Influence of Schopenhauer on Tristan und Isolde
Ortrud Jones
Wagner's friend, Georg Herwegh, introduced him in late 1854 to the
work of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.[13] The composer was
immediately struck by the philosophical ideas to be found in "Die Welt
als Wille und Vorstellung" (The World as Will and Representation), and
the similarities between the two men's world-views became clear.
[citation needed]
Man, according to Schopenhauer, is driven by continued, unachievable
desires, and the gulf between our desires and the possibility of
achieving them leads to misery while the world is a representation of
an unknowable reality. Our representation of the world (which is
false) is Phenomenon, while the unknowable reality is Noumenon:
concepts originally ideas posited by Kant. Schopenhauer's influence on
Tristan und Isolde is most evident in the second and third acts. The
second act, in which the lovers meet, and the third act, during which
Tristan longs for release from the passions that torment him, have
often proved puzzling to opera-goers unfamiliar with Schopenhauer's
work. Wagner uses the metaphor of day and night in the second act to
designate the realms inhabited by Tristan and Isolde.[14] The world of
Day is one in which the lovers are bound by the dictates of King
Marke's court and in which the lovers must smother their mutual love
and pretend as if they do not care for each other: it is a realm of
falsehood and unreality. Under the dictates of the realm of Day,
Tristan was forced to remove Isolde from Ireland and to marry her to
his Uncle Marke -- actions against Tristan's secret desires. The realm
of Night, in contrast, is the representation of intrinsic reality, in
which the lovers can be together and their desires can be openly
expressed and reach fulfillment: it is the realm of oneness, truth and
reality and can only be achieved fully upon the deaths of the lovers.
The realm of Night, therefore, becomes also the realm of death: the
only world in which Tristan and Isolde can be as one forever, and it
is this realm that Tristan speaks of at the end of Act Two ("Dem Land
das Tristan meint, der Sonne Licht nicht scheint").[15] In Act Three,
Tristan rages against the daylight and frequently cries out for
release from his desires (Sehnen). In this way, Wagner implicitly
equates the realm of Day with Schopenhauer's concept of Phenomenon and
the realm of Night with Schopenhauer's concept of Noumenon.[16] While
none of this is explicitly stated in the libretto, Tristan's comments
on Day and Night in Acts 2 and 3 make it very clear that this was, in
fact, Wagner's intention.
arb...@hotmail.com
Schopenhauer's thinking is in the final analysis, a mess. He never
questioned the illusory entity at the heart of human perception. Like
all philosophies that take a given false premise as their starting
point, his thinking culminates in an existential dead end. Wagner's
work, will, in my opinion, be eventually forgotten. The monstrous
egotism that pervades them will in time repel a more enlightened
humanity. The cod wisdom they appear to embody will one day be seen
for the risible nonsense it is. Beethoven and Bach will endure till
the crack of doom.
Ben
jszos...@comcast.net
>
> - Show quoted text -
My goodness...what a jolly pair to come across first thing in the
morning. By my way of thinking - Cogito ergo Sum!
Ben, you left out Mozart. Still, there's something about the music
'Parsifal' that is accordingly a Phenomenon which utimately is
Noumenon.
So be it! But my guess is, we'll never really know because we most
likely won't be around at the crack of doom! Unless you mean that
Dark Night to which Wagner refers.
Jon E. Szostak, Sr.
arb...@hotmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
Morning Jon,
Mozart I agree. And Handel. And Sibelius. And others. But not Wagner.
Why not?
Needless to say I'm not speaking ex cathedra, just expressing a
personal feeling.
I suppose that's the key word, " feeling ". There's something
Luciferian about the man
and his music. His fundamnetal orientation is all wrong. No doubt he's
gazed at the sun
but somehow that sublime vision never quite oblitertated a profounder
obsession with
his own image just off to the left.The clinging to himself that
ultimately produced much of
the bombast, is , I think , none other than fear itself.
Best,
Ben
jszos...@comcast.net
Well both history and his on writings/letters have shown Wagner to be
one the largest egos which creation has ever witnessed. Yet for all
the darkness of Wagner the man...there is that divine spark of musical
creation, which he admitted he never knew from whence it came. All
the Schopenhauer's BS notwithstanding.
Here's where my faith comes into play and I hear music which will last
forever as long as there are ears and hearts which can be moved. Veni
Creator Spiritus! Too bad Richard never got to realize that...being
too involved in his own perceived greatness.
Jon E. Szostak, Sr.
Ortrud Jones
Fascinating. That "Schopenhauer BS" is the philosophical core of the
opera that you call "divine spark". Nice logic, moron...faith,
notwithstanding.
-Ortrud Kwiecien-Jones
Derrick Everett
> From Wikipedia:
>
> Wagner's friend, Georg Herwegh, introduced him in late 1854 to the work
> of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.
This introduction happened almost certainly in September 1854, while
Wagner was composing the music of 'Die Walküre'. Over a period of about
20 years Wagner kept a diary, in a little red pocket-book, which he later
transcribed into a notebook given to him by Cosima, 'The Brown Book'. He
referred to these brief diary entries as his 'Annals' and they were of
help to him when he began dictating his autobiography to Cosima. Part of
Wagner's 'Annals' for 1854 reads as follows:
"... August: Act I of 'Valkyrie' composed. Wessendoncks (sic) back from
travels. - Beginning September: Minna on visit to Saxony and Weimar.
(also: Walheim: Röckel). First reading of Schopenhauer's 'The World as
Will and Idea'. 26 September: completed fair copy of Rhinegold score..."
Then in October he noted: "Tristan conceived". (The Brown Book, p.104)
Whilst it is not possible to prove cause and effect, there is firm evidence
here that Wagner began reading Schopenhauer in September and conceived the
idea of 'Tristan und Isolde' about a month later. It is hard to avoid the
conclusion that it was Schopenhauer's ideas, especially his discussion of
music -- as the direct expression of the metaphysical Will, and his idea
that postponed harmonic resolution is "an analogue of the satisfaction of
the Will that is enhanced through delay" -- that provided the initial
inspiration for Wagner's "Handlung". In his autobiography Wagner writes of
a "serious mood created by Schopenhauer" in which he had been inspired
with the conception of 'Tristan' (My Life, p.617). By December 1854 he
was able to write to Liszt: "I have in my head 'Tristan und Isolde', the
simplest but most full blooded musical conception" (Wagner-Liszt vol.2,
page 39).
--
Derrick Everett
jszos...@comcast.net
>
> - Show quoted text -
Ortrud: Well...that's your take on it...as well as that jackass
Lehnhoff who re-wrote Wagner to suite himself...Wagner's instructions
be damned. But why do you feel the need to call me a moron? It was
your original post which caught my interest in this subject. Just
because I think Schopenhauer philosophic views to be BS is no reason
to call me names.
I think it best that I'll not be participating in any further
discussions in which you are involved. Pity...it was a good initial
post.
Jon E. Szostak, Sr.
REG
music, over the last year or so. I will never really be a total fan - I
think because, at least for now, I've come to the conclusion that his
dramaturgy was so deeply flawed that I think it actually impinges on his
musical genius, and that at times he uses his musical talent to try to make
up for the poor dramaturgy, and that 'that' doesn't work either. His need to
'narrate' and his correlative difficulty (not impossibilty, but difficulty)
to make situations inherently are his weaknesses, and to some degree that
limit the music, because ever composer, including Wagner, needs a
dramatically alive libretto to make an engaging opera, and at that Wagner
rarely succeeded on a consistent basis, at least imho. His characters might
(and I say 'might') be more 'complex' than the characters of earlier
composers - certainly, they are often more psuedo-complex, and certainly
mythic - but they often are lack the simple core of drama and emotion which
can make opera and all dramatic art more engaging. I know this is anathema
to people who think that the Wagnerian characters are somehow more 'real'
than opera characters of say, Puccini or Bellini, but that's like saying
that the characters in the paintings of, say, Edouard Munch are more 'real'
than the characters portrayed by Van Eyck. They are perhaps somewhat more
'modern', but that's a different thing.
As to Schopenhauer, the influence on Wagner was large, I think, and in
Schopenhauer's anti-Semitisim and racism Wagner found support for his own.
None of this necesarily impacts my appreciation of much of the music, which
admiration has grown, actually, as I've learned to understand, at least for
myself, why some of the music is more limited (ie the dramaturgy).
<jszos...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:e81505e8-cbaa-454b...@d62g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
REG
and not "to make situations inherently are"
Up too late last night at the T&I, where I thought Heppner was truly great
in the last act, although saving himself a bit earlier, perhaps, and Voigt
was more effective in the third act than at opening - I think they were
really able to urge each other on throughout the evening (even though he's
dead by then). She sounded better in the first two acts than opening in the
house, but I think that is because she was really articificially darkening
and forcing up a bit the chest voice to hide the weakness, and that
certainly is not a good sign.
"REG" <Rich...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:47ee672b$0$30681$4c36...@roadrunner.com...
jszos...@comcast.net
> In the eight line it should say "to make situations inherently dramatic are"
> and not "to make situations inherently are"
>
> Up too late last night at the T&I, where I thought Heppner was truly great
> in the last act, although saving himself a bit earlier, perhaps, and Voigt
> was more effective in the third act than at opening - I think they were
> really able to urge each other on throughout the evening (even though he's
> dead by then). She sounded better in the first two acts than opening in the
> house, but I think that is because she was really articificially darkening
> and forcing up a bit the chest voice to hide the weakness, and that
> certainly is not a good sign.
>
REG: Thanks for you comments on last night's T&I. I only heard the
last half of the last act...and thought both Soprano and Tenor sounded
very, very tired. But then that's the thing about broadcasts...they
rely completely on microphones to transfer the living sound of the
human voice into the ethers. And I've said it many times before...the
mics don't always like the voice...or it really likes the voice. So
reading your comments mean far more than what I heard.
But some of what I heard was a bit of lack of support in the middle
voice of Voigt. I like her a great deal...and thought her 'Salome' at
LOC last year was a triumph. Several years before that I saw her
'Ariadne'...which was superb. Now I'm worried about her 'Isolde' in
LOC's forthcoming season with Forbis as 'Tristan'. Then again...being
ill...especially stomach ailments are horrible to a true singer.
That's what supports all of that tone, volume and the like. I really
wonder if most audiences really appreciate just how difficult it is to
support voice...with such intensity...over the time it takes to sing
an opera. But Wagner and R. Strauss...well...that's even more so.
Perhaps her manner of weight loss in order to accomadate the 'little
black dress' (may it be damned to Hell)...has taken too great a toll
on physical, vocal support mechanism. I still look forward to this
coming Fall...but with some trepidation I fear.
Oh...and I never said...nor disagreed with the huge impact
Schopenhauer had upon Wagner the man...and consequently...the
composer. I merely think his philosophy far too dreary to be taken
seriously. That Wagner did...merely amazes me...and leads to the
inevitable conclusion (for me anyway) that Wagner may not have been
the really hot stuff he believed himself to be. Inflation (read ego)
affects more than a nation's economy or a hot air balloon.
Jon E. Szostak, Sr.
Daniel Kessler
versmilitude and that is an interesting point...but I think many of Wagner's
characters are more composites of many different facets of personalities ...and
in that context, they are not as dramatically real. Is that what you're saying?
REG
they do.
I was focusing less on the specific characters themselves than on Wagner's
lack of real ability to 'dramatise' the situations he wants to present,
rather than to narrate them. To put it overly simply, it is the difference
between an unskilled or untalened writer or playwright putting into the
mouth of a character a speech saying "I am angry and this is why", and a
skilled writer or dramatist showing us the actual interaction between two
characters so that we "know' what both characters are feeling, and why,
without having to have the characters 'explain' to the other (and thus,
really, to the audience) what they are feeling and why. Now, it's not that
Wagner can never do this - Act I of Walkure is a very good example of some
ability to do this, although it remains too much bound to narration - but he
more often falls down into narration that has the characters 'telling us'
instead of 'showing us' in their interaction what they should not have to
tell us.
Every opera libretto has some of this, have no doubt, and we can all think
of moments in every libretto where a character essentially 'tells us' what
is going on, particularly to make up for what would have been primative
staging capacity, but my point is that Wagner really has a weakness in this
area, and it's a weakness which directly impacts on the music and the
'music-drama' (sic). For a man who was interested in creating the Music of
the Future, it is ironic that his inability (and his need to freight his
work with so much 'story' and so much 'philosophy') in many ways creates
long periods of what are essentiall recitative in almost a pre-Metastasian
way (even if the harmonies and the musical sophistication is greater).
"Daniel Kessler" <dkes...@pop.cybernex.net> wrote in message
news:47EF79ED...@pop.cybernex.net...
albert
My goodness, Sibelius? But surely you know he adored Wagner and uses
bits of Parsifal in just about everything he wrote. As he advanced
harmonically (after symph no 3) and took some risks, he evolved his
more 'radical' style by studying Wagner's various once avant-garde
devices such as the delayed resolution, the vague key center and very
importantly the use of sonority (without conventional harmonic
implications) so that is has musical significance.
In any case I have my doubts about Old Sib lasting to the crack of
doom, though who of us will be around to know?
Albert
alanwa...@aol.com
To which you can cheerfully add Rimsky-Korsakov and Debussy among
many, many others.
Wagner's other great influence was his use of the 9th Dominant which,
as Saint-Saens ruefully remarked, led to a whole cluster of composers
using it in the belief that it would turn them into Wagner. He didn't
name names (he rarely did in his delightful and wonderfully witty/
acerbic ramblings) but I'd stick my money on Chabrier: Gwendoline at
least as a starting point!
Kind regards,
Alan M. Watkins