The Tristan chord is a chord made up of the notes F, B, D# and G#. More generally, it can be any chord that consists of these same intervals, viz. (from the lowest note upward) an augmented fourth, a major third and a perfect fourth. It is so named as it is the very first chord heard in Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde, at the tempo langsam und schmachtend (slowly and languishing). At the time Tristan und Isolde was first heard, making this sustained chord the first heard in a piece of music was considered innovative and daring: The root (basse fondamentale) of a chord is the note upon which that chord is perceived or labelled as built or centered, the root of a chord in root position or normal form. ... The augmented fourth between C and F# forms a tritone. ... A major third is the larger of two commonly occuring musical intervals that span three diatonic scale degrees. ... The perfect fourth or diatessaron, abbreviated P4, is one of two musical intervals that span four diatonic scale degrees; the other being the augmented fourth, which is one semitone larger. ... Typical fingering for a second inversion C major chord on a guitar. ... In music theory, an interval is the relationship between two notes or pitches, the lower and higher members of the interval. ... Wilhelm Richard Wagner (Leipzig, May 22, 1813 – Venice, February 13, 1883) was an influential German composer, conductor, music theorist, and essayist, primarily known for his operas (or music dramas as he later came to call them). ... The Teatro alla Scala in Milan. ... Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Isolde) is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Strassburg, which in turn was based on the story of Tristan and Isolde as told in French by Thomas of...

The opening of Richard Wagners opera, Tristan und Isolde in piano score. ...

Sound samples

• Sound sample of these bars (MIDI file)
• Recording of these bars (Ogg Vorbis file)

This motif also appears in measures 6, 10, and 12, several times later in the work and at the end of the last act. Much has been written about its possible harmonic functions or voice leading (melodic function), and the motif has been interpreted in various ways. For instance, Vogel (1962, p. 12) points out the "chord" in earlier works by Guillaume de Machaut, Carlo Gesualdo, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, or Louis Spohr (Vogel 1962: 12), as in the following example from Beethoven, tempo allegro: Image File history File links Speaker_Icon. ... Musical Instrument Digital Interface, or MIDI, is a system designed to transmit information between electronic musical instruments. ... Image File history File links Speaker_Icon. ... This page is about the audio compression codec. ... In music, a motif is a perceivable or salient reoccurring fragment or succession of notes that may used to construct the entirety or parts of complete melodies, themes. ... Guillaume de Machaut (around 1300 – 1377), was a French composer and poet of the late Medieval era. ... Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa. ... Johann Sebastian Bach (pronounced ) (21 March 1685 O.S. – 28 July 1750 N.S.) was a prolific German composer and organist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity. ... Mozart redirects here. ... 1820 portrait by Joseph Karl Stieler Beethoven redirects here. ... Self-portrait of Spohr as a young man. ...

Image File history File links Download high resolution version (872x166, 8 KB)Beethovens Sonata Op. ...

What makes the Tristan motif different in the eyes of many analysts is its duration; in the Beethoven example the E♭ resolves to D in approximately a quarter of the time it takes the G♯ to "resolve" to the A in the Wagner. In Beethoven the simultaneity may be considered to consist partly of nonchord tones and is not a chord or harmonic entity in itself. The Tristan chord is often taken to be of great significance in the move away from traditional tonal harmony and even towards atonality; with this chord, Wagner actually provoked the sound or structure of musical harmony to become more predominant than its function, a notion which was soon after to be explored by Debussy and others. "The Tristan chord is," in the words of Robert Erickson (1975, p.18), "among other things, an identifiable sound, an entity beyond its functional qualities in a tonal organization." Tonality is a system of writing music according to certain hierarchical pitch relationships around a key center or tonic. ... Harmony is the result of polyphony (more than one note being played simultaneously). ... Atonality describes music not conforming to the system of tonal hierarchies, which characterizes the sound of classical European music between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. ... This article is about compression waves. ... Allegory of Music on the Opéra Garnier Music is an art form that involves organized and audible sounds and silence. ... Harmony is the result of polyphony (more than one note being played simultaneously). ... Achille-Claude Debussy (IPA ) (August 22, 1862 – March 25, 1918) was a French composer. ... Robert Erickson (March 7, 1917 in Marquette, Michigan–April 24, 1997 in San Diego, California) was a composer. ...

Analyses

Although at the same time enharmonically sounding like the half-diminished chord F - A♭ - C♭ - E♭, it can also be interpreted as the suspended altered subdominant II: B - D♯ - F - A (the G♯ being the suspension in the key of A minor). Jean-Jacques Nattiez writes that musical analyses are determined by analytical situations especially in regard to the tripartition, plots, and transcendent principles. In regard to the Tristan chord the situations discussed here include what the analyst believes happens with the chord later in Tristan and Isolde, possible belief in only three harmonic functions or in functional successions determination by the circle of fifths. This article is about compression waves. ... In music, the subdominant is the technical name for the fourth tonal degree of the diatonic scale. ... In music theory, a suspension is a nonchord tone that occurs when the harmony shifts from one chord to another, but one or more notes of the first chord are held over, suspended, into the second but then resolved to a chord tone. ... In music theory, the key identifies the tonic triad, the chord, major or minor, which represents the final point of rest for a piece, or the focal point of a section. ... Jean-Jacques Nattiez is a musical semiologist or semiotician and professor of Musicology at the University of Montreal. ... Look up plot in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A transcendent principle. ... In music theory, the circle of fifths (or cycle of fifths) is a geometrical space that depicts relationships among the 12 equal-tempered pitch classes comprising the familiar chromatic scale. ...

As a motif

According to J. Chailley (1963, p.40), "it is rooted in a simple dominant chord of A minor [E major], which includes two appoggiaturas resolved in the normal way":

Image File history File links Download high resolution version (871x170, 7 KB)The Tristan chord as a dominant with appoggiaturas as according to Chailley Created by Hyacinth using Sibelius and Paint. ...

Thus in this view it is not a chord but an anticipation of the dominant chord in measure three. He explains (1963, p.8): "Tristan's chromaticism, grounded in appoggiaturas and passing notes, technically and spiritually represents an apogee of tension. 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."

As a chord

He also (1990, p.219-29) distinguishes between functional and nonfunctional analyses.

Functional analyses

Functional analyses include interpreting the chord's root as on:

• the fourth scale degree (IV) of a-minor (D, according to Arend "a modified minor seventh chord" F-B-D♯-G♯→F-C♭-E♭-A♭→F-B-D-A = D-F-A, according to Lorenz an augmented sixth chord F-A-D♯) (Arend, Riemann, D'Indy, Lorenz, Deliège, Gut), based after Riemann on the transcendent principle that there are only three functions, tonic, subdominant, and dominant (I, IV, and V);
• the second degree (II) of a-minor (B) (Piston 1941, Goldman 1965), as a french sixth (F-A-B-D♯), based on the transcendent principle of closeness on the circle of fifths with IV being farther than II, or
• as a secondary dominant (V/V=B, five of five, A=I, V=E), and thus also with a root on B (Ergo 1921, Kurth 1920, Distler 1940), favoring the fifth motion B to E and seeing the chord as a seventh chord with lowered fifth (B-D♯(D♮)-F♯-A).

D'Indy (1903, p. 117), who analyses the chord as on IV after Riemann's transcendent principle (as phrased by Serge Gut: "the most classic succession in the world: Tonic, Subdominant, Dominant" (1981, p.150)) and rejects the idea of an added "lowered seventh", eliminates, "all artificial, dissonant notes, arising solely from the melodic motion of the voices, and therefore foreign to the chord," finding that the Tristan chord is "no more than a subdominant in the key of A, collapsed in upon itself melodically, the harmonic progression represented thus:

This is the simplest in the world," just a sophisticated sixth chord. An augmented sixth chord is a chord which has the interval of an augmented sixth between its highest and lowest notes and also a major third above the lowest note. ... A transcendent principle. ... An augmented sixth chord is a chord which has the interval of an augmented sixth between its highest and lowest notes and also a major third above the lowest note. ... In music theory, the circle of fifths (or cycle of fifths) is a geometrical space that depicts relationships among the 12 equal-tempered pitch classes comprising the familiar chromatic scale. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (863x170, 5 KB)DIndy Tristan chord as IV6-V Created by Hyacinth using Sibelius and Paint. ...

Deliège, independently, sees the G♯ as an appoggiatura to A, describing that In music, ornaments are musical flourishes that are not necessary to the overall melodic (or harmonic) line, but serve to decorate or ornament that line. ...

"in the end only one resolution is acceptable, one that takes the subdominant degree as the root of the chord, which gives us, as far as tonal logic is concerned, the most plausible interpretation ... this interpretation of the chord is confirmed by its subsequent appearances in the Prelude's first period: the IV⁶ chord remains constant; notes foreign to that chord vary."
—(1979, p.23)

Nonfunctional analyses

Nonfunctional analyses are based on structure (rather than function), and are characterized as vertical characterizations or linear analyses. Vertical characterizations include interpreting the chord's root as on the

• seventh degree (VII) (Ward 1970, Sadai 1980), of f♯-minor (E♯) (Kistler 1879, Jadassohn 1899)

Linear analyses include that of Noske (1981: 116-17) and Schenker was the first to analyse the motif entirely through melodic concerns. Schenker and later Mitchell compare the Tristan chord to a dissonant contrapuntal gesture from the E minor fugue of The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I (cf. Schenker 1925-1930 II: 29).

William Mitchell, from a Schenkerian perspective, does not see the G♯ as an appoggiatura because the melodic line (oboe: G♯-A-A♯-B) ascends to B, making the A a passing note. This ascent by minor third is mirrored by the descending line (cello: F-E-D♯, English horn: D), a descent by minor third, making the D♯, like A♯, an appoggiatura. This makes the chord a diminished seventh (G♯-B-D-F). The violoncello, almost always abbreviated to cello, or cello (the c is pronounced as the ch in cheese), is a bowed stringed instrument, the lowest-sounding member of the violin family. ... Cor anglais The cor anglais or English horn is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. ...

Serge Gut (1981, p.150), argues that, "if one focuses essentially on melodic motion, one sees how its dynamic force creates a sense of an appoggiatura each time, that is, at the beginning of each measure, creating a mood both feverish and tense ... thus in the soprano motif, the G♯ and the A♯ are heard as appoggiaturas, as the F and D♯ in the initial motif." The chord is thus a minor chord with added sixth (D-F-A-B) on the fourth degree (IV), though it is engendered by melodic waves.

Allen Forte, who (1988, p.328) identifies the chord as an atonal set, 4-27 (half-diminished seventh chord) but then "elect[s] to place that consideration in a secondary, even tertiary position compared to the most dynamic aspect of the opening music, which is clearly the large-scale ascending motion that develops in the upper voice, in its entirety a linear projection of the Tristan Chord transposed to level three, g♯'-b'-d"-f♯"."

Schoenberg (1911, p.284) describes it as a "wandering chord [vagierender Akkord]... it can come from anywhere."

Wagner's opinion

After summarizing the above analyses Nattiez indicates that the context of the Tristan chord is A minor, and that analyses which say the key is E or E♭ are "wrong". He privileges analyses of the chord as on the second degree (II). He then supplies a Wagner approved analysis, that of Czech professor K. Mayrberger (1878), who "places the chord on the second degree, and interprets the G♯ as an appoggiatura. But above all, Mayrberger considers the attraction between the E and the real bass F to be paramount, and calls the Tristan chord a Zwitterakkord (a bisexual or androgynous chord), whose F is controlled by the key of A minor, and D♯ by the key of E minor." According to Hans von Wolzogen, Wagner, "with considerable delight believed he had found in this heretofore unknown man from faraway Hungary the theorist he had long been waiting for."

Responses and influences

The chord and the figure surrounding it is well enough known to have been parodied and quoted by a number of later musicians. Debussy parodies it in "Golliwog's Cakewalk", the last movement of his solo piano suite Children's Corner. Berg also quotes it in his Lyric Suite for string quartet, deriving the figure from his twelve-tone compositional material. More recently, American composer and humorist Peter Schickele crafted a tango around this same figure, a chamber work for four bassoons entitled Last Tango in Bayreuth. It is also used by Paul Lansky in his piece "Mild und Leise," which was later sampled by Radiohead for their song "Idioteque" off their Kid A album. In contemporary usage, parody is a form of satire that imitates another work of art in order to ridicule it. ... Claude Debussy Claude Achille Debussy (August 22, 1862 – March 25, 1918), composer of impressionistic classical music. ... Childrens Corner is a suite for solo piano by Claude Debussy, completed in 1908. ... Portrait of Alban Berg by Arnold Schoenberg, c. ... Lyric Suite is a string quartet written by Alban Berg from 1925 to 1926 and (publicly) dedicated to Alexander von Zemlinsky . ... Serialism is a rubric applied to diverse systems of composing music in which various elements of a piece are ordered according to a pre-determined set or sets of musical pitches (sometimes called rows), and variations on them. ... Peter Schickele (born Johann Peter Schickele, July 17, 1935) is an American composer, musical educator and parodist, perhaps best known for his comedy music albums featuring music he wrote as P. D. Q. Bach. ... A Fox Products bassoon. ... Paul Lansky (born 1944) is widely considered one of the original electronic music or computer music composers, and has been producing works from the 1970s up to the present day (see discography, below). ... Mild und Leise, which means fair and gentle in German, is the name of an 18-minute synthesised composition by Paul Lansky, made in 1973 on the IBM 360 mainframe. ... Radiohead are an English rock band from Oxfordshire, initially formed by school friends in 1985. ... Idioteque is the eighth track on Radioheads album Kid A (2000). ... Kid A is the fourth studio album by the English band Radiohead, released on October 2, 2000 in the United Kingdom and on October 3 in North America. ...

See also

• Synthetic chord

Composer and theosophist Alexander Scriabins so called mystic chord, actually called the synthetic chord by Scriabin, consists of the pitch classes: C, F#, Bb, E, A, D. An augmented fourth, diminished fourth, augmented fourth, and two perfect fourths. ...

Sources

• Chailley, J. (1963). Tristan et Isolde de Richard Wagner. Paris: Centre de documentation universitaire. Discussed Diény (1965) and Serge Gut (1981: 149). Cited in Nattiez (1990).
• Erickson, Robert (1975). Sound Structure in Music. Oakland, California: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-02376-5. 
• Nattiez, Jean-Jacques [1987] (1990). Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music (Musicologie générale et sémiologue), Translated by Carolyn Abbate (1990), Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-02714-5. 
• Vogel (1962). Cited in Nattiez (1990).

Jean-Jacques Nattiez is a musical semiologist or semiotician and professor of Musicology at the University of Montreal. ...

Further reading

• Magee, Bryan (2000). The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy.
• Vogel, Martin (1962). Der Tristan-Akkord und die Krise der modernen Harmonielehre. Titled in response to:
• Kurth, Ernest (1920). Romantische Harmonik und ihre Krise in Wagners "Tristan".
• Nattiez, Jean-Jacques (1990). Wagner androgyne. Contains discussion of the Tristan chord as "androgynous".
• Bailey, Robert (1986). Prelude and Transfiguration from Tristan and Isolde (Norton Critical Scores). Contains complete orchestral score, together with extensive discussion of the Prelude (especially the chord), Wagner's sketches, and leading essays by various analysts.