Except it can also be found in Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 18, as well as in works by Mozart, Chopin, Liszt, G. Machaud, Gesdo, and many other composers. No Wagner didn't invent this chord at all.
@@metathoughts732 You're right he didn't invent the chord. But that's not what Bernstein said and I don't believe, that's what he (and other commenters) meant. After all Beethoven doesn't explore the tension of the chord for nearly 4 hours until resolving it. This and the way it's connected to the dramaturgy of the opera are to my knowledge both concepts, no one had used in a similar way before Tristan. I mean you don't have to like Wagners music. That's of course a matter of taste and for sure you don't have to like him as a person.
@@MG-fh4ed with all due respect, no. He was hypocritical and ruined Bavaria so he could write operas, his Ring and post-Ring operas are definitely very long and aren't really recommendable for non-initiated people, but no one said seriously that he was a middle-of-the-pack composer. Everything around his music is kinda dirty though
@@metathoughts732 it's not the chord itself that is important, it's the musical context surrounding that chord, especially when it takes so long to resolve, as an introduction resulting in a highly chromatic and intricate counterpoint for the whole overture
I learnt just yesterday that the magnificent man who plays on the piano, Stefan Mickisch, has died almost exactly to the day a year ago. Unmatched his ability to explain the Wagner-Universum… I am sure he will be missed by great many people who appreciated his genius, as I did. R.I.P.
Yes. He died. 🙁 I wanted to see him live so badly. And I never will. But there are audio cds on the market. He was such a great teacher and story teller of Wagner's music.
Stefan Mickisch killed himself after being cancelled, ie; shamefully, brutally, stigmatised, ostracised and destroyed by the German press. Why? Because he rightly characterised the German response to the pandemic as “Corona fascism”. He called out the manifestation of corporate totalitarianism and paid the ultimate price. RIP.
@@Hickalum ich weiß…. An absolute tragedy… an unforgivable attitude the press and many of his colleagues displayed towards this highly sensible man.. shameful.. and no one ever apologised (never mind being prosecuted) it’s very very sad
+Benny Hill It is indeed training and no alcohol and good sleep. And an economic use of your voice ,garded by an excellent teacher .( if you like trainer)
+Alexander Lee It's true what the other commenters have said, that you must take care of your voice, and that is done by having proper breath support. There are many, many different muscles that go into singing, some used to power sound are in your throat and around your vocal chords, these are very delicate, and you don't want to rely on them to power your sound. The use of abdominal and diaphraghmatic muscles are what opera singers use to sustain their song, as well as a combination of great alignment/posture. This is why opera singers pop out babies so well, because their inner abdominals are so strong. Also many opera singers claim their knees wear out before their voice does! This is because locking the knees will stifle your sound, being in a slight squat helps align the body and power your abdominals. Sorry if im blabbing, I just wanted to correct the idea that your vocal chords will get fried eventually, they will not if you've been trained properly.
they don´t constantly sing, they have time off - like Isolde in the 3rd act, waiting for her appearance for 45 minutes. AND it takes a lot of practise ;-)
I would love to see other people who lack a musical background talk about their favorite music in the same way Stephen Fry does, especially for more academic music such as jazz or classical. I would find seeing someone passionately discuss music without cramming loads of theory down your throat highly enjoyable. The idea that you can comprehend, much less enjoy academic music without training seems rare these days. Kudos to fry for making this video and kudos to you for uploading it.
That's all true, but some learning about how the music produces its effects really does deepen the experience. You hear and feel things you did not hear before.
Absolutely, it's good to remember that we can only have paid professionals in Jazz or Classical (or any other genre) if there are a lot of regular folks listening and enjoying ( i.e. mostly those who didn't get a four+ year University education studying the music )
I listened to this music in the car this morning and after trying to be brave all day finally gave in and wept, hugely, happily and in celebration of the human heart, the emotion so completely overwhelming. I have bi-polar disorder and on the occasion when the response to emotion is so spectacularly powerful it's worth all the downside.
@tennebanoit Yes, since leaving my comment I have been told of Stephen Frys bi-polar. Whilst the highs (when you are in them) always feel worth the downs I found that at my age of 63 I was getting a bit tired so opted for a very low dose of medication which just pulls in the extremities of the experience a little; the highs not so high the lows not so low. It gives me a balance that I find comfortable and manageable, I would recommend it it to anyone who has bi-polar and who might sometimes feel 'overwhelmed' by it all. When I look back over my life the bi-polar pattern is very clear and some of the risks and impulsive behaviours make me shudder and yet out of crazy have come huge life changing benefits and happinesses that I could never regret.
I think the most relevant thing is the fact that the tension introduced by the Tristan chord in the very beginning of the opera isn't actually resolved until the very end of it. I cry everytime that resolution comes. It's just so powerful after all the tension that built up during 4 hours of music!
...except that the end of the liebestod, which resolves the tension, comes quite a bit before the end of the opera, which goes on for about another rather dreary fifteen minutes or so with King Mark, which is the ultimate anti-climax.
maskedpillager Pokemon is interestingly relevant here. The surname of the tenor who created Tristan was Schnorr, and he bore more than a passing resemblance to Snorlax.
Howe Shore! The Lord of The Rings OST is the most superior composing for cinema. Zimmer is excellent (Interstellar and Patricida are my favourite ost and theme ) but i can't imagine composing for LOTR.
Whenever I see or hear Tristan, I'm reminded of my music teacher, Gordon Bellamy's comment on the piece. Four bloody hours to resolve one bloody chord. An inspirational teacher, but hated Wagner.
It's when you read the biographies of nearly every great composer born in the 2nd half of the 19th century that you realize just how powerful a hold Tristan had on classical music at that time. So many of them who'd been to see Tristan were mesmerized by it, how Wagner had changed the game completely with what he had achieved in this work and what was possible now because of it. The hold was so strong that it eventually led to a reaction *against* it and against Wagnerian dominance of so much being written at that time and for years afterwards, with fine composers striving to find their own voices free of Wagner's spell, many went in more nationalistic directions and down paths that led to numerous folk music revivals and plenty of composers trying to forge a style native to where they came from as opposed to just sounding like post-Tristan Wagner but the different directions classical music went in at this time still, somewhat inevitably, charted a path to the very edge of tonality starting with Debussy in the early 1890s before the cracks in tonality finally gave way completely in the next decade in Russia and Vienna. Who knows if they'd have still arrived at that point at that time if Tristan hadn't existed but I think the chances are someone else would've challenged the conventions of tonality in the 2nd half of the 19th century had Wagner not done it, although possibly not in the course of such an extraordinary work as Tristan is.
It's so much fun to watch Stephen Fry rendered a helpless fan girl about stuff like Wagner. He admittedly has ZERO aptitude for making music, but I've read and listened to him describe how much Wagner's music means to him. He must have been shitting himself to even be in the same room as Wagner's piano! I know I would.
Raherin Oh, I only meant he's unable to play or sing himself, much to his chagrin. He did have to sing once in a very early sketch with Hugh Laurie (before ABOFL) and he wasn't nearly as bad as he seems to think. The way he talks about himself, you'd think he was William Young.
Music is not just for people who can compose and/or play it. Love seeing Stephen Fry, one of the greatest intellectuals, articulate his love for it and clearly admire an amazing piano player at work on Wagners piano. It is actually quite apt and memorable that Fry played the wrong final note. Such is the dischord of this composition in musical history. Thanks for sharing
I've heard/got many recordings of the Leibestod - but I just love the way the film makers have overlaid Irene Theórin's voice with Stefan Mikisch's piano playing - in my opinion (humble though it is) this is the most powerful version of this piece. It is raw, beautiful and pure. It moves me. 4.15 on is just SUBLIME.
Yes, but that last comment is extremely incompetent: "Extremely good music" to describe a revolutionary piece of art? Extremely good music is just an understatement.
Why do enemas cause me to talk louder and non-stop for hours after the fecals have departed my anal canal? Does this happen to everyone? Even with a beer enema this happens. At that last enemas convention in Greeley, Colorado, I had a coffee enema that got me jabbering for hours. Wishing it was my hole instead of my mouth.
@@Wotan123456789 Its easy to tell, the guy adores Wagner's music with every fibre of his being. I think it was intended as an understatement. He isn't wrong either, it truly is extremely good music..
@@jakemetcalfe3091 I think as a punchline "extremely good music" and a "ahahaha" sounds poor, IMO. As an interpreter, musicologist and even as an introductory reel to people around the world, something in the fashion "a chord that revolutionized music" or similar would have been more appropriate. I also love Wagner, when I was a student I would have a part-time job just to be able to go to Bayreuth every year, no holidays, no weekend trips, all my saving to be able to assist the Festspiele. I have been doing that regularly for many years. It is the highlight of my year.
He’s dead. Stefan Mickisch killed himself after being cancelled, ie; shamefully, brutally, stigmatised, ostracised and destroyed by the German press. Why? Because he rightly characterised the German response to the pandemic as “Corona fascism”. He called out the manifestation of corporate totalitarianism and paid the ultimate price. RIP.
I remember my Music Theory professor talking about the ‘Tristan Chord’ in 1978. But I don’t remember such a ‘vivid ‘ and wonderful description as this! I would have loved to have seen Birgit Nilsson or Gwyneth Jones in this masterpiece!
I can't iagine what the audience experienced ,listening to this for the very first time.The music and the voices sear your soul and lift it at the same time.All the joy, heartbreak, longing and beauty of earth's humanity is here .
The point is that the significance lies not just with the chord itself, but the way that it follows the opening ascending/descending motifs, leaving the music hanging there unresolved.
Nah you're right - he's being pedantic and talking about the classical period of Mozart and Haydn but classical music is different and encompasses renaissance, baroque, classical, romantic, contemporary, etc. You're perfectly free to call Wagner classical music, just not music of the classical period.
@@thomasstanford8456 And to continue in my pedantic -- but correct nonetheless (don't y' HATE when that happens?!??) -- path, early-period Beethoven needs to be included in "the classical period." As well as many other composers...
@@timothyj.bowlby5524 Because saying the 'classical period of Mozart and Haydn' necessarily implies that I think they were the only two composers of the era...
They've both got busted/bent noses, while I guess we won't get the chance to enjoy the irony of Fry playing Wagner further to his Wilde, given that Fry is of course Jewish! Then again, he's too tall and nowadays probably far too well proportioned to pull the roll off further to Burton and Trevor Howard.
It's a pity they didn't mention the one last entrancing moment when the solo oboe hangs on the the high fifth of the chord ( f# in B major), making everyone hold their breath until the final B major chord. That's genius. Did Wagner also do that at the end of Parsifal ? Charles. Santa Barbara, Calif.
Charles Talmadge yeah its a fantastic idea to have the oboe play this tone, but isnt it the third in the chord? in b major the d sharp? because that's actually the important thing, that its NOT the fifth but the third in the chord...
Silly me.. you are right in letter and spirit. Thank you for sharing that. I've been listening to Keilberth's early 50s Ring recordings recently and find them exceptional in a unified view with inspired singing.
I saw Gwyneth Jones and René Kollo sing Tristan at the Vienna Opera under Abbado ... they may have been close to the end of their careers, but they were superb, and that production, premiered with Brigit Nilsson is legendary ... one of the highlights of my life.
Holy s**t. Abbado conducting Tristan… Must admit not a massive fan of the leads but Abbado was an all-round heavyweight champion of the world. That’s the kind of memory that certainly would transport you, whatever’s happening
I was watching ERB, then googled something I heard in the lyrics, learned some amazing stuff I didn't know about musical history. Thanks ERB, and thanks musical masters of the ages.
What a great chord. In the key of a minor, it's a French +6th chord with the G# functioning as a sustained leading tone appoggiatura to the A it resolves ever so breifly to; enharmonically it's a half-diminished 7th chord if the G# is respelled as an A-flat, the B a c-flat and the D# as E-flat. G# is also the 7th of the A# half-diminished 7th chord that's heard after the chomatic flute solo that opens Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. Also, Tristan's plot is very similar to that of Porgy and Bess, which explains why there's so many half-diminished 7th chords in "Summertime and the Living is Easy." Yep... one great sonortity, alright.
The whole opera is the musical definition of edging. The buildup to the crescendo in Liebstod is extremely tense and doesn’t resolve for literal hours.
IT brings me to tears as well. Not as much as Der Ring Des Nibulungen though. How he builds this epic story over 18 hours and at the end of Gotterdammerung it calms to a quite finish but more like a new beginning in a way.
What intrigues me is why they didn't simply re-shoot that last chord so Stephen could correct his mistake and we'd all have been none the wiser. Of course, I guess he appreciated the humor of the moment more than he longed to be seen topping off the chord correctly. If he's really a non-player, he's all the more deserving of props for having played the first chord correctly.
Love how the orchestration is placed on top of the piano at the start of this. It’s not without merit that this chord is famous. For the peak of Romantic thought it seems to convey within its context a vast sweep of all of the angst we see or were about to see in Bronte or Hardy and others. What a contrast to the furious hope we saw in Beethoven’s 3rd or 9th at the earlier stages of the 19th.
The chord was used by Liszt in his Faust Symphony, from which Wagner appropriated it, 7 years before Tristan! (See pp. 330-31 of Alan Walker's three-volume biography of Liszt, Franz Liszt: The Weimar Years.)
it´s called "Tristanfantasie" and arranged by Stefan Mickisch, if you google Mickisch you will find his homepage.(there he sells the notes and the disc) It´s a long piece, more than 100 minutes, and based on pieces of Act 1 (Liebestrank, Love Potion), Act 2 (Liebesnacht, Nicht of Love) and Act 3 (Liebestod, Love Death)
Jon Vickers, the great Canadian tenor sang the role of Tristan for thirty years. He did so by only singing eight performances a year which he gave for the highest bidder. He was the greatest Tristan in the world in his day, as well as a very wealthy man. He did the same for his signature role of Otello. Eight performances a year, that was it.
Richard Strauss liked to quiz people about the final chord in Act III. It uses all instruments except the English horn, which represented the love potion. Finally in the last bar, the curse was extinguished.
When Thomas Newman wrote the piece "Plasma Orgasmata" for the TV series "Angels in America" I think he was inspired by Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. I always hear the Wagner, especially in the last 40 seconds. The very final chord is definitely Wagner. See for yourself on RU-vid -- 20 - Plasma Orgasmata
Check out Hummel b minor concerto 1st movement - An interesting pre-tristan tristan chord measure 7 -> 8. Voice leading is basically identical (without chromatic top line, and an extra passing note in the tenor).
it's more than that, it's so ambiguous, it's not a m7b5 chord look how it's written. Obviously it sounds like a m7b5 but it's not a m7b5 because it gets another way
Nietzche sent me! "and to this day I am still seeking for a work which would be a match to Tristan in dangerous fascination and possess the same gruesome and dulcet quality of infinity.
Franz Liszt deserves the real credit for the "Tristan" chord, as he used it in a song composed in 1844, "Ich möchte hingehen," predating Wagner"s opera by about 15 years.
Actually- The Tristan and Isolde opera itself is held at the Festspielhaus (during alternate years) In Bayreuth (and elsewhere at times such as the Zurich Opera house, The Met in NY, etc.)- However- This actual footage (as seen above) was in the Biography/Documentary by Stephen Fry titled: Wagner and Me.
