as I'm concerned.


Tristan and Isolde are pretty much in the same position. That being the case, Act III is the embodiment of empathy in music.


----------



## pierrot (Mar 26, 2012)

My favorite part besides the Liebestod is the monologue from King Mark in act II, you cannot not feel sorry for him.


----------



## cheftimmyr (Oct 28, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> For me the most intense passage in the opera is during Tristan's mounting, self-lacerating delirium when, as he listens to the shepherd's melancholy piping, he remembers his childhood and sees how the events of his life led inevitably to the drinking of the potion. The way Wagner builds the music out of the shepherd's tune through passages of wildly vertiginous tonal instability and brings it to a peak of hysteria before Tristan collapses unconscious has no parallel in opera. But then, this whole opera has no parallel!


All enhanced by the hypnotic prelude to Act III... one of my favorite Wagner moments; I could put it on a continuous loop for hours and continue to be moved.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

cheftimmyr said:


> All enhanced by the hypnotic prelude to Act III... one of my favorite Wagner moments; I could put it on a continuous loop for hours and continue to be moved.


Be careful with that. You might be moved to tear the bandages off your wound and die in someone's arms.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Speaking of the act 3 prelude... Does anyone else think that the haunting tune piped by the shepherd is one of the most astonishing melodies ever written? If Wagner had never written anything else, we'd remember him for that.


----------



## cheftimmyr (Oct 28, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Be careful with that. You might be moved to tear the bandages off your wound and die in someone's arms.


Some days that seems a desirable finale... :lol:


----------



## ma7730 (Jun 8, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Speaking of the act 3 prelude... Does anyone else think that the haunting tune piped by the shepherd is one of the most astonishing melodies ever written? If Wagner had never written anything else, we'd remember him for that.


I agree completely. I don't know how he does it, but Wagner is able to evoke so many emotions with that simple tune. There's this quality to it that suggests nostalgia and loss in the most authentic way I've ever heard or seen it portrayed.


----------



## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

It's not that it's too intense, but the emotions of day-to-day reality can have a hard time competing with Tristan, so one ought to not listen to it too much or they become less and less content with life. Many psychoactive drugs have a similar adictiveness profile. Be careful!


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

_Tristan_ makes me grateful to experience things which I'm grateful not to be experiencing in real life.


----------



## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> Speaking of the act 3 prelude... Does anyone else think that the haunting tune piped by the shepherd is one of the most astonishing melodies ever written?


I love the way it repeatedly emerges from, then melts into, the rest of the music. As for the shepherd's tune itself, I find it as strange and beautiful now as I did when I first heard it some 35 years ago.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Reichstag aus LICHT said:


> I love the way it repeatedly emerges from, then melts into, the rest of the music. As for the shepherd's tune itself, I find it as strange and beautiful now as I did when I first heard it some 35 years ago.


So do I. In its arid, hollow, aching loneliness, its evocation of empty horizons, and its sadness for an old world now lost in the mists of time, it has no parallel. It also expresses the character of the cor anglais more perfectly than any other music except Sibelius's "Swan of Tuonela."


----------



## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> It also expresses the character of the cor anglais more perfectly than any other music except Sibelius's "Swan of Tuonela."


Good call. I'll listen to _Tuonela_ in a different light, now.


----------

