Parsifal as Domestication Script: Semitones and Seventh Chords, Rejections and Redemptions

Contrary to received opinion, neither in its musical nor in its dramatic language does Parsifal enact a script of expulsion or elimination; rather the script is one of domestication. In this paper I perform close readings of two crucial passages of this drama in defense of that thesis. The first focuses on the central and famously resistant moment of Kundry’s kiss. Parsifal’s reaction to this kiss, which culminates in a rejection of Kundry’s advances, is characterized by his rewriting of the diminished seventh chord associated with Kundry, magic, and evil: in what can be seen as a radical recomposition, Parsifal appropriates the diminished seventh chord as vii˚7/V in G minor and uses it to compose a diatonic tonal cadence. Kundry’s diminished seventh chord, her symmetrizing threat, is thereby neutralized by virtue of its being domesticated within the bounds of tonality. Musical evidence thus informs my dramaturgical claim: a diminished seventh chord simply cannot be purged from this musical fabric; the work could not function without it. Kundry’s symmetrical diminished seventh chord can be subdued, even rewritten by Parsifal, but not eliminated. And similarly with Kundry.

The structure of Parsifal as a whole mirrors the structure of Parsifal’s rejection of Kundry in Act II, and certain features of the naturalization or domestication of Kundry(’s chord) can be taken as clues to the brotherhood’s eventual treatment of the more central, pain- laden semitone: what they learn from Parsifal is how to use potentially dangerous or infectious harmonies or leitmotivs within the bounds of the tonal system, within which they become naturalized. In this case, the falling semitone, which sometimes generates symmetrical, chromatic music and is associated with pain from the first moments of the opera, ultimately gets naturalized within descending diatonic linear progressions, those most perfect signifiers of tonality. Themes associated with the Grail and the communion service show this understanding to have been latent in the brotherhood. The final moments of the opera apotheosize this musico-dramatic behavior: just after Parsifal has healed Amfortas’s painful wound and laid Kundry to rest, the Grail motive is spun out into an enormous descending diatonic line, spanning five entire octaves, from the top of the orchestra’s palette to its very bottom. This is as much a celebration of the triumph of (linear, diatonic) tonality over (transformational, symmetrical) atonality as it is a celebration of the healing of the wound and the restoration of the brotherhood of the Grail. But crucially, it is not a purging of those harmonic elements, but their domestication. The brotherhood of the grail does not expel magic from the communion service, they learn how to use it, to make it their own. They do not purge the semitone associated with pain from their diatonic musical language; they naturalize it within the bounds of tonality and diatonicism.