Posted on 06/10/2015 9:55:46 AM PDT by Borges
If you’re a music lover, you may have heard of the so-called “Tristan chord” from Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde. Audiences were stunned to hear this infamous harmony when the opera premiered on June 10, 1865 in Munich, Germany. As Tristan turns 150, let’s take a look at what makes the Tristan chord so unique.
The “Vorspiel,” or Prelude, to Tristan begins with with a “dissonant” chord. The terms “consonance” and “dissonance,” “music” and “noise” are largely subjective. Now, in an era where our ears can enjoy everything from Chopin to Chick Corea, what our modern ears hear as “consonant” or musical may have been considered radically dissonant to the ears of people generals past. To hear the chord, click here.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wfmt.com ...
The beginning of the end of tonal music.
Wagner’s orchestral works are gorgeous and sublime.
When the guys and gals start singing though — not so much.
Ping
“Wagner’s music: It’s not as bad as it sounds.”
Ping
You must dislike virtually all music after Wagner since it was either influenced or imitative of him. Tchaikovsky, Debussy...
I get a pretentious drama..”vibe’ “from” “the chord”.
Is that A flat, flat 5th, flat 7th?
Sounds awesome on a Roland Integra 7 with a detuned Supersaw ;)
The Tristan Chord by Robert Ludlum. Coming out on paperback.
Say it in an ominous voice and it sounds real.
“The Tristan Chord by Robert Ludlum”
Sounds VERY cool.
It could be about what came after the Rat Line....
I particularly like the opening movement to Mozart's Quartet No. 19 in C Major (Dissonanzen Quartett). Very soothing even though it is in dissonance.
To our modern ears, it’s nothing more complex than a half diminished chord, Fm7flat5. But that jazz sound didn’t “exist” back then, so it cannot be dismissed so casually. Even “today” it is not very common to start a tune with that kind of chord. Reminiscent of Thelonius Monk “Round Midnight”.
Opera or all Classical singing? Say Schubert songs...
Not quite. Tonality lived on in popular music. The problem is that high classical music at the end of the 19th century had become so heavily saturated with chromaticism that it had almost nowhere to go but away from tonality. Serialism and atonality were arguably an ugly but almost next step. Fortunately audiences (and eventually composers) realized that entirely atonal music was simply not sustainable. This is why you hear more concerts with music of Britten and Shostakovich rather than Boulez and Schoenberg.
No...just opera. I can appreciate the power of the voices and the talent it takes...but it’s lost on me. And I love all kinds of music. Except opera...when the singing starts.
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