Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning The Tristan chord - LT

Since everyone else seems to have put up an example; here is how the piece sounds LucyTuned as 0b5s and 0b6s.

http://www.lucytune.com/mp3/TrisIsLt0b5s.mp3

I fail to see the big problem with dissonance here for the piece, as written, has a maximum range along the spiral of fourths and fifths from:

F to A# 11 steps

F C G D A E B F# C# G# D# A#
with
C G F# & C# not used
Hence scalecoding is 11/2389/

But I'm not sure what to consider as the tonic.

It might be interesting to substitute an E# for the F which is only used as the second note chronologically, and as the lowest note in the first chord.
(E# - B - D# - G#)
This would reduce the span from 11 to 9 steps, and the scalecoding to:

D A E B F# C# G# D# A# E#
with only F# and C# not used
and hence 9/56/

which suggests that it would sound more consonant.
(It sounds more consonant to me handled this way, although it certainly is not what Wagner wrote or intended)

Here is the result of that change:

http://www.lucytune.com/mp3/TrisIsLt0b6s.mp3

Enjoy!

Charles Lucy - lucy@harmonics.com
------------ Promoting global harmony through LucyTuning -------
for information on LucyTuning go to: http://www.lucytune.com
for LucyTuned Lullabies go to http://www.lullabies.co.uk
Buy/download/CD from: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/lucytuned2

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Charles Lucy <lucy@h...> wrote:
> Since everyone else seems to have put up an example; here is how the
> piece sounds LucyTuned as 0b5s and 0b6s.
>
> http://www.lucytune.com/mp3/TrisIsLt0b5s.mp3

Ouch. That sounded a lot more dissonant to me that my 31-et version.

> I fail to see the big problem with dissonance here for the piece, as
> written, has a maximum range along the spiral of fourths and fifths
> from:

That's the thing--there really isn't a problem with it. Vast amounts
of nonsense has been written about this chord.

> F to A# 11 steps
>
> F C G D A E B F# C# G# D# A#
> with
> C G F# & C# not used
> Hence scalecoding is 11/2389/
>
> But I'm not sure what to consider as the tonic.

A is good.

> It might be interesting to substitute an E# for the F which is only
> used as the second note chronologically, and as the lowest note in the
> first chord.

That makes more sense in Lucy tuning than it would in any tuning near
to what Wagner's orchestra would be likely to play. The Lucy
diminished fourth is 9.55 cents flatter than 7/5. In comparison, 55
meantone makes it (albeit inconsistently) 6.58 cents sharper,
43 3.53 cents sharper, and 31 1.87 cents flatter.

🔗Tom Dent <tdent@auth.gr>

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <tdent@a...> wrote:
>
> Gene complains about 'personal insults' - well what about this?
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@s...> wrote:
> (...)
> > That's the thing--there really isn't a problem with it. Vast amounts
> > of nonsense has been written about this chord.
> >
>
> Since this statement occurs just a day or two after I have mentioned
> my article on the subject, what are we supposed to infer?

That statement was not in reference to your article. I was thinking
about annoying stuff about how the Tristan chord dissolves tonality
and heralds the coming of serial music, blah blah blather. Is it not
possible that Schoenberg et al simply had their head up their ass on
this point?

> It is a matter of historical record that, for audiences at its
> premiere and for decades afterwards, Wagner's Tristan was heard as
> harmonically revolutionary: strange and disorienting beyond anything
> heard before. This fact requires explanation.

So maybe Martin Vogel is right, and people were responding to an
essentially septimal utonal chord.

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗Afmmjr@aol.com

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗Afmmjr@aol.com

In a message dated 5/1/2005 2:32:04 PM Eastern Standard Time,
gwsmith@svpal.org writes:
--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Afmmjr@a... wrote:

> Or more likely, wasn't Wagner's Tristan chord harmonically
revolutionary,
> BECAUSE it was intended to be heard in equal temperament?

How likely was that at the time it was written?
Very likely. 1850 was when Hummel was saying equal temperament had taken
hold.

It was in the middle of the *nineteenth* century, not the twentieth.
Is this sarcasm?

Pierre Boulez would not be conducting it.
Boulez has perfect pitch, yes. However an absolute pitch had just been
liberated to the note A -- again according to Hummel -- because music had gotten
equalized at that very time.

No one had even heard of trying as hard as
possible to get close to equal temperament as an objective yet.
Where do you get this impression? You haven't heard?

In any case, coming up with a chord which sounds better the farther you get
from equal temperament and the closer to meantone is a strange way of
promoting the universal adoption of equal temperament.

Gene, please consider 2 things.

Firstly, equal temperament had to come into being somehow. By Wagner it is
firmly hegemonic control.

Secondly, claiming that the Tristan chord sounds better outside of equal
temperament sounds better than equal temperament is superscillious. The fact
staring everyone in the face is that it is the equal tempered Tristan chord which
is universally associated with the famed sound treasure.
Why try to paint > everyone with the same non-equal brush? Someone had to be
pushing
equal
> temperament successfully. Why not Wagner?

Where is the slightest evidence he was?
This thread was the result of my bringing up the chord as a result of a
conference in The Netherlands that examined the Tristan Chord in light of different
tunings/temperaments. Among the results, discussed with me by Joel
Mandelbaum a number of years ago, that there developed a consensus that Wagner worked
best in equal temperament.

It may have to do with the composer's style of avoiding final cadences for a
previously inordinate amount of time. My musician training had it that by
Wagner's day, every note on the piano was harmonically related to every other
note on the piano.

For you, close but no cigar?...

best, Johnny Reinhard

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Afmmjr@a... wrote:

> Very likely. 1850 was when Hummel was saying equal temperament had
taken
> hold.

Hummel was dead by then, but Jorgensen quotes him to exactly the
opposite effect, that it had *not* taken hold; see page 407 of
Jorgensen, where Hummel complains mostly about the lack of pitch
standards, but also about the lack of tuning standards.

> It was in the middle of the *nineteenth* century, not the twentieth.
> Is this sarcasm?

No. I don't think assumptions about orchestras in 1960 hold for
orchestras in 1860.

is superscillious. The fact
> staring everyone in the face is that it is the equal tempered
Tristan chord which
> is universally associated with the famed sound treasure.

Not universally, evidently, considering I am not the first to suggest
that non-equal temperament (and orchestras, after all, can adapt
tuning, so fixed temperament is not even really the issue) may have
been in the picture.

> conference in The Netherlands that examined the Tristan Chord in
light of different
> tunings/temperaments. Among the results, discussed with me by Joel
> Mandelbaum a number of years ago, that there developed a consensus
that Wagner worked
> best in equal temperament.

Obviously Wagner did not write for 31 equal, but I think it is clear
the Tristan chord sounds much better in 31.

> It may have to do with the composer's style of avoiding final
cadences for a
> previously inordinate amount of time. My musician training had it
that by
> Wagner's day, every note on the piano was harmonically related to
every other
> note on the piano.

Of course. But this is an opera, not a piano piece.

🔗Afmmjr@aol.com

In a message dated 5/1/2005 4:29:33 PM Eastern Standard Time,
gwsmith@svpal.org writes:
--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Afmmjr@a... wrote:

> Very likely. 1850 was when Hummel was saying equal temperament had
taken
> hold.

Gene, I see it differently:

Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837), Beethoven’s competitor in piano playing
prowess, if not in music composition, had some salient points to make about the
sea change in tuning then taking place. Writing from Weimar in 1827, Hummel
looks back at ‘former times’ when clavichords, harpsichords, pantalons, and
even pianofortes had ‘only two thin, feeble strings’ for each note (p. 458),
and authors such as Sorge, Fritz, Marpurg, Kirnberger, and Georg Joseph
Vogler[i] (1749-1814) set forth practical systems about tuning. But modern tuners,
Hummel claims, don’t have ears acute enough to discriminate the minute
deviations in the tuning systems proposed by these authors. Now, according to Hummel,
those early keyboard instruments are ‘almost wholly set aside’; and with
pianofortes whose strings are four to five times thicker, a temperament is needed
that will make tuning much easier and more convenient” (McGeery, p. 114).

Hummel claimed that according to professional tuners, especially
those in Vienna, equal temperament was used for it was “the one that is most
easily tuned, and by which the whole instrument is tuned with the greatest
certainty and probability of keeping in tune” (McGeery, p. 114). And yet, Hummel
fully acknowledged that music still retained unequal tuning in theory. The
unequal semitones would always remanin important as a basis for music even
though the limitations of the piano presented equal sized semitones in the actual
sounds heard.

[i] According to Rita Steblin, “Vogler’s key descriptions are filled with
references to colour and painting. For example, C major ‘is perhaps the key
most fit for a painting, for pure water arias’ (1779; G major is used
successfully to depict ‘a bright landscape painting’ (1812); E major ‘can depict fire
best of all’ (1770); Ab major is ‘black (1812); Eb major has “a monopoly over
night pictures’ (1812)” (Steblin, p. 129).

I got the 1851 date from the memory of the published English translation of
Hummel's treatise.
> It was in the middle of the *nineteenth* century, not the twentieth.
> Is this sarcasm?

No. I don't think assumptions about orchestras in 1960 hold for
orchestras in 1860.

This is my life's work, determining the proper tuning for each composer's
composition. I would like you to hear the new EARLY album as an example. It is
on CD Baby and I believe you can hear excerpts on the Internet. Still,
sometimes a composer is actually in equal temperament. Can you suggest any?

Obviously Wagner did not write for 31 equal, but I think it is clear
the Tristan chord sounds much better in 31.
Now, let's accept for the nonce that in the abstract, that the single "out of
time" Tristan chord has an affective quality that is more consonant when in
31-et as compared to equal temperament.

The Tristan chord is within the context of 8 points of rhythmic change. (I'm
going by memory.") It is motivic and makes excellent usage of a fresh
relationships of all 12 notes. Please take note here, all 12 notes. Meantone would
employ more note through extension, long part of orchestra technique since
Baroque times.

You could only claim 31-tone as a preference for your own idiosyncratic ears.
You could never claim it for Wagner. I only want to keep the sightlines
clear that Wagner likely works so well in equal temperament because it is in
equal temperament.

Of course. But this is an opera, not a piano piece.
Having recourse to more notes make for no difference at all. Ives proved
that. Read his excellent refusals to accept the equal temperament of the piano.

all best, Johnny Reinhard

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Afmmjr@a... wrote:

Among the results, discussed with me by Joel
> > Mandelbaum a number of years ago, that there developed a consensus
> that Wagner worked
> > best in equal temperament.

That's an opinion, not a "result". Results are what you get in science
or math. I Spent sunday putting the Meistersinger Overture into 31-et.
The result was interesting--one might complain that the characteristic
gentling effect of meantone is inappropriate to Wagner, but I think
the result is artistically valid. I also tried it in Pythagorean by
way of 53, and think that's getting too harsh. One conclusion I can
definately draw is that this particular Wagner piece is not hard to
put into a meantone tuning; in fact between the alleged wild-eyed
revolutionary Wagner and the supposed arch-conservative Brahms, I
suspect Brahms would prove more troublesome.

> The Tristan chord is within the context of 8 points of rhythmic
change. (I'm
> going by memory.") It is motivic and makes excellent usage of a fresh
> relationships of all 12 notes. Please take note here, all 12 notes.
Meantone would
> employ more note through extension, long part of orchestra technique
since
> Baroque times.

I used 19 for the Meistersinger. That happens to be a MOS, which I
thought was vaguely nice.

> You could only claim 31-tone as a preference for your own
idiosyncratic ears.
> You could never claim it for Wagner.

My point is that you can't really claim equal temperament for Wagner
either. Whatever happened under Hans von Bulow's baton was not that;
people are not wind-up mechanical devices, and unlike Boulez, von
Bulow did not have an ideological commitment to equal temperament.

I only want to keep the sightlines
> clear that Wagner likely works so well in equal temperament because
it is in
> equal temperament.

In a midi performance, yes. Wagner used actual singers, and real live
breathing violinists and--dare I say it?--bassoon players. Nor were
they 21st century performers; they represented an older musical
culture and performance practice, the nature of which we can merely
guess at.

🔗Werner Mohrlok <wmohrlok@hermode.com>

Regarding the "batton of von Bulow" and other conductors:
- I as a "bassoonist" may say this -
The abstract tuning ideas of the conductors don't correspond
in every case with the ideas of the members of their orchestras.

Ernest Ansermet for instance maintained that the
pythagorean tuning is the only tuning model which should be
followed by musicians. And - as this is no closen tuning model -
he suggested to follow ET, as this is the practicable realization of
pythagorean tuning.

I know a recording of "Berlioz / Ouverture Carneval Romaine"
with the "Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, conductor Ernest Ansermet".
The Orchestra intonates with pure fifths and!!! pure thirds. Especially
at the chords of the brass this can be heared distinctly.
I believe Ansermet was happy when listening to his orchestra,
as the sound result was and is convincing.
He probably didn't recognize that the tuning behavior of his orchestra
was different and against to his own theoretic ideas.

Besides it is going on my nerves that in this forum permanently
is claimed "We are living in a "culture of ET", (indeed
"exceptionally of the members of this forum").
Is there nobody listening to all well educated orchetras and choirs
and chamber music ensembles and pop ensembles with their living
tuning behavior, according to or at least near to just intonation?

Werner
> -----Ursprï¿½ngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: tuning@yahoogroups.com [mailto:tuning@yahoogroups.com]Im Auftrag
von Gene Ward Smith
> Gesendet: Montag, 2. Mai 2005 12:32
> An: tuning@yahoogroups.com
> Betreff: [tuning] Re: The Tristan chord
>

> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Afmmjr@a... wrote:
>
>(Snip)
>
> My point is that you can't really claim equal temperament for Wagner
> either. Whatever happened under Hans von Bulow's baton was not that;
> people are not wind-up mechanical devices, and unlike Boulez, von
> Bulow did not have an ideological commitment to equal temperament.

>> I only want to keep the sightlines
>> clear that Wagner likely works so well in equal temperament
>> because it is in
>> equal temperament.
>>
>> In a midi performance, yes. Wagner used actual singers, and real live
>> breathing violinists and--dare I say it?--bassoon players. Nor were
>> they 21st century performers; they represented an older musical
>> culture and performance practice, the nature of which we can merely
>> guess at.
>
> In a midi performance, yes. Wagner used actual singers, and real live
> breathing violinists and--dare I say it?--bassoon players. Nor were
> they 21st century performers; they represented an older musical
> culture and performance practice, the nature of which we can merely
> guess at.

🔗Afmmjr@aol.com

In a message dated 5/2/2005 6:32:27 AM Eastern Standard Time,
gwsmith@svpal.org writes:
That's an opinion, not a "result".
Hi Gene,

Well, Mandelbaum was part of a 31-tone conference and it was an "opinion"
shared in consensus that 31-tone didn't work for Tristan/Wagner.

Be that as it may, I have worked with live music and have worked out most all
of the issues. Problem here is that what works for you and what doesn't
still has to do an individual aesthetics. Everyone has a bias.

In the production and performance of many successful concerts of early musics
in different tunings, the instruments were certainly capable, as were the
players.

Most importantly, the reasons keys were added to bassoons (and other winds)
was to play equal temperament. Perhaps that is a more scientific area for you
to research.

all best, Johnny

🔗Jon Szanto <jszanto@cox.net>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@s...>
(regarding Johnny) wrote:
> That's an opinion, not a "result". Results are what you get in
> science or math.

I sure hope that Carl notices that last bit.

> I Spent sunday putting the Meistersinger Overture into 31-et.
> The result was interesting--one might complain that the
> characteristic gentling effect of meantone is inappropriate to
> Wagner, but I think the result is artistically valid.

Gene, you are interested in "results". But what you have done is no
less an opinion than what Johnny was speaking of. "Artistically valid"
in this case, as in so many cases, is in the ear of the beholder. One
could just as easily claim that your midi 'orchestra' is hardly
artistically valid, based on your Tristan mp3s - how much vibrato was
in use in the mid-1800's?

Until and unless someone can offer a substantial amount of anecdotal
evidence (since we can't verify from recordings of the time) of the
intonational manner of orchestral and vocal performance during the
premiere and early performances of Tristan and other Wagner operas, we
are still in the realm of conjecture, even if it is educated
conjecture. While I have not read the book, I have seen complete table
of contents of the Jorgensen tome, and it relates to keyboard tunings,
not orchestral or combined orchestral/choral/vocal performance practice.

At some point, one has to step back and really think about just what
is it in the progression of harmonies that made the "Tristan chord"
stand out so importantly in the development of Western composition at
this point, judging it not simply by one possible rendering but by any
possible renderings.

> In a midi performance, yes. Wagner used actual singers, and real live
> breathing violinists and--dare I say it?--bassoon players. Nor were
> they 21st century performers; they represented an older musical
> culture and performance practice, the nature of which we can merely
> guess at.

Well, there you go: it is simply a guessing game. And a series of
related and conflicting opinions.

Cheers,
Jon

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@lumma.org>

>I only want to keep the sightlines clear that Wagner likely works
>so well in equal temperament because it is in equal temperament.
>
>In a midi performance, yes. Wagner used actual singers, and real
>live breathing violinists and--dare I say it?--bassoon players. Nor
>were they 21st century performers; they represented an older musical
>culture and performance practice, the nature of which we can merely
>guess at.

Hardly. We are part of an continuous musical history that includes
Wagner. There's no reason to believe that intonation varied less
between orchestras of his day than it does between orchestras in
ours, for example. There's no reason to believe they played any
closer to the dominant keyboard tuning of their day than ours do.
The dominant keyboard tuning of their day was much closer to equal
temperament than meantone. There's no evidence at all to support
a claim that the technique of playing certain chords in septimal
intonation has been lost.

-Carl

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@lumma.org>

🔗Jon Szanto <jszanto@cox.net>

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Jon Szanto" <jszanto@c...> wrote:

> Gene, you are interested in "results".

When they are in math journals, where they belong.

But what you have done is no
> less an opinion than what Johnny was speaking of.

Well, duh.

"Artistically valid"
> in this case, as in so many cases, is in the ear of the beholder. One
> could just as easily claim that your midi 'orchestra' is hardly
> artistically valid, based on your Tristan mp3s - how much vibrato was
> in use in the mid-1800's?

My midi orchestra may not be artistically valid but it works for
cheap, and is very willing to try different tunings.

> Until and unless someone can offer a substantial amount of anecdotal
> evidence (since we can't verify from recordings of the time) of the
> intonational manner of orchestral and vocal performance during the
> premiere and early performances of Tristan and other Wagner operas, we
> are still in the realm of conjecture, even if it is educated
> conjecture.

Exactly. So dogmatizing about Wagner's commitment to equal
temperament, or his place in the evitable march of history towards the
glorious pinnacle which is duodecatonic serialism, is out of place. We
can, however, look at the Tristan chord and speculate how the
musicians of the day might or might not have played it. If there is a
JI chord they could gravitate towards, it becomes possible to
speculate that they might have gravitated towards it, if that sort of
variation from equal temperament was still a part of performance
practice then.

> At some point, one has to step back and really think about just what
> is it in the progression of harmonies that made the "Tristan chord"
> stand out so importantly in the development of Western composition at
> this point, judging it not simply by one possible rendering but by any
> possible renderings.

I don't think the Tristan chord was important because it helped
dissolve tonality into tonal guacamole. I get very annoyed at that,
because in *any* reasonable tuning it just isn't in the nature of the
chord to do that, and it strikes me as an anacronism which imposes
20th century ideas and values on a very 19th century composer. If
someone wanted to rant about that, they could pick on the diminished
seventh and the augmented triad, but then they'd be faced with the
fact that these were long in use. So they shanghai the Tristan chord
and force it into the role. I'm sorry, but I think that is crap.

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@lumma.org>

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@lumma.org>

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗Jon Szanto <jszanto@cox.net>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@s...> wrote:
> So they shanghai the Tristan chord
> and force it into the role. I'm sorry, but I think that is crap.

How many people do you think you've convinced otherwise?

From just one of the many recognized sources in Western music history:

"In the harmony of his later works, especially in Tristan and the
prelude to the third act of Parsifal, Wagner carried out an evolution
in his personal style that had been stimulated by his acquaintance in
the 1850's with the chromatic idiom of Liszt's symphonic poems. The
complex chromatic alterations of chords in Tristan, together with the
constant shifting of key, the telescoping of resolutions, and the
blurring of progressions by means of suspensions and other
non-harmonic tones, produces a novel, ambiguous kind of tonality, one
that can be explained only with difficulty in terms of the harmonic
system of Bach, Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven. This departure from the
Classical conception of tonality in such a conspicuous and musically
successful work can today be viewed historically as the first step on
the way toward new systems of harmony which marked the development of
music after 1890."

This is (presumably) the 'party line' that irks you so much, but it
seems to explain the effect of Wagner's music, not only at the time
but in it's ongoing ripples, better than the tenuous attempts to
ascertain particular intonation aspects of isolated chords. I would
also couple this with one of your particular tendencies: to revere
works that are not necessarily forward thinking but thoroughly
grounded in some existing or preceding language. Had Wagner the
unfortunate circumstance of posting now on the tuning list, I can
easily see you complaining that his harmonic ideas were exercising
originality at the expense of the music.

But that would be pure speculation on my part.

If you feel that the importance of the Tristan chord (and that being
only a signpost in Wagner's overall expansion of tonal and harmonic
resources) in the advancement (or expansion) of the Western harmonic
idiom, you are going to have to come up with a compelling alternate
theory. Because the impact of those music dramas - in a purely musical
way - can't be denied.

Jon

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗Tom Dent <tdent@auth.gr>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@s...> wrote:

> I Spent sunday putting the Meistersinger Overture into 31-et.
> The result was interesting--one might complain that the
characteristic
> gentling effect of meantone is inappropriate to Wagner, but I think
> the result is artistically valid. I also tried it in Pythagorean by
> way of 53, and think that's getting too harsh. One conclusion I can
> definately draw is that this particular Wagner piece is not hard to
> put into a meantone tuning; in fact between the alleged wild-eyed
> revolutionary Wagner and the supposed arch-conservative Brahms, I
> suspect Brahms would prove more troublesome.

The Meistersinger overture is not at all representative of Wagner's
developments of tonality, being almost all in fairly diatonic major
keys with a few mildly interesting modulations. It is only famous,
harmonically, for having an inordinate amount of C major.

Now, how about the prelude to act II of Walkure, or the Magic Fire
Music (end of the last scene)? Or, to really push the boat out, the
preludes to Acts II and III of Parsifal.

~~~T~~~

🔗Tom Dent <tdent@auth.gr>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@s...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Jon Szanto" <jszanto@c...> wrote:
>
> > From just one of the many recognized sources in Western music
history:
>
> This quote is not about the Tristan chord, but about Wagner's later
> style as a whole. What does the Tristan chord have to do with
constant
> shifting of keys, etc?

Not all that much on its own, but it has been seen as an *emblem* of
the radical expansion of harmonic vocabulary (interpolation of chord
sequences in distant keys) most obvious in Tristan and Parsifal. It is
in one way a fitting emblem because, considered within traditional mid-
19th century harmony, it is more at home in D# minor than in the tonic
A minor. The augmented and diminished chords do not have quite the
same significance because, although they are unstable, they are just
as much at home in the tonic as in the distant tonality, so they are
neutral with respect to harmonic wandering (rather than positively
promoting it).

Actually, I rarely have any difficulty with hearing tonality in the
background of Tristan, but the style of writing does lend itself
easily to a quite atonal result, for example some of Reger or
Zemlinsky which meanders round in apparently aimless fashion.

~~~T~~~

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <tdent@a...> wrote:

> The Meistersinger overture is not at all representative of Wagner's
> developments of tonality, being almost all in fairly diatonic major
> keys with a few mildly interesting modulations. It is only famous,
> harmonically, for having an inordinate amount of C major.

To say it isn't typical of Wagner because of that is absurd--Wagner
can stay stuck on a single chord longer than just about anyone. Take a
listen to the opening of Das Rheingold, for gosh sakes. Moreover, it
changes key all over the map and is *not* in fact stuck in C major.

> Now, how about the prelude to act II of Walkure, or the Magic Fire
> Music (end of the last scene)? Or, to really push the boat out, the
> preludes to Acts II and III of Parsifal.

I've finished the prelude to Tristan und Isolde, which sounds *damn
fine* in meantone IMHO. I plan on putting up a Wagner in Meantone
webpage so people can make up their own mind about whether you can
listen to Wagner in meantone. Next I was going to do "Lebwohl, Du
Liebe!", which I have a preliminary version (key changes only) of.

The Tristan chord - LT - for the harmonically curious;-)

🔗Charles Lucy <lucy@harmonics.com>

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗Tom Dent <tdent@auth.gr>

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗Afmmjr@aol.com

🔗Afmmjr@aol.com

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗Afmmjr@aol.com

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗Afmmjr@aol.com

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗Werner Mohrlok <wmohrlok@hermode.com>

🔗Afmmjr@aol.com

🔗Jon Szanto <jszanto@cox.net>

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@lumma.org>

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@lumma.org>

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@lumma.org>

🔗Jon Szanto <jszanto@cox.net>

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@lumma.org>

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@lumma.org>

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗Jon Szanto <jszanto@cox.net>

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗Tom Dent <tdent@auth.gr>

🔗Tom Dent <tdent@auth.gr>

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@svpal.org>