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when we hear the D major triad at the downbeat of m. 1483, we are conditioned
to respond by imagining it embedded into a scale in which that triad serves as
tonic. (This assumption is entirely reasonable, given the D major cadence
initiated at m. 1481.) In any major or minor scale, semitonal voice-leading in contrary motion always connects a consonant interval with a dissonant one.
Accordingly, when D moves down by semitone at the same time that A moves
up by semitone, Lorenz supposes that we are conditioned to hear the ensuing
pitches as engaged in a dissonance, even though the same two pitch classes
would constitute a consonance in some other enharmonic context; he assumes,
moreover, that this is so even though the third voice, E, would also be consonant
with those two pitches if they were perceived to be consonant with each other.
Lorenzs analysis does not end here, though. Under the appropriate circumstances, he observes, the putative A minor triad has the potential to act in the way
that its notation suggests. If the minor triad is held for awhile, it becomes
covered over by the appearance of a consonant triad. The psychological effect of
this procedure is magical, for while lingering on the notes that are initially understood as dissonant, the chord cleanses itself, without any motion, into the most
radiant beauty.4 In some cases, the self-cleansing process is enhanced by composerly intervention. Consider the progression from G major to E minor at measure
1481 (also Ex. 2). The second chord is initially heard in terms of an E /F dissonance. But in the following measure, an F passing tone splits the E /F dyad,
suggesting its components are related by leap rather than step, and hence constitute an E /G minor third, a suggestion confirmed by the subsequent D major
cadence. Lorenz writes that from G major follows the dissonance fF , A , E g,
sounding as E minor, which then . . . leads to D major as a ii chord.5
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The process works in the other direction as well. With self-purification comes
the possibility for self-defilement. The reverse also may arise: through progression toward an unfamiliar chord, an originally pure triad can be transformed
into a structure whose consonance is merely apparent, hence dissonant.6 Lorenz
does not provide an example, but we have one close at hand. Once we understand
the E minor chord at 1482 as diatonic to D major, we no longer have a secure
understanding of the G major chord that preceded it. From the standpoint of the
D cadence, the G major chord is now retroaudited as fA , C , Dg, an aggregation of the E minor chords chromatic neighbors.
So the dissonant can turn out to be consonant and vice versa. The music-theoretic
tradition in which Lorenz participates encourages us to adopt a metaphysical
interpretation. For early-century German theorists, consonance is affiliated with truth,
reality, and life; dissonance with falsehood, appearance, and death. In this context, we
can say that the minor triad is initially perceived as false and imaginary; once it
begins to function as a supertonic, it behaves as if it were true and real. Reciprocally,
the major triad is initially perceived as alive, but we come to understand it as dead.
The progression effaces the border between reality and appearance, between death
and life. And it is exactly such effacements that are the mark of the uncanny, as it was
theorized in contemporaneous psychoanalytic writings.7
Parsifal is an unheimlich tale. With the exception of Parsifal and the urheimlich
Gurnemanz, every named character in the drama straddles or manipulates the
boundary between life and death. Amfortas teeters on the brink of death; only his
office keeps him alive. Ancient Titurel inhabits a tomb; he lives only to watch
Amfortas perform his office. Kundry is older yet; only a curse keeps her from
death. Wagner imagines her death as the de-souling (Entseelung) of a zombie
(gazing up at Parsifal, Kundry sinks slowly to the ground, her soul removed).
And Klingsor conjures botanical abundance from a desert wasteland: from death
springs life.
The story of Parsifal is as much about objects and symbols as it is about characters singing on the stage, and these symbols too have unheimlich histories and
powers. The Grail contains the holy blood of the savior. After a thousand years,
the blood maintains its capacity to nourish the Monsalvat brethren. This capacity
is activated by the Communion service, when the opening of the Grail transforms
its ancient contents into the fiery blood of life. As the blood performs its nourishing work, Amfortass agony is intensified beyond his ability to bear it. This is the
central problem for which the opera provides a solution.
From this uncanny gnarl, four distinct components can be extracted: the holy
blood of the savior; its repository, the grail; the Communion service, in which the
animating and agonizing potentials of the blood are released; and the pain of
Amfortas, who suffers the bloods agonizing power at the moment of
Communion. Hexatonic poles play a vital role in the setting of each of these
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The Grail theme is brief, tightly knit, and metrically stable. It appears many
times in the opera, usually snapped into the same metric grid, so that when
deformations are introduced one can easily trace them to their source. The initial
diatonic presentation, provided in Example 3, begins with three harmonic progressions by descending third. Following David Lewins adaptation of Riemanns
symbols, we label diatonic progressions that feature root-motion by minor third
as R (for relative), and by major third as L (for Leittonwechsel [leading-tone
exchange]). Thus the succession consists of an initial R, an L, and a final R that
triggers the concluding Dresden Amen.
The instrument that deforms the Grail is an operation that we will call H, which
takes a triad to its hexatonic pole. At various points in the opera, Wagner substitutes
H for one or more of the diatonic operationsinitial R, L, and final R. We can
understand mm. 148384 from Example 2 as the product of two H-substitutions:
first for the initial R, taking D major to A minor rather than B minor; then for L,
taking A minor to D major rather than to F major. Accordingly, the transformational sequence of the diatonic Grail, R, L, R, is converted to a new transformational sequence: H, H, R. This same music recurs when Kundry dies, and as
such it contains the final chromatic event of the entire music drama.
The deformation that we have been discussing is one node in a system of
Grail deformations which, in the aggregate, come close to exhausting the combinatorial potential of H-substitutions for the three operations of the diatonic Grail.
Given three occurent operations, R, L, R, there are seven possible transformations
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by substitution: H can substitute singly for each operation, doubly for each pair
of operations, and comprehensively for all three operations at once. Wagner uses
five of these seven possibilities, avoiding only two that substitute H for L without
also substituting H for initial R. A catalogue of the remaining substitutions
follows:
(H, L, R) At the moment when Parsifal recognizes Gurnemanz in act 3, a
version of the Grail theme substitutes a hexatonic pole for the initial R. See
act 3: mm. 275 77. The same music occurs, transposed up a semitone, when
Parsifal heals Amfortass wound, a particularly climactic moment in the
action of the opera. Act 3: mm. 102931.
(H, L, H) In the act 3 orchestral music that accompanies the uncovering and
shimmering of the Grail, a version of the Grail theme substitutes a hexatonic
pole both for the initial R and for the final R.10 Act 3: mm. 10981100.
(H, H, H) When Parsifal envisions the Grail in act 2, a version of the Grail
theme substitutes a hexatonic pole for each of the three diatonic thirds that
precedes the Dresden amen. Act 2: mm. 105052.
The network of grail substitutions is collated in Figure 1. Versions of the Grail
theme are adjacent on the graph if they are identical except for a single hexatonicpolar substitution.
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to A major. As we aurally follow the incipit, from C up to A , we have no indication that we are not going to hear my hypothetical A major version, and hence
no reason to hear its incipit in C minor.12
Although the interpretation that I am suggesting is immediately overturned as
soon as the harmonized version of the theme begins at m. 28, it is explicitly confirmed in the act 1 Communion service when the two Liebesmahl themes are presented intact, as a complete pair, for the only time in the opera proper (mm.
145960). Here the A timpani roll that accompanies the cadence of the antecedent phrase is sustained through the opening of the consequent at the singing of
Nehmet hin mein Blut, against which the E minor setting of Nehmet hin
meinen Leib is a hexatonic pole. It is with these two settings of the Liebesmahl
that Wagner began to compose the opera. In the initial sketch, reproduced as
Example 5 in William Kindermans diplomatic transcription, the diatonic and
chromatic statements, accompanied by a bass line, are elided without pause.13
Cosima related in her diary that Richard considered this sketch to represent the
seed of the whole. The phrase pair is in A until the E minor of the second
Schmerzensfigur. C minor is not summoned as a potential tonal center until the
cadence of the consequent phrase. Even here that center remains unrealized
through a deceptive cadence that plausibly (if weakly) marks a return to the
opening tonic. The A major!E minor hexatonic pole in the second, chromatically deformed version of the Liebesmahl, then, is generative from the standpoint
of the composer as well as the listener.
The hexatonic deformation of the Communion theme does not participate in
the same sort of extended transformational network as the analogous deformation of the Grail theme. Unlike its compact, metrically square counterpart, the
Liebesmahl is long-winded, loosely knit, and metrically floating. Consequently, it
is rarely brought back as an entire unit. Wagner mostly treats it as a library of
modular components that can be individually extracted for use. The network in
which the chromatically deformed Communion theme participates is only
abstractly musical, operating at the level of harmonic progression rather than the
surface gesture of the Grail deformations. A more salient network consists of the
semantic or hermeneutic referents with which the hexatonic deformation of the
Liebesmahl is associated: the pain of Amfortas, referenced at the moment of
chromatic deformation (the Schmerzensfigur), and the holy blood of the savior,
referenced by the textual incipit of the chromatic version of the Liebesmahl when
it is sung in the act 1 Communion service: Nehmet hin mein Blut. These are
treated separately in the two sections that follow.
Several considerations complicate this last point. In the incipit of the antecedent phrase, the chorus sings of taking the body; at the Schmerzensfigur it sings
of the blood. In the consequent phrase, these assignments are exactly reversed.
One consequence is that the hexatonic version is (appropriately) associated with
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the blood to the extent that the incipit metonymically represents the entire
phrase. But another consequence is that the hexatonic Schmerzensfigur makes
reference (inappropriately) to the body rather than the blood. In this connection,
it is of considerable interest that in Wagners initial sketch (Ex. 5) all of these
textual assignments are reversed. Here, it is the diatonic incipit that cites the
blood and the chromatic one that (inappropriately) cites the body with the result
that the blood is (appropriately) mentioned at the hexatonic Schmerzensfigur.
Wagners commitment to a chiastic text, it seems, was incompatible with the
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desideratum of making the textual references bloodier as the music drove more
deeply into the hexatonic thicket.
Example 6 presents the setting of the first textual reference to the pain of
Amfortas, just after the recently roused knights await his initial entrance. At the
inception of the text (The pain soon returned, but more intensely), a V42 in D
minor over a tonic pedal is displaced by a ii7 in C minor. Although both chords
are dissonant, each embeds a unique consonant triad as a subset. The two triads
are hexatonic poles, A major to F minor, whose three semitonal displacements
are emphasized by the voice leading and the triads registral placement in the
octave above middle C. Such embeddings are characteristic of hexatonic poles
when they are used to portray either the pain of Amfortas, the holy blood, or
several other phenomena that I shall discuss at the end of this essay. In all such
cases, the consonant triad is uniquely embedded into the dissonant chord, so that
one is never in conflict about which triad is being represented.14 The particular
progression, from the V7 of a minor tonic to the ii7 of a minor tonic a whole
step below, is developed in the music of the Heilandsklage, which depicts
Amfortas at the height of his suffering.15
The next textual reference to Amfortass pain occurs at mm. 24950, just
before his initial entrance, when Gurnemanz laments seines Siechtums Knecht
[his enslavement to his disease]. The E minor triad that sets Siechtums is the
hexatonic pole of the A major triad sounded at the downbeat of the previous
measure, forming an untransposed version of the initial Liebesmahl transformation. The same progression recurs at the same transposition when Gurnemanz
tells of Amfortass wounding (eine Wunde brannt ihm in der Seite, m. 541),
and then again a semitone lower when Kundry elliptically notes Parsifals
empathy for the pain of Amfortas (andrer Schmerzen, act 2: m. 1131).
The suffering of Amfortas dominates the act 1 Communion, and through
much of this scene, hexatonic poles run amok. Amfortas is carted out on an A
minor triad after five and a half very slow measures of C major bell music (beginning at m. 1203). After the knights sing the hexatonically saturated music of the
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that transiently sounds at the downbeat of m. 1370. Such discharges are signaled
by the upward resolution of a leading tone, bringing relief from the relentless
downward pressure of the Wehelaute thirds. With the exception of the E minor
cadence at m. 1372, marking the halfway point of the passage, this relief is fleeting. The Wehelaute thirds immediately regenerate, undermining the normative
tonic and reconstituting the progression of seventh chords, and with them, the
polar triadic pairings.
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the contents of the Grail (act 1: m. 593). On the cross his holy blood also flowed
prolongs an A major triad that, at the discharge of the Schmerzensfigur at m. 594,
is joined by a sub-posed bass F, anticipating the D7 chord that arises at the
culmination of the figure at the downbeat of m. 595. A major to F minor is
the same hexatonic pole embedded at Example 5, the first reference to Amfortass
pain.
The same music recurs twice in act 3: transposed up a minor third when
Gurnemanz tells Parsifal to disarm because it is the day when the Lord shed his
blood (m. 223), and at the initial transposition when Amfortas pleads to drown in
the holy blood (m. 966). These constitute two of the three references to the holy
blood in the final act. The final reference occurs after Amfortass wound has
been healed, when Parsifal sings of ihm seh ich heilges Blut entflieen in
Sehnsucht nach dem verwandten Quelle [holy blood flowing out of the spear,
yearning for the kindred source]. This instance, appropriately, lacks a
Schmerzensfigur. It also lacks the characteristic dissonances of the earlier references: it is presented as the triadic progression of B major to G minor (act 3:
m. 1077). This music also bears the Wehelaute thirds that signal, for one final
time, the Heilandsklage music associated with the pain of Amfortas. This time,
however, the Wehelaute thirds gain some traction on their slippery slope, and are
reconciled to the diatonic framework of D minor at the moment that the blood is
restored to the Grail.
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Kundrys death. Kundrys encounter with Parsifal in act 2 begins when she twice
calls his name, arpeggiating C minor (act 2: m. 739), and then E major (m. 751).
Hexatonic poles sound when Kundry sings of having awaited Parsifal for eternity
(act 2: mm. 115153); throughout the scene when she recounts her mockery of the
savior on the cross (act 2: mm. 117797); when she refers to Parsifal as her savior
(act 2: mm. 1383 85, D minor to G major); and at the moment of her seductions last gasp (act 2: mm. 143439). Kundrys final coherent utterance in the
opera occurs at the end of act 2, when she condemns Parsifal to eternal wandering: Irre, she first commands over a D minor triad, and then over G major,
echoing her double iteration of Parsifals name at the start of their encounter (act
2: mm. 147678). Ten measures later, Klingsor sings his own exit line. Den
Thoren stelle mir seines Meisters Speer [The fool falls to me by his masters
spear] prolongs B minor until the spear throw, which is punctuated by a magnificently efflorescent D major (act 2: mm. 149093). Some of these stage events are
uncanny on their own terms, but only in the weak sense of implicating magic,
not in the stronger Freudian sense of effacing boundaries. Nor can they be easily
affiliated with the network of phenonema that surrounds the Grail, the blood and
so forth, without seriously diluting that networks tight focus.
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magically achieved order via modulation from a minor key to its major hexatonic
pole: the B minor that opens act 3 proceeds to the D major of the Good Friday
meadows (beginning at m. 676) that precedes the transformation, while the E
minor that opens the transformationand closes the knights chorus that follows
ffnet den Schrein (m. 1088) and the final
itproceeds to the A major of O
orchestral music. The hexatonic pole that frames the pre-transformation music is
pitch-class complementary to the one that frames the final scene. Together, the
four framing tonic triads of act 3 saturate the pitch-class aggregate, and retrograde
the local harmonic progression that accompanies the shining of the Grail (act 1:
mm. 148183, c.f. Example 2), Parsifals Grail Vision (act 2: mm. 105052), the
failure of Kundrys seduction (act 2: mm. 143437), and Gurnemanzs Good
Friday admonition (act 3: mm. 208 209).
To the extent that one believes such concepts appropriate, then, what is
suggested is that hexatonic poles are at the core of the dramas music, just as the
uncanny blood, its container, the ritual that delivers it, the agony that it inflicts,
and the resolution of that agony are at the core of the music drama.
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notes
no. 3 (1984): pp. 336 49; Lewin, Some Notes
on Analyzing Wagner: The Ring and Parsifal,
19th-Century Music 16, no. 1 (1992): pp. 49 58.
9. One can speculate that the progression has
been overlooked because, like the title character
of the opera, it has lived for decades without
knowing its own name. Karg-Elert called it
Mediantleittonwechsel oder primarer
Kolletivwechsel, but these names were ushered
offstage as quickly as the dualistic theory in
which they were embedded. For an account of
Karg-Elerts hyper-dualist theory of harmony, see
Daniel Harrison, Harmonic Function in Chromatic
Music (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press,
1994), pp. 313 20. Naming and categorizing are
often considered low bureaucratic arts, but the
unnamed are the homeless citizens of
conceptual society; one is inclined to gaze
straight past them.
10. This passage is discussed in David Lewin,
Amfortass Prayer. See also David Clampitt,
Alternative Interpretations of Some Measures
from Parsifal, Journal of Music Theory 42, no. 2
(1998): pp. 321 32; and Fred Lerdahl, Tonal Pitch
Space (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001),
pp. 298 301.
11. See, for example, Lendvai, Workshop, p. 377,
and Lewin, Some Notes, p. 57.
12. William Kindermans claim that the first
two Communion incipits are based on the first
two segments of the prelude to Liszts cantata,
The Bells of Strasbourg, supports my hearing, if
equivocally. In reference to that preludes E
tonic, its second segment connects 3 to 1, the
same tonal hearing that I am claiming for the
second incipit. A virgin listener, though, would
to 4
in B . See
likely hear it as connecting 6
Introduction: The Challenge of Parsifal, in
William Kinderman and Katherine R. Syer, ed.,
A Companion to Wagners Parsifal (Rochester,
NY: Camden House, 2005), pp. 21 22. Thanks
to Steven Rings for pointing this out to me.
13. William Kinderman, Die Enstehung der
Parsifal-Musik, Archiv fur Musikwissenschaft 52,
no. 1 (1995): pp. 96 97; Kinderman, The
Genesis of the Music, in Kinderman and Syer,
Companion, p. 152.
14. Some readers will resist the notion that
D acts as the supplementary dissonance of the
chord at m. 170, rather than its root. Members of
our musical culture have been indoctrinated, if
only implicitly via the standard names for chords,
to believe in root generation by stacked thirds.
But there is another worthy tradition, stemming
from Rameau, which considers non-dominant
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Schubert example is analyzed in David Lewin,
Music Theory, Phenomenology, and Modes of
Perception, in Music Perception 3, no. 4 (1986):
pp. 327 92.
17. Patrick McCreless, Motive and Magic:
A Referential Dyad in Parsifal, Music Analysis 9,
no. 3 (1990): p. 229.
18. This final section owes a debt to Steven
Rings splendid formal response to the
conference presentation of this paper, and to
subsequent private communications between us.
19. Robert Bailey, The Structure of the Ring
and its Evolution, 19th-Century Music 1, no. 1
(1977), pp. 48 61.
20. The following exposition recapitulates
material introduced in Richard Cohn,
Maximally Smooth Cycles, Hexatonic Systems,
and the Analysis of Late-Romantic Triadic
Progressions, Music Analysis, 15, no. 1 (1996):
pp. 9 40.
21. See Warren Darcy, Die Zeit ist da:
Rotational Form and Hexatonic Magic in Act 2,
Scene 1 of Parsifal, in Kinderman and Syer,
Companion.