# Blind comparison: Tristan und Isolde, Prelude to Act 1



## Guest (Sep 7, 2018)

Alright so I thought this might be fun to try. I have a selection of 8 recordings of the act 1 prelude and I tried to pick performances which might not be the most obvious, so this exercise certainly won't be revealing the best of the best or the worst of the worst (but one of my personal favourites and least favourites are included in this sample). Rather, it'll probably just give us a nice opportunity to learn a little bit more about what we personally enjoy, or don't enjoy in recordings we may not have listened to before.

If you know who made any of these recordings, please don't reveal the names or orchestras (or even the year of recording/performance)!

All the recordings are in dropbox folder with mp3 files of the recordings and here is the link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ork1w0yy63yfqln/AAApnPNTE3igHAoQ_y2XcHTza?dl=0

I think you _might_ need a dropbox account to access them, or at least be on a computer to listen, but I just hope everyone can get a chance to hear these without too much problem.

Here's a link to the score on IMSLP as well, for those interested: http://ks4.imslp.info/files/imglnks...546-Wagner_Tristan_und_Isolde_Vorspiel_fs.pdf

Once you get a chance to listen to them, I'd like you to rank them in order from favourite to least favourite and maybe write a sentence or two to tell us what you think of each recording. To me, one of the most important parts of interpreting Wagner's music is the tempo in relation to what he called _melos_, or 'melody in all its aspects,' and specifically how the shape of the melody, harmony and rhythm together influence the basic pulse and how the tempo is modified.

In a few weeks I will tally up the votes and reveal the final ranking according to everyone who participated.

Happy listening!


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## Guest (Sep 7, 2018)

Just want to pause this game before we go one, I've changed my mind about one of the recordings because it uses an altered ending, different from the rest of the recordings I've included


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## Guest (Sep 7, 2018)

Alright I replaced one of them with another one just to make sure that no 'concert ending' version is included.

Here's the link again: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ork1w0yy63yfqln/AAApnPNTE3igHAoQ_y2XcHTza?dl=0

The link in the OP should have the updated version. Much as I love the recording I am _not_ including in the comparison, I think this would make for a slightly more fair comparison.


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## hustlefan (Apr 29, 2016)

Fascinating exercise, thank you for posting it.

Best version for me is #4, followed by #1, 2, 8, 7, 5, 6, and last is #3

Some notes on each:
#1 = very expressive, portamento in strings
too expressive but better than being too inexpressive
excellent orchestra, good woodwind inflections
maybe a little too serious, no light
lots of string sound, even secondary strings rank=2

#2 = historical with poor sound, some portamento in strings
nicely inflected playing, first part emotionally varied from sad to questioning
winds too prominent, strings lean and intense
last part is slow and expressive
last few measures reorchestrated, beefed up rank=3

3 - live with audience, no portamento, poor sound
good use of silent rests at beginning
woodwinds inexpressive, brass too loud
not emotionally varied, no contrast
climaxes rushed, too loud too soon rank=8

4 - excellent orchestral playing
emotionally expressive yet restrained, varied
excellent balance between instruments, winds to the fore when necessary
violins separated left and right
last part not as emotionally specific or as expressive as first part rank=1

5 - live with audience, orchestra not together, historical with poor sound
first part yearning very well expressed
climax poorly paced, too fast too soon
middle and end too fast and inexpressive rank=6

6 - very fast, almost trivial
recorded at low level, need to turn up volume
well played but too fast rank=7

7 - live with audience, historical poor sound, some portamento
tempos excellently judged, good transitions in tempo in first part
string heavy, a little too serious, no light
too much acceleration toward climax
last part is too fast rank=5

8 - very slow, no portamento in strings
first part not very intense or expressive, slow tempo portrays a sleepiness, lack of concentration
very large orchestra, well played, good balance between instrumental groups
climax comes across well at a slow tempo
last part is very expressive rank=4


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## Guest (Sep 7, 2018)

Thanks for participating, hustlefan.  I'm curious to know what recorings/performances of Tristan und Isolde are your favourite as well (outside of the ones in this blind comparison).


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## hustlefan (Apr 29, 2016)

shirime said:


> Thanks for participating, hustlefan.  I'm curious to know what recorings/performances of Tristan und Isolde are your favourite as well (outside of the ones in this blind comparison).


I have sixty versions and they all blur together. Favorites don't really matter to me because I buy any version of the opera I come across.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Not an easy task - 8 chunks to hear and digest and compare (some 80 minutes of music!) - and I doubt one hearing is enough. I partly concur with hustlefan but only partly. 

I didn't much like 2 and 5, and the very fast 7 did seem slighter than the others (I suppose the opera might have made up for that). 

I did like 4 - it seemed to have a presence and was the only one that really made me think of the theatre - and I did quite like 1 and 3 (I would need to listen again to choose between them). But I like 7 - possibly because it was different (I ad heard 6 of them by then!), more lyrical than emotional - and I did quite like 8. 

I couldn't rank them but 1, 3, 4, 7 and 8 were probably at the top.

I enjoyed this outing but if we do this sort of thing again let's have fewer versions!


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Houston - I have a problem!!

I have never warmed up to the Prelude, so listening to over 80 minutes of music not liked is a killer. Last night I listened to the first four, today the last four. Not one of them led to a change of heart. So, there's no point in my ranking them.

I hope the next installment will be a winner for me.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Knowing the high regard that the forum holds Wagner in I am surprised that so few have attempted something on this so far. I wonder why. It can't really be the time it takes as many spend a long time posting here each day. I thought having a few blind comparisons could be fun.


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## Guest (Sep 9, 2018)

I think I might try a different one to see if it has a better turnout later. Comparative listening is extremely interesting and I love reading people's thoughts on different performances, especially to see how each of our different reactions compare.

For another time, I think I might post 6 different recordings of the second movement of Mozart's piano concerto no. 21, what do you think?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

shirime said:


> I think I might try a different one to see if it has a better turnout later. Comparative listening is extremely interesting and I love reading people's thoughts on different performances, especially to see how each of our different reactions compare.
> 
> For another time, I think I might post 6 different recordings of the second movement of Mozart's piano concerto no. 21, what do you think?


Maybe even fewer: perhaps go for four or five at first. Maybe Mozartians will be more willing to play!

I find blind tastings interesting even to hear my own thoughts!


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

I did it two days ago, but I was just hours away from my driving examination and one of the preludes (the 6:34 one) made my heart race and I felt a lot of chest-pain and anxiety. 

I played to guess who was conducting it and the funniest part was that half of them sound like different versions by Karajan. I think my two "winners" are from him indeed.

*TUI4* - Lot's of layers in the first notes, but also some background noise. I like this much more than the others. Some clicks. Sublime playing in the first climax. Warm and portamento, and the sound is deep too. This could be in Bayreuth, but also a live performance in concert of the prelude. The pace is moderate. This is my favourite so far. Timpani... It's too polished for being just anyone, and while it's certainly a live recording it doesn't seem a radio broadcast, but done by a studio team. It also has the cello beats that preview the irish song.
*TUI8* - The hit and the very loud strings indicate this is blatantly a studio recording I know well. It clocks in 12m. Musical stunts in the recording technique. It's loud in almost everything, and it even gives more prominence to the brass in the third climax.
*TUI5* - Lots of noises before starting. Historical, live, but rather sharp in sound, so not the 40s and maybe not the 50s. Very fast pace too. Well-conducted with a slight pause before the first hit. It sounds like New York, because of the clean sound and warm playing, not to mention the fast pace. It's pretty intense.
*TUI7* - I dont' know what to say. It's a mono sound without a lot of clarity but for some reason it starts to rush in the second climax. I don't know if that was necessary. Sawallisch wouldn't have done it. I guess it could be a crazy Karajan in 1952. It's live with audience, and from the complete opera.
*TUI1* - Another one that sounds unmistakeably studio by a famous producer. The first hit is extremely rough. Prominent double-basses. It sounds analogue. There are lots of ****** volume dynamics. I know it's not the style I like in a TUI recording.
*TUI6* - Even faster, in stereo, and slight background noise. This must be like Boulez XD. Unbearably fast. I cannot keep up hell! Where are all the pauses? Is this a joke? Can you breathe a little please???!!! I'm feeling very nervous. I'm feeling pain.
*TUI2* - Good mono sound, like remastered by Naxos and recorded by HMV in the 40s. Loud strings. There's a bumpy hit of the first theme, but the pace there is not an interruption. There are many issues in the continuity of the recording. There are some abusing horns. I don't know where's the historical part. This is quite unlistenable. It is a live recording, because with those dark notes, the seersman is going to sing the Irish girl song.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ Interesting. And what about TUI3?


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> ^ Interesting. And what about TUI3?


There wasn't any. It was erased when I downloaded it.



shirime said:


> Alright I replaced one of them with another one just to make sure that no 'concert ending' version is included.
> 
> Here's the link again: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ork1w0yy63yfqln/AAApnPNTE3igHAoQ_y2XcHTza?dl=0


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I got 8 different clips by clicking on the link in shirime's second post. I didn't download any, just played them online.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I like 4 the best. I'm not really interested in historical recordings. I prefer studio recordings to live, so that was a factor. 4 wasn't too fast, which would have ruined it.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Ah...games moved to the main forum again wearing a disguise. Excellent stuff for retired people or those with a lot of time on their hands.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I was slow to take on this project, doubting that I could get through eight _Tristan_ preludes without having a nervous breakdown, but it turns out to have been a fine project for a Sunday afternoon. I just ended up being amazed, as usual, at Wagner's remarkable structural control of such free and complex chromaticism, and the gorgeous polyphony among the voices.

There are four or five fine performances here which I find difficult to rank. But I'll try.

_RANK FIRST:_ *#2* is an old recording of a performance I'd guess dates to the 1940s or '50s, judging by the welcome use of portamento by the strings. This is an interpretation of real concentration, thoroughly involved, with all the episodes vividly articulated, the tempo flexible, the whole well-paced, with a crushing climax. The recording is overbalanced toward the winds, but it's nice to hear Wagner's rich timbral blends so clearly brought out.
_
RANK SECOND:_ *#1* is thoughtfully inflected and involving, with an interesting choice to pull back the tempo for the last statement of the C Major tune leading into the climax. It's more common to drive ahead at this point, but this is quite effective.

_RANK THIRD:_ *#4* is a good modern recording, the interpretation sensitively nuanced in an unexaggerated way, leading with great naturalness to a satisfying climax.

_RANK FOURTH:_ *#5 *has great inner intensity, and I'd rank it higher but for the rush toward the climax, which is nonetheless well-handled when it arrives.
_
RANK FIFTH:_ *#3* may suffer slightly from the recording balances, which allow the brass to sound too emphatic at times. If this was recorded at Bayreuth, with the brass located in the rear of the pit under the stage, the effect would have been more balanced in the house. It's a fine, dramatic performance, though I find the climax a little rushed.

_RANK SIXTH:_ *#7* is somewhat uneventful, with tempos and transitions underarticulated and a rushed, perfunctory climax.

_RANK SEVENTH:_ *#8* is probably the slowest performance on record. It gains nothing by such distention; the passion doesn't grow to unbearable intensity, which I'm sure was the intention, but is simply unable to generate much heat. This conductor slowed everything down in his later years; his late Mahler recordings are notorious or glorious, depending on your point of view. Probably both. But this isn't Wagner, who was known to express his irritation at conductors who dragged his tempi.

_RANK EIGHTH:_ *#6* not only isn't Wagner, it's batsh*t crazy. The cold, shallow articulation with vibratoless strings and the cheery, Offenbach-barcarolle tempo - you could waltz to it - are undoubtedly intended to prove something, as most of this conductor's "HIP" recordings are. What it actually proves is probably better left unsaid.


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## Guest (Sep 10, 2018)

Granate said:


> There wasn't any. It was erased when I downloaded it.


Highly unusual....it was actually number 2 that I replaced. It was a historical recording that I replaced with a different historical recording from the same decade.


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## Guest (Sep 10, 2018)

eugeneonagain said:


> Ah...games moved to the main forum again wearing a disguise. Excellent stuff for retired people or those with a lot of time on their hands.


This is a listening project


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

shirime said:


> This is a listening project


Mere nomenclature dear boy.

I suppose I'm just jealous because I still have a full-time job and can't participate.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

eugeneonagain said:


> Mere nomenclature dear boy.
> I suppose I'm just jealous because I still have a full-time job and can't participate.


it depends what kind of job you have. I can listen to music while working almost the whole day, because I work mostly on a computer, but I also have night shifts etc where there is not much to do, so I listen to music. And I work like 60 hours/week.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

I'm indoors, but I need to concentrate on delicate work and also move about. 'Listening' would be only half listening and I'm likely to listen to things I'm already familiar with to reduce the burden.

No matter. Carry on those who can.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Would love to participate and this is a great idea but im snowed under at work, currently. If i get time i'll chip in as i love this kind of stuff. Great work, Shrime.

Edit: Oh sod it! Just listened to #1. I'll give the rest an outing over the next few days and add my opinion.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

eugeneonagain said:


> I'm indoors, but I need to concentrate on delicate work and also move about. 'Listening' would be only half listening and I'm likely to listen to things I'm already familiar with to reduce the burden.
> No matter. Carry on those who can.


I have always listened to music while working, even when studying for exams. First movie soundtracks (they are nice background music) and now classical. I somehow divide my attention, simultaneously concentrating on the work, but also perceiving the music.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Jacck said:


> I have always listened to music while working, even when studying for exams. First movie soundtracks (they are nice background music) and now classical. I somehow divide my attention, simultaneously concentrating on the work, but also perceiving the music.


I would challenge anyone to compare meaningfully eight performances of anything while somehow dividing their attention and simultaneously concentrating on work. I listen to music while doing other things too - I suspect we all do - but I don't expect to get everything I can from it unless it's very simple music or something I already know well.

I found this particular listening session completely absorbing of necessity, given the nature of the music and despite the fact that I know every note of it, and I understand eugeneonagain's disinclination to participate. "Multitasking" has been shown to be a fond illusion.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I was slow to take on this project, doubting that I could get through eight _Tristan_ preludes without having a nervous breakdown, but it turns out to have been a fine project for a Sunday afternoon. I just ended up being amazed, as usual, at Wagner's remarkable structural control of such free and complex chromaticism, and the gorgeous polyphony among the voices.


You are a better man than I am, but you probably already knew that.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

JAS said:


> You are a better man than I am, but you probably already knew that.


Nevertheless it's pleasant to be reminded. :tiphat:


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Right, here's my brief thoughts.....

1st: #4 This one just shaded it, for me, as my fave. Love the orchestral sound of this one. It's unmannered, well-balanced and well-realised.
2nd: #1 I love those strings. This sounds like a top-notch orchestra. Great strings. Another one I like a lot.
3rd: #7 Thick, serious and dark. I like this different kind of account. Enjoyable if I'm in the mood for a different tpe of account. 
4th: #8 I really shouldn't like this. It's very broad and lush but there's something about it that's very familiar (so familiar I think I can guess who it is). Self-indulgent but guiltily enjoyable. Shoot me!
5th #3 Interesting if flawed performance. Poor miking and blowy brass spoil an otherwise satisfactory performance 
6th #6 I really don't like this one. The recording is low and whilst I can handle the pace what I can't forgive is the emotionless performance. Boring!
7th (tied) #2 & #5 I'm sorry but I really can't appreciate historical recordings that sound as bad as these (even in repertoire I adore).


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

It's interesting how Tristan has resisted analysis. Schenker didn't like it, and called it "surface" music. That's because Schenker analysis is rather limited, in that it posits everything as relating to a single tonal center, and reduces everything down to its simplest terms, with everything else being an elaboration of that. 
The Tristan chord still resists definitive analysis to this day. Wagner was "implying" tonal centers without explicitly stating them. In the context of diminished chords and chromaticism, this means the Tristan chord might have more than one meaning, and even that meaning may be only "conceptual" or implied.
In this sense, Wagner is the precursor to modernism or "free harmonic relations" where no tone center is necessary, because the devices and triads work by themselves, in relation to each other, but not to a single tonal center. It's certainly not diatonic, and that must be what frustrated Schenker.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

eugeneonagain said:


> Ah...games moved to the main forum again wearing a disguise. Excellent stuff for retired people or those with a lot of time on their hands.


Well, don't worry, eugene; if you ever stop working, we'll be here in our rocking chairs, waiting for you.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> *The Tristan chord still resists definitive analysis to this day.* Wagner was "implying" tonal centers without explicitly stating them. *In the context of diminished chords and chromaticism, this means the Tristan chord might have more than one meaning, and even that meaning may be only "conceptual" or implied.*
> In this sense, Wagner is the precursor to modernism or "free harmonic relations" where no tone center is necessary, because the devices and triads work by themselves, in relation to each other, but not to a single tonal center. It's certainly not diatonic, and that must be what frustrated Schenker.


This was apparently Schoenberg's view. He placed the chord in a category he called "vagrant" chords, which could "come from anywhere," and thus couldn't really be analyzed in tonal terms. He characteristically wanted to see Wagner's harmony as presaging and culminating in his own "emancipation of the dissonance." But I disagree substantially with him, at least in this case, and also find that your "precursor to modernism" idea doesn't give Wagner credit for being the canny - and uncanny - master of tonality that he was.

The prelude to _Tristan_ begins in the key of A minor. The first obvious clue is that it has no key signature; the second is that the opening 3-note figure begins on the tonic a and ascends to the dominant e by way of the f above.The famous chord that follows sounds at first as if it "comes from nowhere," but only because of its top note, g#; eliminate that and play instead the a that follows, then complete the phrase, and you find that you've sounded a perfectly ordinary progression consisting of an augmented sixth chord, functioning as the dominant of the dominant, and resolving to the (unresolved) v7 of A minor. Heard this way, the problem g# turns out to be an apoggiatura to the augmented sixth, and the whole progression is completely logical and lucid in the home key.

Wagner repeats the opening phrases three times at higher tonal levels (the third and fourth times slightly modified), but their relationship to the home key of A minor is clear, with the second iteration pausing on the dominant of C (the relative major) and the third and fourth on the dominant of E (the dominant of A minor). This whole introductory section of the prelude is thus tightly plotted on a strict and quite elementary tonal plan, beginning in A minor, traversing the most closely related tonal levels, and finally climaxing on a deceptive cadence on F and settling into the work's first full-fledged melody in the relative major, C.

I do agree that it isn't possible to explain fully the momentary _effect_ of the Tristan chord; it does indeed suggest a mysterious, remote tonality, and is disturbing enough to throw someone unfamiliar with the piece "off the scent." But it doesn't strike us, on a subconscious level, as mere sport, as chaotic, or as effect for effect's sake. Wagner wanted to keep us in suspense, but he didn't want to lose us; he wanted our sense of tonal and emotional stability to congeal gradually, and he knew he had to have a clear tonal strategy for making it happen. It was his genius to take us "into the weeds" harmonically, yet make us feel that every plant along the path is growing exactly where it ought to, thanks to an expert gardener. Since coming to understand the tonal wizardry of this work (and of Wagner's work in general), I find some of the analyses people have foisted on it to be hapless, strained and even nonsensical. They miss the garden for the weeds.


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## Guest (Sep 12, 2018)

I don't think I will reveal any _winner_ or _most favouriite_ of these recordings because not all links worked for everyone and not everyone ranked all of them, and honestly it's a bit less interesting to look at that outcome to me. I will reveal the conductors and orchestras some time soon as I am not sure how many more responses I will get for each of the recordings.

Are you all ready to know the conductors and orchestras? Anyone want to guess? Woodduck I think may know no. 6 and 8.......


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## Guest (Sep 12, 2018)

Actually Woodduck's assumption for number 6 might also be wrong


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

shirime said:


> Actually Woodduck's assumption for number 6 might also be wrong


Don't tell me there are two Wagner butchers out there!


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## Guest (Sep 12, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Don't tell me there are two Wagner butchers out there!


Pretty sure there are waaayy more than 2!


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> _RANK EIGHTH:_ *#6* not only isn't Wagner, it's batsh*t crazy. The cold, shallow articulation with vibratoless strings and the cheery, Offenbach-barcarolle tempo - you could waltz to it - are undoubtedly intended to prove something, as most of this conductor's "HIP" recordings are. What it actually proves is probably better left unsaid.


 I think you might be mistaking this one for R. N's version?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

jdec said:


> I think you might be mistaking this one for R. N's version?


Yeah, and I was hoping his hatchet job was unique.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Come on, Shrime, spill the beans! Who are they? #8 must be Bernstein or Celi?


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

Merl said:


> Come on, Shrime, spill the beans! Who are they? #8 must be Bernstein or Celi?


Nope, a fellow with even a more peculiar hair style (and who relatively recently faced a very controversial issue).


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Merl said:


> Come on, Shrime, spill the beans! Who are they? #8 must be Bernstein or Celi?


I thought it was Bernstein, but it turns out that his is even slower. I was right, though, in remembering Bernstein's as the slowest of all. Check this out:






Nearly 15 minutes! This is comparable to his reading of the adagietto from Mahler's 5th. I think both almost succeed on their own terms, but I'm pretty sure they're not what either composer had in mind.

The best slow performance of this may be Celibidache's, especially his unique concentration in the hesitant, searching passages after the climax. Not surprisingly, it makes me think of Bruckner.

If wild hair is relevant to example 8, I'll guess Rattle.


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## Guest (Sep 12, 2018)

Number 8 is this recording:










jdec guessed it right I think!


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

Here, waiting to know the perpetrator of the Sixth prelude.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> It's interesting how Tristan has resisted analysis. Schenker didn't like it, and called it "surface" music. That's because Schenker analysis is rather limited, in that it posits everything as relating to a single tonal center, and reduces everything down to its simplest terms, with everything else being an elaboration of that.
> *The Tristan chord still resists definitive analysis to this day. Wagner was "implying" tonal centers without explicitly stating them. I*n the context of diminished chords and chromaticism, this means the Tristan chord might have more than one meaning, and even that meaning may be only "conceptual" or implied.
> In this sense, Wagner is the precursor to modernism or "free harmonic relations" where no tone center is necessary, because the devices and triads work by themselves, in relation to each other, but not to a single tonal center. It's certainly not diatonic, and that must be what frustrated Schenker.


The Tristan chord was not an invention of Wagner, of course, but of his father-in-law, Liszt.


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## Guest (Sep 12, 2018)

One of my personal favourites was number 5, conducted by Knappertsbusch and the Bavarian State Orchestra in this recording:










Even though the orchestra doesn't sound quite in top form, the phrasing and tempo is done really well I think, better than any other I have heard.

For the morbidly curious, number 6 was Neeme Järvi. Not to my taste, but I prefer it to Norrington. He recorded a series of Henk de Vlieger's orchestral paraphrases of some of Wagner's works, which I actually think are some of the best 'concert versions' of any of his works, because they cover a lot of the 'big tunes' in order without ever feeling disjointed or incomplete. I'd be really happy to hear these more often with a conductor who actually did justice to the music.


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

shirime said:


> Number 8 is this recording:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Correct, I have the CD.

Next guess, recording #1: one by Pentatone label, conductor M. J.


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## Guest (Sep 12, 2018)

jdec said:


> Correct, I have this CD.
> 
> Next guess, recording #1: one by Pentatone label, conductor M. J.


Well ****, you're good aren't you!

Here's number 1:










Do you know _all_ of them?


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

jdec;1512401Next guess said:


> Excuse me? That's Solti WPO all the way!


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

I just can guess my favourite, No.4.


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## Guest (Sep 12, 2018)

Granate hasn't got a single one right yet 

Here's number 4










Personally, I can't say I like Thielemann so much, and this is certainly no exception. Although he does implement the idea of tempo modification and tries very hard to make the interpretation musically appropriate based on the _melos_, there are so many issues with how he goes about these tempo changes that more often the result is an uncomfortably shaky/sudden gear shift. There's a real disconnect between tempo and orchestration and which layer of the texture brings out the basic pulse to make the expressiveness of each tempo change, each held note etc. seems very poorly handled with Thielemann, and I have had this problem with almost every performance of his that I've heard. Compared with some of the great Wagner conductors of the past, Thielemann seems like an extremely inspired young conductor who has a brilliant idea of how the music should go, but just can't get it entirely right. I must say, it has wonderfully expressive phrasing from the musicians! (I better stop before Thielemann fans arrive..........I know Granate likes Thielemann........  )


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

shirime said:


> Granate hasn't got a single one right yet
> 
> Compared with some of the great Wagner conductors of the past, Thielemann seems like an extremely inspired young conductor who has a brilliant idea of how the music should go, but just can't get it entirely right. I must say, it has wonderfully expressive phrasing from the musicians! (I better stop before Thielemann fans arrive..........I know Granate likes Thielemann........  )


Nah. Thielemann's quirks have blossomed from 2012 to make him the conducting star he is now. Only great work I heard from him before that was an early WPO Strauss Alpensinfonie. His MPO Bruckner No.5 hinted many things that have been polished in his current Dresden tenure.


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

I have the above Thielemann's recording too and also probably all versions with Karajan. No Karajan here. I cannot spot the rest.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> I do agree that it isn't possible to explain fully the momentary _effect_ of the Tristan chord; it does indeed suggest a mysterious, remote tonality, and is disturbing enough to throw someone unfamiliar with the piece "off the scent."


Should analysis reflect what we hear and experience, or is it a stand-alone explanation unto itself? And, are other interpretations possible?

From WIK: [The Tristan chord's significance is in its move away from traditional tonal harmony, and even toward atonality. With this chord, Wagner actually provoked the sound or structure of musical harmony to become more predominant than its function, a notion that was soon explored by Debussy and others. In the words of Robert Erickson, "The Tristan chord is, among other things, an identifiable sound, *an entity beyond its functional qualities in a tonal organization"*]

This sounds like Wagner has bypassed the notion of function in a tonal sense. It's a half-diminished chord, F-G#-B-D#, or F-Ab-Cb-Eb.

If it's an altered subdominant on ii in A minor, it's a suspension B-D#-F-G#, the suspension being G# in the key of A.

It could also be a IV of A minor; or a V of V (B as root resolves to E).

Even Wagner's approved analyst, Mayrberger, is torn: he calls it a ii in A minor, but says the chord is a Zwitterakkord (an ambiguous, hybrid, or possibly bisexual or androgynous, chord), whose F is controlled by the key of A minor, and D♯ by the key of E major. This sounds like Schoenberg's "vagrant" chord idea.

Then there are "non-functional" analyses, which say this is all contrapuntal. The fact that 12-tone music relied on counterpoint is worth noting.

All of this shows how the Tristan chord is ambiguous functionally, and could be seen to be in different keys; it resists functional analysis, and turns various functional solutions into "arguments" for what key it's in. These diminished and half-diminished structures lie in the cracks of tonality.

It depends on which argument you want to believe, hopefully with subjective experience being the guide. There is no objective answer.

Personally, since tonal analysis is not completely able to analyze it, I tend to see the chord as a free-floating structure in a neo-Riemannian sense. This makes it a clear foreshadower of non-tonal ways of constructing music, *not necessarily 12-tone, *but simply harmonic structures and symmetries which result from free relations between notes; harmonic structures which are essentially chromatic in nature, not tonal.

The politics are just a distraction. 
Chailley: "I have never been able to understand how the preposterous idea that Tristan could be made the prototype of an atonality grounded in destruction of all tension could possibly have gained credence. This was an idea that was disseminated under the (hardly disinterested) authority of Schoenberg, to the point where Alban Berg could cite the Tristan Chord in the Lyric Suite, as a kind of homage to a precursor of atonality. This curious conception could not have been made except as the consequence of a destruction of normal analytical reflexes leading to an artificial isolation of an aggregate in part made up of foreign notes, and to consider it-an abstraction out of context-as an organic whole. After this, it becomes easy to convince naive readers that such an aggregation escapes classification in terms of harmony textbooks."

Yes, it is possible to analyze it in terms of textbooks, but not definitively, since by nature it's not a "definitive structure" in functional terms. So, I tend to go with the idea that it is "an aggregate in part made up of foreign notes" and view it "as an organic whole" or in neo-Riemannian terms.

How about this, from "A Geometry of Music"by Dmitri Tymoczko:

"The competitions between resolutions is a competition between functional orthodoxy and chromatic perversity, with the victorious Wagnerian resolution subverting musical propriety - much as Tristan and Isolde reject their social obligations in favor of a doomed passion."

Tymoczko goes on to say that Wagner uses two other resolutions later on in the opera, and he concludes, by using a system of tone-space geometry:

"To my mind, this suggests that the fundamental logic of the opera is a contrapuntal logic...this shows Wagner demonstrating a sophisticated understanding of four-dimensional chord space; utilizing all of the most efficient voice-leading possibilities from half-diminished to dominant seventh, substituting one half-diminished chord for another, moving between chords by way of their chromatic intermediaries, reusing the same basic contrapuntal schema with different sonorities, and even reproducing the open-ended quasi-sequences of Chopin's E minor prelude. Chromaticism here starts to achieve an impressive degree of autonomy; loosening itself from functional tonality, it becomes an independent force with its own distinctive logic."


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

I wasn't surprised i got the slow one wrong but it had Bernstein written all over it. Im certainly no Wagner connoisseur. However, im intrigued about the dark and serious recording number 7 and the live number 3 with the far-too-loud-in-the-mix brass. Who were they, Shrimy?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Should analysis reflect what we hear and experience, or is it a stand-alone explanation unto itself? And, are other interpretations possible?
> 
> From WIK: [The Tristan chord's significance is in its move away from traditional tonal harmony, and even toward atonality. With this chord, Wagner actually provoked the sound or structure of musical harmony to become more predominant than its function, a notion that was soon explored by Debussy and others. In the words of Robert Erickson, "The Tristan chord is, among other things, an identifiable sound, *an entity beyond its functional qualities in a tonal organization"*]
> 
> ...


Analysts should wield Occam's razor.

The feeling of uncertainty at the sounding of the Tristan chord is intentional and irresistible. But any analysis that ignores the chord's context, which in this case is easy to see and not too difficult to hear, is misguided. We have to decide whether the function of the chord, in context, is ultimately obscured by its momentary ambiguity. To my ears, it isn't. A chord may have, or suggest, more than one function simultaneously, and a thorough analysis would indicate that. But if we're looking for a primary function for this chord, the context tells us what it is.

Mayrberger is essentially "talking around" identifying its primary dominant-of-the-dominant function by relating it to A minor and E major simultaneously (and Wagner no doubt enjoyed the analogy of sexual ambivalence). That ambivalence doesn't fulfill Schoenberg's concept of a "vagrant chord," which he says can "come from anywhere." It definitely matters, not just theoretically but to the ear, where the Tristan chord comes from, as well as where it goes. I must therefore disagree with your view that the chord is a "free-floating structure in a neo-Riemannian sense" (whatever the hell a "neo-Riemannian sense" means). This chord is anchored quite firmly in place, even if its basic function in context is not felt immediately. Though we don't understand the chord completely when it first strikes our ear, our understanding evolves, progressively and retrospectively, as the music traverses its tonally plotted course.

I agree that the effect of the chord goes "beyond" its primary harmonic function. Any analysis in diatonic terms will oversimplify the chord's meaning, and I don't intend my analysis to exhaust it. I'm merely identifying the strong tonal undergirding of Wagner's harmonic choices with the purpose of eliminating other, more farfetched analyses (of which I've seen several), and of drawing attention to what gives the music its power. Wagner's ability to utilize extensive chromatic ambiguity within a compellingly "logical" tonal context that "works" to the ear can't be understood if we just go on and on about how he's "breaking down" tonality. The "breakdown" is only effective because it isn't actually happening.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> ...It definitely matters, not just theoretically but to the ear, where the Tristan chord comes from, as well as where it goes. I must therefore disagree with your view that the chord is a "free-floating structure...This chord is anchored quite firmly in place, even if its basic function in context is not felt immediately. Though we don't understand the chord completely when it first strikes our ear, our understanding evolves, progressively and retrospectively, as the music traverses its tonally plotted course.


Yes, but you said the chord's function is determined by context. There are two more different resolutions of the chord later in the opera, so this reinforces the idea that it is a "free-floating" structure so to speak, which can be used in different contexts. It has its own chromatic autonomy as a harmonic device.  
Schoenberg's concept of a "vagrant chord," which he says can "come from anywhere" (not literally), depends on context; it can also "go anywhere" so to speak. That seems to fit.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Yes, but you said the chord's function is determined by context. There are two more different resolutions of the chord later in the opera, so this reinforces the idea that it is a "free-floating" structure so to speak, which can be used in different contexts. It has its own chromatic autonomy as a harmonic device.
> Schoenberg's concept of a "vagrant chord," which he says can "come from anywhere" (not literally), depends on context; it can also "go anywhere" so to speak. That seems to fit.


Any chord can be used in different contexts and move in different directions. It's the context that determines which direction it should take. The difficulty posed by the Tristan chord is that the top note sounds at first as if it might be a root in an alien key; taken in isolation, the chord could resolve in a variety of ways (and does elsewhere in Wagner's music). But in the light of the music's continuation, it has a compelling reason to resolve in the specific way it does, and in the process of resolving it "explains" itself. I don't think it's mere semantic nitpicking to say that a chord whose behavior is governed so clearly by its context shouldn't be called "free-floating" or "vagrant." After all, G-B-D-A needn't belong to the key of C and resolve to a C Major tonic, but can just as smoothly take us to F#-B-D#-F#. What we call it depends on where it's been and where it's going.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

For me, the magic of the "Tristan" chord is that the listener is held in the greatest of suspense for longer than perhaps ever before in history about where this sequence of chords was finally going to land. Then it leads into a torrent, an explosion of passion and emotion... rather well done, I'd say! At least Wagner _knew_ the sublimity of passionate love and it can be heard in sound... adult, mature, sensual, passionate love, perhaps captured for the first time in its full glory. It was a revelation. But I feel that its sense of suspense about where it was finally going to end up existed within the tonal universe and not an alternative one... Wagner is worth hearing just for his mature "grown-up" content alone, and that sense of mature "adultness" in sound is not pointed out near enough.


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## Guest (Sep 12, 2018)

Merl said:


> I wasn't surprised i got the slow one wrong but it had Bernstein written all over it. Im certainly no Wagner connoisseur. However, im intrigued about the dark and serious recording number 7 and the live number 3 with the far-too-loud-in-the-mix brass. Who were they, Shrimy?


Here's a hint: Number 7 and number 3 are from very famous conductors of the 20th century. One of these conductor's Ring cycles is noted as being one of the best filmed performances available, and the other conductor is probably the most universally praised conductor to ever live.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Larkenfield said:


> For me, the magic of the "Tristan" chord is that the listener is held in the greatest of suspense for longer than perhaps ever before in history about where this sequence of chords was finally going to land. Then it leads into a torrent, an explosion of passion and emotion... rather, well done, I'd say! At least Wagner _knew_ the sublimity of passionate love and it can be heard in sound... adult, mature, sensual, passionate love, perhaps captured for the first time ever. It was a huge creative breakthrough. But I feel that its sense of suspense about where it was finally going to end up existed within the tonal universe and not the alternative one... Wagner's work is worth hearing for the mature "grown-up" content alone, and it's hardly ever mentioned.


Indeed. Nothing in music had ever expressed such full-bodied, whole-souled passion or released such a tsunami of music making so intuitive and free of preconceived notions of form. Romanticism is here fully unleashed. Some of its early listeners felt they were drowning, fainted in the theater or, by Mark Twain's wry account, sobbed the night away. We're more jaded now, but if it catches you just right and you're not disposed to resist, _Tristan_ can still suck you through a wormhole or simply knock the stuffing out of you. We can talk about chords and such, but the revolution this work wrought was deeper than harmony. I think Bernstein called it the fulcrum of Western music, and said that once he had made his recording of it he could retire. Too bad he didn't do it when he was younger and faster...


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

shirime said:


> Here's a hint: Number 7 and number 3 are from very famous conductors of the 20th century. One of these conductor's Ring cycles is noted as being one of the best filmed performances available, and the other conductor is probably the most universally praised conductor to ever live.


Ooh, you big tease!


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

shirime said:


> Here's a hint: Number 7 and number 3 are from very famous conductors of the 20th century. One of these conductor's Ring cycles is noted as being one of the best filmed performances available, and the other conductor is probably the most universally praised conductor to ever live.


From those hints and without going back to listen it sounds like 3 must be Furtwangler (universally praised conductor?). 7 is more difficult as "of the 20th century" implies a conductor who is no longer active. I wonder which Ring is considered the best filmed? I have never seen a Ring DVD set. It can't be Barenboim as he is still very active and (I think I can remember 7 better than most of them) I think it was more fluid than I would expect Barenboim to sound. And it can't be Boulez because he didn't record Tristan.... .


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## Guest (Sep 13, 2018)

Here's number 7, although the cover has a mistake I believe! It was actually recorded in 1967. Pierre Boulez it certainly is! And actually, Boulez recorded the prelude two other times, one for Sony and one for DG, but not in the context of the whole opera.










Number 3 was this one by Carlos Kleiber from Bayreuth in 1976. Not as well known as his later recording on DG or his 1974 Bayreuth recording.










Both are available to purchase on Opera Depot.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^^^ Boulez _did_ record Tristan! And with a good cast (it seems). I've always has my doubts about Carlos Kleiber but hadn't thought he could sink to the depths of 6. He must have been anxious to get back to his freezer! Perhaps it makes more sense in the context of the whole performance?


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## Guest (Sep 13, 2018)

Enthusiast said:


> I've always has my doubts about Carlos Kleiber but hadn't thought he could sink to the depths of 6. He must have been anxious to get back to his freezer! Perhaps it makes more sense in the context of the whole performance?


Sorry, see my edited post.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^^^ I suppose that makes more sense! I actually quite liked it - a lot of emotions swirling around if I remember rightly.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> This was apparently Schoenberg's view. He placed the chord in a category he called "vagrant" chords, which could "come from anywhere," and thus couldn't really be analyzed in tonal terms. He characteristically wanted to see Wagner's harmony as presaging and culminating in his own "emancipation of the dissonance." But I disagree substantially with him, at least in this case, and also find that your "precursor to modernism" idea doesn't give Wagner credit for being the canny - and uncanny - master of tonality that he was.


Schoenberg characterized diminished seventh chords as "vagrants" in a tonal context; in his Harmonielehre, which is a treatise that deals with music in tonal terms. He saw them as autonomous harmonic mechanisms, which allowed modulation into several new key areas, exactly the way Wagner used his half-diminished "Tristan" chord (in three different ways, three different resolutions). The politics came later. Wagner's "own" theorist even recognized the (at least) dual nature of the chord, and chose his own solution as the "best argument" for A minor, which is based on correct context. Still, it depends on context, because the Tristan and other such "vagrant" harmonies are by their nature, ambiguous unless used in a context. Wagner himself knew this.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Enthusiast said:


> ^^^ Boulez _did_ record Tristan! And with a good cast (it seems). I've always has my doubts about Carlos Kleiber but hadn't thought he could sink to the depths of 6. He must have been anxious to get back to his freezer! Perhaps it makes more sense in the context of the whole performance?


Nilsson remarks in her memoirs that Boulez arrived to conduct her and Windgassen in Tristan and he appeared not to know the score!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Any chord can be used in different contexts and move in different directions. It's the context that determines which direction it should take. The difficulty posed by the Tristan chord is that the top note sounds at first as if it might be a root in an alien key; taken in isolation, the chord could resolve in a variety of ways (and does elsewhere in Wagner's music). But in the light of the music's continuation, it has a compelling reason to resolve in the specific way it does, and in the process of resolving it "explains" itself. I don't think it's mere semantic nitpicking to say that a chord whose behavior is governed so clearly by its context shouldn't be called "free-floating" or "vagrant." After all, G-B-D-A needn't belong to the key of C and resolve to a C Major tonic, but can just as smoothly take us to F#-B-D#-F#. What we call it depends on where it's been and where it's going.


The G7 example is much simpler than a diminished seventh.

A dim7 chord can be resolved into _4_ possible dominant 7 chords, by simply lowering a tone; it creates smooth voice leading as well.
Plus, by substituting 4 more different roots under it, it can become _4 more _dominant flat-nines, which Beethoven did in his Op. 135 string quartet.

That's considerably more ambiguous than a G7.

Plus, "diminished" refers to the flattened fifth of the triad, which makes it inherently unstable.

You should recognize that diminished and half-diminished chords have no "identity" until they are used in context.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^^^ I hadn't even realised he started working as a top-flight conductor that early.


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> ^^^ I hadn't even realised he started working as a top-flight conductor that early.


He conducted a *1969* Covent Garden production of Pelléas et Mélisande alongside an EMI/CBS commercial recording










When I complete and upload the P&M challenge I've recently finished, you may be surprised with my review.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Larkenfield said:


> ...But I feel that its sense of suspense about where it was finally going to end up existed within the tonal universe and not an alternative one.


That's true; the context Wagner used it in was tonal. The point you seem to be missing is that these kinds of chords in the diminished family are autonomous harmonic mechanisms, and in this sense they presage the further use of such harmonically related devices. They exist as "cracks" in the diatonic tonal system, and usher-in the way for more chromatic thinking and uses. They are by-and large symmetrical structures, which divide the 12 notes of the octave into equal parts, which makes them chromatic by nature, and in this sense are "free-floating" occurrences.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Schoenberg characterized diminished seventh chords as "vagrants" in a tonal context; in his Harmonielehre, which is a treatise that deals with music in tonal terms. He saw them as autonomous harmonic mechanisms, which allowed modulation into several new key areas, exactly the way Wagner used his half-diminished "Tristan" chord (in three different ways, three different resolutions). The politics came later. Wagner's "own" theorist even recognized the (at least) dual nature of the chord, and chose his own solution as the "best argument" for A minor, which is based on correct context. Still, it depends on context, because the Tristan and other such "vagrant" harmonies are by their nature, ambiguous unless used in a context. Wagner himself knew this.


I don't disagree. I just find the "vagrant chord" concept not very useful, and certainly not for understanding this specific piece of music (and after all, we were analyzing a piece of music). It tells us nothing about what Wagner actually does with his notorious chord. Yes, the Tristan chord, like the diminished seventh, has no single, fixed function out of context. That's simply true by definition: function _implies_ context. But ambiguity is a matter of degree; chords vary in their number of possible uses in a tonal context and, as I pointed out, common chords can also receive different continuations. A piece of music that begins on what sounds like a dominant seventh won't necessarily resolve to the expected tonic in the expected key. There's ambiguity without so-called "vagrant chords," but as long as we're looking at tonal music, even "vagrants" don't come from or go just anywhere, assuming the composer knows what he's doing. Schoenberg was clearly adding a brick to the theoretical edifice justifying a practice in which every chord is a "vagrant."


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Indeed. Nothing in music had ever expressed such full-bodied, whole-souled passion or released such a tsunami of music making so intuitive and free of preconceived notions of form. Romanticism is here fully unleashed. Some of its early listeners felt they were drowning, fainted in the theater or, by Mark Twain's wry account, sobbed the night away. We're more jaded now, but if it catches you just right and you're not disposed to resist, _Tristan_ can still suck you through a wormhole or simply knock the stuffing out of you. We can talk about chords and such, but the revolution this work wrought was deeper than harmony. I think Bernstein called it the fulcrum of Western music, and said that once he had made his recording of it he could retire. Too bad he didn't do it when he was younger and faster...


Not everyone felt this way.
WIK:
By the end of the nineteenth century, composers had used the diminished seventh so much that it became a cliché of musical expression and consequently lost much its power to shock and thrill. By the turn of the 20th century, many musicians were getting weary of it. In his Harmonielehre (1911), Arnold Schoenberg wrote: "Whenever one wanted to express pain, excitement, anger, or some other strong feeling - there we find, almost exclusively, the diminished seventh chord. So it is in the music of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, etc. Even in Wagner's early works it plays the same role. But soon the role was played out. This uncommon, restless, undependable guest, here today, gone tomorrow, settled down, became a citizen, was retired a philistine. The chord had lost that appeal of novelty, hence, it had lost its sharpness, but also its luster. It had nothing more in say to a new era. Thus, it fell from the higher sphere of art music to the lower of music for entertainment. There it remains, as a sentimental expression of sentimental concerns. It became banal and effeminate."


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Not everyone felt this way.
> WIK:
> By the end of the nineteenth century, composers had used the diminished seventh so much that it became a cliché of musical expression and consequently lost much its power to shock and thrill. By the turn of the 20th century, many musicians were getting weary of it. In his Harmonielehre (1911), Arnold Schoenberg wrote: "Whenever one wanted to express pain, excitement, anger, or some other strong feeling - there we find, almost exclusively, the diminished seventh chord. So it is in the music of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, etc. Even in Wagner's early works it plays the same role. But soon the role was played out. This uncommon, restless, undependable guest, here today, gone tomorrow, settled down, became a citizen, was retired a philistine. The chord had lost that appeal of novelty, hence, it had lost its sharpness, but also its luster. It had nothing more in say to a new era. Thus, it fell from the higher sphere of art music to the lower of music for entertainment. There it remains, as a sentimental expression of sentimental concerns. It became banal and effeminate."


Felt what way? What is this relevant to? It's typical Schoenbergian envy and self-justification.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

shirime said:


> Here's number 7, although the cover has a mistake I believe! It was actually recorded in 1967. Pierre Boulez it certainly is! And actually, Boulez recorded the prelude two other times, one for Sony and one for DG, but not in the context of the whole opera.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The Boulez doesnt surprise me but id have never put the other one down to Kleiber. I have his studio Prelude and its not that similar to my ears, even taking account of the noisy horns and dodgy miking in the live one


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Is #2 the only remaining mystery? It seems to be the oldest recording, and I gave it first place, so I'm more than curious.

Is this what we have so far?

#1 - Janowski
#2 - ?
#3 - C. Kleiber
#4 - Thielemann
#5 - Knappertsbusch
#6 - N. Jarvi
#7 - Boulez
#8 - Levine


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Is #2 the only remaining mystery? *It seems to be the oldest recording*, and I gave it first place, so I'm more than curious.
> 
> Is this what we have so far?
> 
> ...


#2 - Karl Elmendorff (yes, oldest recording here, 1928)


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## Guest (Sep 13, 2018)

jdec got it again! Here's number 2, one which I enjoy very much:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

jdec said:


> #2 - Karl Elmendorff (yes, oldest recording here, 1928)


Elmendorff! I knew it was from an earlier era, but that's another world. Listen to those portamenti! It's like singing. Set it alongside Mengelberg's Liszt and Mahler as mementos of the authentic tradition, now lost.


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## Guest (Sep 13, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Elmendorff! I knew it was from an earlier era, but that's almost another world. Listen to those portamenti! It's like singing. Set it alongside Mengelberg's Liszt and Mahler as mementos of the authentic tradition, now lost.


Absolutely! I think this was even back when Siegfried Wagner was running the festival. How about that, eh?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Granate said:


> He conducted a *1969* Covent Garden production of Pelléas et Mélisande alongside an EMI/CBS commercial recording


Yes. Mine was a stupid comment. I remember now that he was in charge of the BBCSO in the early 1970s and was already established as a conductor. I just seems like it was the day before yesterday!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

To think of the Tristan chord in a "tonal context" is old-hat. Even nineteenth century theorists didn't do that; today's theory is retarded. Today's theory, as taught in schools, is actually a backwards, retro-form of tonal analysis. Everything today is in terms of functions and Roman numerals, and is diatonic. That's old hat.

Neo-Riemannian theory is a loose collection of ideas present in the writings of music theorists such as David Lewin, Brian Hyer, Richard Cohn, and Henry Klumpenhouwer. *What binds these ideas is a central commitment to relating harmonies directly to each other, without necessary reference to a tonic. 
*


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> To think of the Tristan chord in a "tonal context" is old-hat. Even nineteenth century theorists didn't do that; today's theory is retarded. Today's theory, as taught in schools, is actually a backwards, retro-form of tonal analysis. Everything today is in terms of functions and Roman numerals, and is diatonic. That's old hat.
> 
> Neo-Riemannian theory is a loose collection of ideas present in the writings of music theorists such as David Lewin, Brian Hyer, Richard Cohn, and Henry Klumpenhouwer. *What binds these ideas is a central commitment to relating harmonies directly to each other, without necessary reference to a tonic.
> *


Wagner was thinking in a tonal context, and the tonality of the _Tristan_ prelude is not obscure. We don't need to abandon reference to a tonic just because a composer creates moments of tonal ambiguity. The opening section of this piece is brilliantly plotted tonally, and baby-simple to understand.

I thought we'd already had this discussion over a week ago, right in this thread. Do you want to have it again, or are you just looking to have the last word on the subject?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> I thought we'd already had this discussion over a week ago, right in this thread. Do you want to have it again, or are you just looking to have the last word on the subject?


Boring, personal invalidations. Let's not talk about me.



Woodduck said:


> Wagner was thinking in a tonal context, and the tonality of the _Tristan_ prelude is not obscure. We don't need to abandon reference to a tonic just because a composer creates moments of tonal ambiguity. The opening section of this piece is brilliantly plotted tonally, and baby-simple to understand.


Yeah, he was "plotting" his way through several geometric possibilities. 
To say that's "tonal," as in an "underlying Schenkerian tonic," is old-fashioned and doesn't fit Wagner. 
Wagner was way more advanced than that. 
By saying he was simply "tonal" does him a great injustice.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Boring, personal invalidations. Let's not talk about me.
> 
> Yeah, he was "plotting" his way through several geometric possibilities.
> To say that's "tonal," as in an "underlying Schenkerian tonic," is old-fashioned and doesn't fit Wagner.
> ...


"Plotting his way through several geometric possibilities"? "As in an underlying Schenkerian tonic"? "Simply tonal"? _Simply?_

Who are you having this discussion with? You seem to have no desire to communicate with anyone here.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

"The prelude to Tristan begins in the key of A minor"? "...a perfectly ordinary progression consisting of an augmented sixth chord, functioning as the dominant of the dominant, and resolving to the (unresolved) v7 of A minor"? "The whole progression is completely logical and lucid in the home key"?

Who are you talking to? You seem to have no desire to discuss anything, but only declare truisms.

Wagner was not a simple tonal thinker like you say he was. His ideas were more complex, less linear, less diatonic. The Tristan chord has more than one meaning, and even that meaning may be only "conceptual" or implied.

In this sense, Wagner is the precursor to modernism or "free harmonic relations" where no tone center is necessary, because the devices and triads work by themselves, in relation to each other, but not to a single tonal center. It's certainly not diatonic, and that must be what frustrated Schenker. 

Robert Erickson: "The Tristan chord is, among other things, an identifiable sound, an entity beyond its functional qualities in a tonal organization."


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> "The prelude to Tristan begins in the key of A minor"? "...a perfectly ordinary progression consisting of an augmented sixth chord, functioning as the dominant of the dominant, and resolving to the (unresolved) v7 of A minor"? "The whole progression is completely logical and lucid in the home key"?
> 
> Who are you talking to? You seem to have no desire to discuss anything, but only declare truisms.
> 
> ...


I don't know why you want to revive this theoretical discussion in a thread about comparing recordings. But OK, it's too late to protest.

I'm not here to put down other people's understanding of music, as you plainly are. There are obviously different ways of analyzing musical structures. My analysis of the opening bars of the _Tristan_ prelude is not wrong. Does it say everything that can be said about the music? Of course not. I never claimed that it did. In fact I acknowledged explicitly that the "chord" created a momentary feeling of ambiguity, a sense of unstated, alien tonal references. This is typical of Wagner's harmony; it virtually defines "Wagnerian." The whole point of the chord's notoriety is that it strikes us when we are unprepared for it, harmonically; to the ear, its function emerges only in retrospect. I never claimed that its _effect_ could be understood in diatonic terms. I said, and showed, only that the first section of the prelude can be plotted tonally in a clear way. Nothing that can be said about the ambiguity of the "Tristan chord" invalidates the existence of the tonal progression of which it is a part. You can call this a "truism" or any other disparaging thing you like.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I'm not disparaging you, just the old way of thinking of Wagner's Tristan chord; and you never acknowledged anything about my earlier observations, so why shouldn't that be taken as a disparagement? You're the one who keeps slipping back into personal observations, so let's, please, at least agree to disagree and stay on point.

It's funny how I'm discovering that Wagner and other nineteenth-century composers and theorists were actually more advanced in their thinking than we are now, in the sense of how music is taught in most college music departments.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> I'm not disparaging you, just the old way of thinking of Wagner's Tristan chord; and you never acknowledged anything about my earlier observations, so why shouldn't that be taken as a disparagement? You're the one who keeps slipping back into personal observations, so let's, please, at least agree to disagree and stay on point.
> 
> It's funny how I'm discovering that Wagner and other nineteenth-century composers and theorists were actually more advanced in their thinking than we are now, in the sense of how music is taught in most college music departments.


I don't know how theory is taught at colleges and universities now, but I do understand that much harmonic usage, particularly from the 19th century on, is not fully describable in terms of common practice functionality. I find the Tristan chord, in its context, a logical part of a describable tonal scheme. I'm not objecting to any additional understanding of it except insofar as such an understanding might neglect or deny that scheme, which some analyses I've read do. There are actually more problematic passages in Wagner than this one.

Wagner seems to have had almost nothing to say about his harmonic practice, or about harmonic theory in general, which is very interesting given his volubility on so many other subjects and his pivotal role in extending harmonic practice. He did say that his was the "art of transition," which seems to imply the existence of things - tonal areas or markers - he thought he was transitioning between. He studied composition in the 1820s, and it's a reasonable surmise that, fundamentally, he did indeed think tonally; playing through his scores, we find him continuing to plot episodes in terms of keys even when the local harmony is extremely unstable or transitional and impossible to assign a function in a larger key context. But, again, the opening section of _Tristan_ is not one of his most difficult passages in this respect, once we see and hear the context and can thus make aural and intellectual sense of that provocative chord.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

“To view consonant triads against the background of chromatic space is to decline to interpret them in terms of the number of diatonic degrees that separate their root from some tonic. This choice cuts across the multiple denominations of classical tonal theory and their pedagogical offshoots, which all teach that chromatic harmonies are primarily to be understood as transformations of some underlying diatonic one. The idea that the diatonic collection conceptually precedes and regulates the interpretation of the chromatic one, already implicit in the names of notes, their position on the staff, and the system of key signatures, became canonized with respect to classical tonality in the early nineteenth century, at roughly the same historical moment that musical education became institutionalized in conservatories…”
-Richard Cohn, from Audacious Euphony


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> "*To view consonant triads against the background of chromatic space* is to decline to interpret them in terms of the number of diatonic degrees that separate their root from some tonic. This choice cuts across the multiple denominations of classical tonal theory and their pedagogical offshoots, which all teach that chromatic harmonies are primarily to be understood as transformations of some underlying diatonic one. The idea that the diatonic collection conceptually precedes and regulates the interpretation of the chromatic one, already implicit in the names of notes, their position on the staff, and the system of key signatures, became canonized with respect to classical tonality in the early nineteenth century, at roughly the same historical moment that musical education became institutionalized in conservatories…"
> -Richard Cohn, from Audacious Euphony


How is this statement to be applied to the present case? What would it mean to view the consonant (or for that matter the dissonant) harmonies of the _Tristan _prelude "against the background of chromatic space"? How would doing that invalidate our recognition of Wagner's clear tracing of tonal areas in the opening section of the piece? Is there some compelling reason to try to do that? Is there some system of analysis which would make Wagner's procedures more cogent to the intellect, and reveal more clearly the work's structural underpinnings? Is "chromatic space" a useful concept, or is it an example of throwing up one's hands and abandoning any pretext at understanding? If this music makes sense, how does "chromatic space" help us make sense of it?

Concretes, please.


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