The Shepherd's Melody from the Prelude to the Solo

Beginning and Ending in Tristan

As Michel Imberty reminded us in the previous chapter, the Tristan Prelude is not tonally closed: “The harmonic structure of the Prelude and the principal motives that comprise it are in a state of perceptual incompleteness. Infinite melody, continuing tonal instability, a future without end …” At the conclusion of the Prelude, the return of its opening material (m. 100) first leads to the unresolved 2 B from measure 3 (m. 103), then to the 4 D from measure 7 (m. 106). This partial reprise all occurs over a secondary dominant of C minor that is prolonged from measures 100–111, connecting the Prelude to the beginning of act I, scene 1. Imberty comments: “In this respect, the English horn alte Weise gives us yet another example of infinite melody: it does not want to end.” Indeed, both my linear analyses (chapter 1) and my sketch studies (chapter 8) of the solo demonstrated that it is a model example of infinite melody.

However, there is a problem with Imberty's hypothesis: while the alte Weise perhaps does not ever wish to end, the solo as a unit does end. While we might view it as a neverending quest towards a deferred tonic resolution, this resolution decisively occurs in measure 42. As a result, the English-horn solo, unlike the Prelude, is tonally closed. Imberty correctly states that passages of diatonic harmony are almost completely absent from the Tristan score. However, the solo is an exception: it clearly begins in F minor, and in spite of its many chromatic fluctuations, unambiguously remains and concludes there, as described in all of part I's neutral-level analyses. Linear analysis demonstrated that it resolves every moment of incomplete closure along its path, including the dominant C in measure 21, the G in measures 9, 26–30, and 35; and the G♭ in measures 8–9 and 30–34.

Tristan und Isolde ends with an apotheosis in the affirmative key of B major, recalling the initial motive's resting point in measure 3 of the Prelude. It might be useful to consider the meaning of the opera's conclusion, which Wagner himself referred to as redemptive, from a hermeneutic perspective (see the end of chapter 11).