Dramatic Recapitulation in Wagner's "Götterdämmerung" Author(s): William Kinderman Source: 19th-Century Music, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Autumn, 1980), pp. 101-112 Published by: University of California Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/746708 Accessed: 07-11-2017 23:09 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to 19th-Century Music This content downloaded from 70.103.220.4 on Tue, 07 Nov 2017 23:09:59 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Dramatic Recapitulation in Wagner's Gotterdammerung WILLIAM KINDERMAN In his essay, "A Note on Opera," Donald dinary Fran- importance. In Tristan, and in the Ring, cis Tovey wrote that "a far more important Wagner as- achieved a musical articulation of the pect of Wagner's musical organization cruxthan anyof the drama not by means of the leit- details of leitmotiv is the matter of recapitula- motiv or thematic recall, but by massive musi- tion."' Nowhere in Tovey's writings cal did recapitulation. he explore in detail the implications of this Thestrik- best-known example of large-scale re- ing observation, which so flatly contradicts capitulation in Wagner's works is Isolde's con- much of traditional Wagner scholarship. cluding In "Liebestod" in Tristan, and its drama- fact, recapitulation is a conspicuous featuretic point in has been discussed by Joseph Kerman many of Wagner's works: the Chorus in his of book Pil- Opera as Drama.2 But an even grims in Tannhduser, the Prize Song larger in musicalDie recapitulation takes place in the Meistersinger, and the bells of the Templelast act of of GOtterddmmerung, in the passages the Holy Grail in Parsifal are some of thatthe preparemost and depict Siegfried's moments of familiar examples. And, as Tovey did point revelation out before his death. This recapitulation on several occasions, there are two instances has received in very little critical attention. Wagner where recapitulation assumes Lorenz extraor- overlooked it completely, and, in his zeal to classify its form according to recurring 1"A Note on Opera," in The Main Stream of Music and motives, obscured its correspondence with the Other Essays (New York, 1949), p. 359. Tovey also made last act of Siegfried. Consequently, Lorenz re- this point in several other essays, but never more clearly garded precisely this section as "unusually than here. 0148-2076/80/030101 + 12$00.50 O 1980 by The Regents of the University of California. 20pera as Drama (New York, 1956), p. 212. 101 This content downloaded from 70.103.220.4 on Tue, 07 Nov 2017 23:09:59 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 19TH sehr zuriickhaltend Sehr langsam CENTURY MUSIC winds -ob.,cl. p d vn hn.F s hfp trb. bIF s"- crescsli I M ' str._?,W., N g tuba.- fl.IE.h. +ob. cl. 8 S--vn. 2 pit)p rall. 8-- --hap .brass ,I PP vn. 1 harps harps Example 1 free" in its formal aspect.3 Actually, this sec- such a pairing of tonalities, in this case E tion represents a powerful formal gesture on and C. The moment of maximum musical ten- the level of the entire cycle, perfectly calcu- sion in the scene is the moment at which C lated to express the pathos of Siegfried's tragic major is affirmed, having developed out of a death. tonal context in E. And, as we might expect, When Wagner returned to work on Siegfried this moment of maximum musical tension in 1869, after a twelve-year interruption dur- coincides exactly with the moment of ing which he had completed Tristan und Isolde maximum dramatic tension: Brtinnhilde's and Die Meistersinger, he brought with him a awakening by Siegfried. Brtinnhilde is at more complex musical language and a greater first speechless with wonder, and the chords in control over large-scale tonal relationships. In the orchestra, due to their modulation and the particular, he had developed the technique of remarkable preparation for it throughout the pairing two tonalities and using the tension third act, articulate the feeling of a new, thus created for dramatic effect.4 This practice, heightened range of consciousness. which is a pervasive feature of Wagner's musi- The extraordinary character of this climax cal organization in the works beginning with is achieved by something like a miracle in Tristan, can best be illustrated by precisely harmonic progression: the strongly-prepared that music in the Ring that forms the core of dominant-tonic cadence in E is subsumed the great recapitulation in Gdtterddmmerung. within an even stronger chromatic resolution The music for Siegfried's awakening of Bruinn- to C. Despite the four measures of dominant hilde in Act III, scene 3 of Siegfried is based on preparation for the E-minor triad that opens the 3Das Geheimnis der Form bei Richard Wagner, undvol. Isolde I and the Study of Wagner's Sketches and Drafts (Berlin, 1924), p. 202. for the First Act (Princeton, 1969). 4For the concept of "tonal pairing" in Wagner's music OfI am course, if any analysis of tonal relations in Wagner is indebted to Professor Robert Bailey. A tonal pairing to entails prove aesthetically sound, it is important not to regard the juxtaposition of two key areas which together comprise tonalities as abstract entities apart from the music, a the tonal center for an extensive musical unit. Such dual danger to which Graham George succumbed in his treat- tonal relationships are common in Wagner's late works: ment of "interlocking tonality" in "The Structure of thus, the first act of Tristan contains a tonal pairing of A Dramatic Music 1607-1909," Musical Quarterly 52 (1966), and C, the second act of Gotterddmmerung of Bb and C, 465-82. The value of the idea of tonal pairing consists in and the first act of Parsifal of Ab and C. For a discussion of its utility as a means of describing events in a musical lan- this tonal relationship in the first act of Tristan see Bailey's guage in which the process of modulation itself-in unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The Genesis of Tristan Wagner's own words, "die Kunst des Oberganges"- occupies a central position. 102 This content downloaded from 70.103.220.4 on Tue, 07 Nov 2017 23:09:59 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Zuruickhaltend Massig WILLIAM SIEGFRIED KINDERMAN Dramatic Recapitulation in Gdtterddmmerung vn. bsn. I str- hn., timp. etc. hat ihn das Furch - ten ge - lehrt! str. pizz. va (4 4- Example 2 3 Sehr langsam section, its highest tone, asB, Siegfried is calls upon Brfinnhilde to awaken, heard as leading tone to C, and the triad mustthirty-five measures before the climax, the full resolve to the following C-major chord. Wagner chromatic ascent is accomplished in the or- reinforces this effect by his orchestration, chestra giv- in smaller note values. The high B, ing the E-minor triad to the horns, oboes, andharmonized here as the dominant-seventh clarinets in a confined register, and the follow- chord of E, is nevertheless followed by a ing C-major triad to the brass instruments, C-major sonority. At Bruinnhilde's actual awa- flutes, and English horn in a setting that kening, en- the E-minor triad is simply interpo- compasses a tonal space of five octaves (ex. lated 1). between the E dominant-seventh and This climax is not an isolated and unpre- C-major chords. The effect is thereby created of pared event. Seeds for it have been sown the falling away of one perspective, and the throughout the last scene. The crucial har- simultaneous opening out of a new one. With monic progression, E to C, along with the this cadence, E, the central tonality of the ascending violin line from Briinnhilde's scene up to this point, is superseded by C. awakening, are first heard in the orchestral in- It will be seen that the pairing of the to- troduction when Siegfried appears on the nalities E and C in this scene is most clearly mountain height. The first vertical sonority to reflected in the music at its moments of be sounded against this rising, unaccompanied greatest dramatic intensity. When Siegfried ap- melody in E major is a C-minor triad.5 Mo- pears on the mountain height at the beginning ments later, as Siegfried discovers Briinn- of the scene, the tonality of E is affirmed, and hilde's steed, and as he loosens her breast- the rising melody to high B and C occurs for the plate, this material, and its accompanying first time in the unaccompanied violins. And harmonic shift toward C, are repeated.6 Finally, when Siegfried overcomes his fear of Brfinn- hilde, 130-odd measures later, he sings a complete cadence in E accompanied by a recall sSchirmer Vocal Score, p. 285, system 4. of this violin line from the orchestral introduc- 6At S. V. S., p. 286, it reaches high E, descends three oc- taves of unison Es, and then shifts toward C major, as an tion7 (ex. 2). Until this point, E has been the E-minor triad is connected directly with a C-major chord; at S.