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Motive and Magic: A Referential Dyad in 'Parsifal'

Author(s): Patrick McCreless


Source: Music Analysis, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Oct., 1990), pp. 227-265
Published by: Blackwell Publishing
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/853979
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PATRICKMcCRELESS

MOTIVE AND MAGIC:


A REFERENTIAL DYAD IN PARSIFAL

The motive that will be the object of focus in the present study is, strictly
speaking, not a motive at all according to standard usage of the term. It
does not satisfy the venerable and commonly accepted definition given by
Riemann, and derived by him ultimately from eighteenth-century
compositional theorists such as Mattheson, according to which a motive is
'a melodic fragment which in itself constitutes the smallest unit of
expressive meaning." Nor is it in the Schenkerian sense a motivic
parallelism - a linear pattern that is replicated at various structural levels as
a verborgeneWiederholung.Nor is it a Wagnerian Leitmotivin the manner of
Wolzogen and Lorenz - a melodic pattern or harmonic progression
associated consistently with a single symbol in the drama. It is not even a
particular chord-type, such as the Tristan chord, the motivic role of which
Ernst Kurth demonstrated brilliantly in his RomantischeHarmonik, or the
Balsam-Akkordand the mystischeAkkord shown by Lorenz to play a similar
role in Parsifal.2 Indeed, the motive under consideration here involves
neither a melodic cell, nor a linear contour, nor a harmonic progression.
Rather, it is merely the unordered pitch-class dyad (E, F), which, while not
being definable as any of the more familiar types of motive, takes on
aspects of all of them: the possibilities of cross-reference and processive
development in the Riemannian motive and the so-called Leitmotiv; the
hidden, subliminal nature of the Schenkerian motive; and the harmonic
ambiguity, and thus the broad harmonic structural force, of the Tristan
chord and Lorenz's mystischeAkkord. It is thus Wagnerian in the most
powerful sense, for it can serve simultaneously as a dramatic symbol, a
musical cross-reference and a focus of harmonic and large-scale tonal
organization. As such, it constitutes a motive of the most far-reaching
dramatic and musical significance in Parsifal: it occurs, often with
considerable rhetorical emphasis, in climactic moments throughout the
drama, and through it the opera works out its principal philosophical
theme - that of sin, suffering and redemption.

MUSIC ANALYSIS 9:3, 1990 227


PATRICK McCRELESS

I THE DRAMATIC STRUCTURE OF PARSIFAL

The dramatic process whereby the three central characters - Amfortas,


Kundry and Parsifal - move from a world of sin and suffering to one of
redemption is, ironically, 'comic' in structure, although not in content, and
although its literary roots lie in the medieval epic and miracle play. For the
essence of a comic dramatic structure is the progression from a situation in
which things are not as they should be - where relationships are confused
and where the 'wrong' characters wield power - to one in which 'right'
relationships are achieved and the 'right' characters gain ascendancy to
power. Usually this shift over the course of the drama involves, on the one
hand, a moment or moments of recognition on the part of the central
character of what the situation has been and what it should be, and, on the
other, a comic twist towards the end of the drama which articulates the
turn from the wrong state of affairs to the right one. Furthermore, the
change of power effected at the end generally involves the replacement of
an older generation by a younger one.3
How the above model is explanatory for Parsifal should be self-evident.
The unwholesome situation at the beginning of the drama involves a
wrong state of affairs for each of the principal characters. Amfortas has,
through his allowing himself to be seduced by Kundry, lost the Holy Spear
to Klingsor; he himself is now cursed with the unending pain of his wound,
and the brotherhood of the Grail has become cold and lifeless. Kundry is
entrapped by her own sin and is a slave to the demands of Klingsor; and
she imagines, in Act II, that she can be delivered from her bonds by
seducing Parsifal. Parsifal himself represents a wrong state of affairs
because he is capable of inflicting great suffering without knowing that he
is doing so, and because he is capable of seeing suffering without feeling
pity for the sufferer. The wrongness of his situation is embodied in his
being der reine Tor, incapable of feeling Mitleid and thus not yet wissend or
able to restore life to the torpid community in which he finds himself. And,
of course, the 'wrong' figures wield power early in the drama: Amfortas's
sin has rendered him the holder of power in the brotherhood of the Grail
in name only, and the real possessor of power - over Amfortas, over
Kundry and in a sense over the Grail Knights as well - is Klingsor.
Acts II and III, through a succession of moments of recognition and of
magic, set the convoluted set of dramatic relationships straight and restore
health to the brotherhood of the Grail. In Act II Parsifal learns from
Kundry of the suffering that he caused his own mother, and this realization
leads quickly to his central revelation in the entire opera. Kundry's
seductive words cleverly bring together his newly awakened sense of guilt
regarding his mother's grief and his first experience of sexual passion:

... sie beut dir heut' als Muttersegen's letzten Gruss


der Liebe ersten Kuss.

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A REFERENTIAL DYAD IN PARSIFAL

Kundry's words and her kiss - her artful merging of herself and Parsifal's
mother, and her suggestive interweaving of guilt and eroticism - trigger in
Parsifal a sudden and shocking vision of Amfortas's wound, a shudder of
revulsion and thus his first feeling of pity. His inner recognition of his own
sin and his pity upon Amfortas articulate the turning point of the drama:
through his Mitleid he has become wissend, and now he instinctively fixes
his eye on the Grail ('Es starrt der Blick dumpf auf das Heilsgefaiss', Act II,
bs 1050-2). He suddenly realizes that it was Kundry's seduction of
Amfortas that led to his wound and loss of the Spear, and that it is only
through his (Parsifal's) own renunciation of those advances that he can
achieve salvation for himself, for Kundry and for Amfortas and the
brothers of the Grail (see text of Act II, bs 1100-26 and 1276-1395). His
newly found knowledge enables him in the remainder of Act II to resist
Kundry and to regain the Spear from Klingsor, and in Act III to be
recognized by Gurnemanz as the long-awaited reine Tor, to be baptized, to
baptize Kundry and thus remove her from Klingsor's spell, to return the
Spear to the Temple of the Grail and heal Amfortas's wound magically
with its touch, and to assume the Holy Office himself. He is thus the agent
who rights all the wrongs set up at the beginning of the drama, who causes
the power of Klingsor to vanish and who, as a representative of a younger
and purer generation, ascends to power in place of Amfortas, thus effecting
the shift from a world of sin and suffering to one of redemption. It is he
who delivers the brotherhood of the Grail from the level of everyday pains
and pleasures to a more divine plane - that condition of the brotherhood
aptly described by Charles Passage and Helen M. Mustard in the
introduction to their English translation of Wolfram's Parzival as '... a
dedicated society, serving the Grail and representing a sphere spiritually
exalted above the normal realm of life'.4

II THE (E, F) DYAD

That the (E, F) dyad is a musical means whereby the dramatic structure is
worked out is nowhere more forcefully underscored than in the critical
turning point in Act II - Kundry's Kiss and Parsifal's anguished cry of
enlightenment, 'Amfortas!' (see Ex.1). Here the dyad becomes the musical
point of focus that embodies Parsifal's dramatic relationship both to
Kundry and to Amfortas. At the moment of Kundry's kiss (Act II, bs
983ff.), the succession E?-E controls the bass (I am assuming enharmonic
equivalence, of course): E?, in bs 983-5, moves, through a change of
register, to e2 in b.986; then, in bs 987-8 the succession E#-E occurs
literally in the bass, with an extension first to Dg and then to D as well.
After the three bars of the Sehr belebend (bs 991-3), Parsifal's cry of
recognition, 'Amfortas!', appropriates the (E, F) dyad as a melodic, rather
than as a bass, line. Simultaneously, the orchestral sonority accompanying

MUSIC ANALYSIS 9:3, 1990 229


PATRICK McCRELESS

Ex. 1 Parsifal, Act II, bs 982-97

982 (Sie hat ihrffaupt r6llig iiber das seinige geneigt und he/'tel nun ihre
Lippen zu einem langen Kusse auf seinen HMund.)

r - ten Kuss!
• langsam.
Selrr

(hier fihrl Parsifal

. cresc.

pliitzlich mit einer Gebi'rde des h&chsten Schreckens auf seine Hallung drilckl eine furch tbare Veriinderung
aus;er stemmt seine Hfnde gewaltsam gegen das Berz, wie um einen zerreissenden Schmerz zu iiberwaltigen.)
Sehr belebend.

•--, , P= tjii 7J
-ci: - --

PARSIFAL.

i etwas drngend Am-for - tas!


A A Schnell.

his outburst verticalizes that same dyad within the context of a diminished-
seventh chord on E, with the F acting as an appoggiatura. Thus precisely
the same motivic pitch-pair articulates both the peak of Kundry's advances
and Parsifal's sudden rejection of them through his vision of Amfortas's
pain. The (E, F) dyad becomes a musical symbol of Kundry's intertwining

230 MUSIC ANALYSIS 9:3, 1990


A REFERENTIAL DYAD IN PARSIFAL

for Parsifal the agony of guilt and the pleasure of sensuality in a single
experience. The dyad accordingly embodies a central ethical argument of
the opera: that sensual pleasure and both physical and psychological pain
are inextricably intertwined - that one necessarily entails the other, such
that redemption from the pain requires the renunciation of the pleasure.
Or, in the haunting words of Plato, speaking through Socrates in the
dialogue Phaedo, centuries earlier:
How singularis the thing called pleasure,and how curiouslyrelatedto
pain, which might be thought to be the opposite of it; for they are
never present to a man at the same instant; and yet he who pursues
either is generallycompelled to take the other; their bodies are two,
but they are joinedby a singlehead.5

Musically, the 'single head' that joins pleasure and pain in Parsifal is the
(E, F) dyad; and, in the musical language of the opera, it is this dyad that
ultimately must be resolved out of the structure in order to articulate the
Aufhebungfrom 'normal life' to the 'uplifted', dedicated society of the Grail
at the conclusion.
Before tracing further instances of the dyad and its dramatic impli-
cations, let us pause to consider two salient musical details in the passage
discussed above. First, as we have seen, in the orchestral music
accompanying the kiss the note-pair (E, F) is worked into linear pro-
gressions involving the pitches a semitone removed in either direction: for
example, F-E-Do in the bass of bs 987-8, and 2f2 in the upper
voices of the same bars. The tendency of the cx2-do2--ee2-
nodal (E, F) to progress
chromatically in either direction is characteristic of the chromatic voice
leading of the entire opera; more often than not, the motive occurs with a
continuation of chromatic stepwise motion to either D# (E6) or F (CG7).
Furthermore, when the motive, thus extended, occurs simultaneously in a
melodic voice and the bass, it may generate a chromatic voice exchange
reminiscent of Tristan,as shown in Ex.2.

Ex. 2 Chromatic Voice Exchanges in Parsifal and Tristan


L L
TT 44
a

Reduction of Parsifal, TristanPrelude, opening bars


Act II, bs 987-90
(cf. Ex. 1)

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PATRICK McCRELESS

(The chord in bs 993-5 and 997 is, of course, the Tristan chord, at the
correct transposition level for the earlier opera.)6 Continuation of this
chromatic voice exchange in opposite directions motivates the final bars of
the passage accompanying the kiss and the beginning of the Sehr belebendat
b.991, as shown in Ex. 3.
Ex. 3 Reduction of Parsifal, Act II, bs 987-91 (cf. Ex. 1)

, 9- -... .
-me
nXF

The motivic dyad, then, serves here not only as a powerfully articulated
referential motive, but also as a source of musical development and
continuity.
Second, the music of this passage combines its wrenching musical
themes of pain and suffering at pitch levels that bring out the (E, F) dyad
in more subtle ways. The two-note melodic gesture (designated by Lorenz
as der aufstrebendeSeufzer)7leading into the Sehr belebend(e#2-f#2in b.988,
fqf2 in b.989 and P-g6' in b.990) is surely a quotation from Tristan -
especially given the initial harmony of b.989! It brings (in bs 988-9) the
melodic e#2/f into relief against the E of the bass. Furthermore, it initially
occurs in the right register and (at least in b.988) with the right chromatic
spelling to suggest a further chromatic ascent, as in the earlier opera.
However, at bs 990-1 the continuation of this two-note gesture tells us that
we are in Parsifal, not Tristan, by transferring it to a lower register (the
register in which Parsifal will sing 'Amfortas!' five bars later), respelling it
to move down rather than up, and, at the Sehr belebend,bringing in the
Schmerzensfigur (f-b?-c'-db') in such a way as to emphasize the juxta-
position of f on the downbeat of b.991 and e' on the downbeat of b.992
(see english horn and trumpets). The bass here progresses first from G
down to C#, introducing F and E on the first two syncopated semiquavers
(third beat of b.991), then inverts itself to traverse the same path, this time
through E and E# to reach the F# of b.993. (Notice how this bass line
recomposes the bass of bs 981-90: (G6)-E#-E-Ek-D-Dbon the one hand, C#-
on the other.) Similarly, in b.992, the Heilandsklage is set at a
transposition
D-E-E#-F. level such that its 'alto' line (english horn, Horn 2) passes
through f and e' in the middle of the bar and its 'soprano' line (oboes,
Horn 1, violins) arrives on the melodic f at the same time that the bass
descends to E on the downbeat of b.994, and such that its final f-e'
descent in fact becomes Parsifal's cry 'Amfortas!'
The use of the (E, F) dyad as a node around which the dramatic
turning point of the opera revolves can shed light on the refractory musical

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A REFERENTIAL DYAD IN PARSIFAL

language of Parsifal as a whole, particularly with respect to its extraordinary


interweaving of chromatic and diatonic procedures. The entire passage
quoted in the preceding examples revolves around the two pitch classes E
and F. These two pitch classes do not in any way establish a tonal centre,
but instead function as referential poles which serve both as a motivic focus
of musical orientation and as points of departure for local progressions in a
chromatic context. Yet, in other passages in the opera, as we shall see in
abundance, the same two referential and focal pitches can occur within a
purely diatonic, rather than chromatic, situation, with equal referential
force. Thus, the two pitch classes themselves, utterly independent of
melodic or rhythmic features, assume the status of a large-scale cross-
referential motive and are able to serve as a link between the chromatic
passages in the opera and the more diatonic ones.
One diatonic passage in which the dramatic and musical cross-
referential meaning of the (E, F) motive is relatively transparent is the
music in D minor that is introduced at the entry of Amfortas and his train
early in Act I (Ex. 4).

Ex. 4 Parsifal, Act I, bs 262-70

262

Rast. Nach
rest! My

M- ff I

wil - der Schmer zens- nacht nun


night of pain has fled,_ _ my

dolcissimo

wil der r .zen o , nun


SIhm I
na. -"

MUSIC ANALYSIS 9:3, 1990 233


PATRICK McCRELESS

The bass melody here is used throughout the opera to symbolize


Amfortas's suffering; and although we can realize the significance of the F
and E in the melody (and in the middle voice of the accompanying chords
as well) only in retrospect, after we understand how they function
motivically in the rest of the opera, there is even here a slight rhetorical
emphasis on F and E that marks them for our attention. The passage itself
is introduced in a way that heightens our awareness and helps to impress it
upon our memory: it is, of course, a new tune and a new orchestration,
and it comes after almost two bars of silence in a slow tempo; and the taut,
harmonically ambiguous initial chord, the augmented triad A-Cs-F,
subverts the harmonic tendency of the V7 of F in b.261 and turns the
music momentarily to D minor. The F plays a crucial role here, because it
is the pitch which, as an appoggiatura to E, imparts to the initial triad its
strained, augmented quality. In addition, F and E comprise a single,
crucial voice in the voice-leading structure (Ex. 5).

Ex. 5 Reduction of Parsifal, Act I, bs 262-70

/AFP " t2 1I

Now simply to extract the two pitch classes F and E from the example and
claim some special meaning for them may seem prescriptive indeed, and
may in fact seem to fly in the face of all accepted canons of music analysis.
Yet it is precisely such a meaning that I am attributing to the dyad. The
reason for doing so is, to be sure, not based solely on the function of the
two notes in the present context; if only the bars of Ex. 4 are under
consideration, there is no more basis for choosing F and E as particularly
significant than for choosing, say, A and B, which also comprise a single
strand of the voice leading. Rather, the argument rests upon the dyad's
cumulative cross-referential force, which is achieved gradually by its
association with critical points throughout the drama, and which is in but a
germinal state here. I point out the present instance because the dyad
occurs in conjunction with the first appearance of Amfortas and with his
first mention of his pain, and because certain simple harmonic relations
occurring in Ex. 4 - in particular the A-Cp-F augmented triad, with the
implied resolution by semitone voice leading, F-E, to a major triad (a
resolution not literally achieved here) - resonates throughout the drama so
as to establish a clear network of links between the motivic dyad, Amfortas,
his wound, his seduction by Kundry, his loss of the Spear, his healing
through Parsifal's return of the Spear and, on an even deeper level, the

234 MUSIC ANALYSIS 9:3, 1990


A REFERENTIAL DYAD IN PARSIFAL

suffering of Christ on the cross. Indeed, although we cannot know it now,


the passage quoted in Ex. 4 sets up the pitches E and F, in the context of A
major and A augmented triads, as the tonal vehicle for the healing of
Amfortas near the end of Act III.
A crucial connection here is that between Amfortas's wound, his
seduction by Kundry and the relation of both of the above to Parsifal.
From Wagner's letters to Mathilde Wesendonk in 1858-60, when he wrote
the first prose sketch of Parsifal, and from the extant drafts of the text we
know that his central problems in forging an opera libretto from Wolfram
von Eschenbach's rambling epic were, on the one hand, how to deal with
the epic's focus on Parsifal's simply asking the right question when he first
enters the Temple of the Grail and sees the suffering Amfortas (a
motivation that seemed dramatically weak to Wagner) and, on the other,
how to tighten up numerous incongruities in the plot that were bothersome
to a dramatist whose values, like those of most artists of his century, were
conditioned by ideas of organic coherence.8 Although a discussion of these
interesting dramatic problems would lead us far afield, it is nevertheless
relevant to our discussion here to know 1) that Wagner dealt with the first
of the two problems by making Parsifal's reclaiming and returning of the
Spear, rather than his merely asking a question, the central motivation of
the drama; 2) that he achieved an astonishing coherence in the work by
making the Spear that appears in the drama simultaneously the Spear that
wounded Christ on the cross, the Spear that wounded Amfortas at the
hands of Klingsor and the Spear that Parsifal reclaims and returns to the
brotherhood of the Grail; and 3) that he eliminated many loose ends in the
plot by creating out of a number of women in his sources a new woman,
Kundry, whom he fashioned as the single woman who seduces Amfortas
and tempts Parsifal, thereby effecting a literal correspondence between
Amfortas's and Parsifal's experiences in Klingsor's realms, and establishing
in one character a mediatress between the two primary male figures in the
opera - between Amfortas's sin and suffering, and Parsifal's learning to
experience pity and thus being able to resist his temptress and regain the
Spear.
A central thesis of the present essay - a thesis that is, so far as I know,
unprovable from existing documentary evidence, but that is strongly
supported by music analysis - is that the (E, F) dyad is a musical rami-
fication of the dramatic 'tightening up' summarized above, for it is worked
into all the focal scenes involving Amfortas's wound, the temptation of
Parsifal, and the loss and return of the Spear. To see how the musical
manifestations of these dramatic issues work, let us look first at the passage
in Act I where we learn of Amfortas's seduction and his loss of the Spear:
bs 520ff. in Gurnemanz's Narrative.9 The passage in which Gurnemanz
describes Amfortas's seduction is in fact a variant - or, if we prefer, a
foreshadowing - of the Kiss, already discussed, in Act II. The harmonic
progression and melodic material are almost exactly the same as in Act II,

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PATRICK McCRELESS

bs 983-90, with the exception that in Act I the harmonic context more
strongly suggests A minor (echoes of Tristan again!), through the ii id
b.520 and the extended dominant of bs 522-4. The passage clearly
establishes an associative resonance between Amfortas's seduction, the key
of A (now minor rather than major) and the (E, F) dyad (see bass of bs
521-7). In the bars that follow (528-38), the dyad is deeply embedded in
the bizarre, virtually atonal music accompanying the description of
Amfortas's loss of the Spear (see harmonic reduction in Ex. 6).
1Ex.6 Harmonic Reduction of Parsifal, Act I, bs 528-38
528 529 530-1 532 533 534 535 536 537 538

1,P 7777 77 7t-


:1Wil K- d

In fact, as shown in the example, F and E seem jointly to form a lone point
of reference, an anchor around which the motivically dense but tonally
unfocused music revolves. Late in the same passage, A becomes the
dominant of D, a key which is suggested in bs 536-8 at the end of
Gurnemanz's description of Klingsor's taking of the Spear, and which will
gain closer association with the Spear as the opera progresses.'0
Furthermore, a few bars later, when Gurnemanz concludes this section of
the narrative by describing Amfortas's wound for the first time (bs 540-2),
the dyad (E, F) in the inner voices articulates the crucial words 'eine
Wunde'. As in Act I, bs 264ff., it is rhetorical emphasis - the music
accompanying the words 'eine Wunde' is marked sforzando, at the climax
of a crescendo, and the words are emphasized with the indication
'zurtickhaltend' - as well as our knowledge of the significance of the wound
in the story, that brings these particular words and music into relief.
On a deeper symbolic level, the (E, F) motive becomes, above and
beyond its association with Amfortas, a musical fulcrum connecting
Amfortas's suffering to that of Christ. The relationship is highlighted in
that part of Gurnemanz's narrative which describes the preservation of the
Grail and the Spear and their being entrusted to Titurel (Act I, bs 592ff.).
Here the confluence of textual and musical symbols reverberates with
cross-referential meaning. At b.591, on the word 'Schale' (vessel), the
Grail motive begins in E and progresses, as we would expect from its
previous appearances, to an A major triad on the downbeat of b.592. On
the third beat of the latter bar, however, the motive is altered, precisely at
the arrival of the word 'Kreuz' in the text. The expected F# of the Grail
motive is changed to an F?, thus bringing the (E, F) motive clearly into our
attention in the most prominent orchestral voices in bs 592 and 593, the

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latter of which is, musically speaking, an emphatic repetition of the former.


The harmony of these bars juxtaposes an A major triad with the chord G-
B-C#-F; and together with the repetitive melodic figure on E and F, the
bars comprise the Good Friday motive that will be so crucial to Act III."
Also significant here is the fact that what we really have in both bs 592 and
593 is parallel motion in the upper voices (see especially the violins)
between an A major triad and a B%minor triad, with the third of the latter
spelled as C? rather than D? (Ex. 7).12
Ex. 7 Parallel fifths in Act I, bs 592-3
A
liLL- -
nf==:T?
NL,
V-)
In bs 594 and 596 the relation of Christ's passion to Amfortas's agony is
made musically explicit by the sforzandoentrance of the A-C?-F augmented
triad, which establishes the parallel between Christ's wound and the Spear
that caused it ('dazu den Lanzenspeer', bs 595-6), on the one hand, and
Amfortas's wound and the same Spear, on the other. Now the wrenching
(E, F), which throbbed melodicallythroughout bs 592-4, becomes a pierc-
ing harmonic dissonance; we hear the A-C -F augmented triad and its
necessary resolution to an A major triad simultaneously.
Two further aspects of this narrative passage are relevant here. First, the
bass line progresses in a linear descent from a in b.592 to g and f (bs 594-
7) and f b (b.597), before reaching A, an octave lower than the a of b.592,
in b.599. However, in b.598 there is a sudden leap from the f b of b.597 to
At, the global key of the entire opera, so that the long-range bass motion is
not a-g-f-fb(e)-A, but rather a-g-f-f,-A-A. The strange turn of the bass and
of the harmony in b.598 is an example of what David Lewin has called
'substitution', the 'magical' displacement of a harmony by a semitone-
related harmony, in Parsifal.'3Although I have not yet amassed sufficient
analytical evidence to show how Lewin's ideas are relevant to the argument
of the present essay, I note in passing that the brief reference to the key of
the whole opera lends weight to the contention that we are dealing here
with a focal passage both textually and musically, and that the relationship
of our semitonal dyad to Lewin's semitonal harmonic displacements will
bear more investigation later.
Second, the bars that follow the brief turn to A,, on the words 'der
Zeugengiiter hrchstes Wundergut' (bs 599-603), bring a return of what
Lorenz, following Wolzogen, calls the Engelmotiv,'4which first appears in
bs 575ff., as Gurnemanz describes the descent of heavenly angels to aid the
Grail brotherhood by entrusting to them the saving cup and the Spear. At
bs 599ff., only the second occurrence of the progression in the opera,
Wagner makes a critical harmonic adjustment - one that involves both the
(E, F) dyad and Lewin's idea of substitution, but now in a context relevant

MUSICANALYSIS9:3, 1990 237


PATRICK McCRELESS

to our present discussion. At b.599 the Engelmotivprogression begins with


the A major triad, which has scarcely been absent from a single bar since
b.591. Had Wagner transposed the progression from bs 575ff. literally in
bs 599ff., we would arrive at another A major triad at b.602. However, on
the third beat of b.601, the melodic note that would have, under exact
transposition, been an e2 is changed to f2, and the harmony adjusted
accordingly, so that at b.602 we reach not the end of the progression on an
A major triad, but an elided beginning of a repetition of the same
progression on a B%major triad. What this transformation brings forth is,
on the musical side, not only the direct juxtaposition of e2 and fP as the
respective fifths of the major triads on A and B%,but also a recall of the
juxtaposition of the A major and B%minor triads in the Good Friday
progression of bs 592-4; and on the dramatic side, the inescapable con-
nection between sin and suffering on the one hand, and love and
redemption on the other. Here the representative of love and redemption
is, of course, Christ; later it will be Parsifal, through Christ. That the Good
Friday progression juxtaposes A major and B%minor triads; that 'der
Zeugengtiter h6chstes Wundergut' juxtaposes A major and B%major triads;
that such juxtapositions inevitably bring together in a single voice the (E,
F) dyad; that the A major triad, especially in conjunction with the inotivic
dyad, has been closely associated with Amfortas's suffering; and - to crown
the whole musical complex - that the B%major triad articulates the key in
which Parsifal soon will enter (b.742) and with which he will be associated
strongly in Acts I and III: all these relations point to the dyad as a single
node around which the dramatic issues of sin and suffering, love and
redemption, revolve. It is almost as though Wagner has taken Socrates a
step further: that not simply physical pain and pleasure, but also, at the
deepest ethical core of his drama, sin and redemption are themselves
'joined by a single head'.
The assertion that the passage at Act I, bs 591-608 is a focal point in
the dramatic and musical structure is reinforced by a varied return of this
music to articulate the end of Gurnemanz's narrative at Act I, bs 710-27.
The dramatic issue here is the condition in which Amfortas was left after
his exploits, and in which he obviously remains now:

Vor dem verwais'tenHeiligthum


in briinst'gemBeten lag Amfortas,
ein Rettungszeichenbang erflehend:
ein heilig Traumgesichtnun deutlichzu ihm spricht
durchhell erschauterWortezeichenMale:
'DurchMitleid wissend, der reineThor,
harre sein', den ich erkor.'

Gurnemanz's closing words in the narrative, which has aptly summarized


the events leading up to the present dramatic situation, thus dovetail

238 MUSIC ANALYSIS 9:3, 1990


A REFERENTIAL DYAD IN PARSIFAL

smoothly into the first complete statement of the Thorenspruch,the oracular


refrain that here prepares the imminent appearance of Parsifal and that
throughout Act I serves as a demarcator of the largest structural divisions."
The passage at b.710 begins with the Grail progression, now starting on
an F# minor triad. However, the first bar of the Grail is sequenced a major
third (spelled as a diminished fourth) higher, so that by b.714 the
progression can feed into the same music discussed above - for bs 714-17
clearly constitute an untransposed variant of bs 593(second half)-7, with
the same motivic and tonal resources (D minor, the motivic dyad and the
parallel B%minor and A major triads). Yet the differences between the two
passages are telling. In the latter, through a slight adjustment of the
harmony, the F? in the bass of b.717, unlike the f of b.597, is allowed to
move down to a real bass E?, which serves as a dominant of A, and thus
brings the description of the Grail in A,, rather than in the A that resulted
from bs 597-9. In b.721 the Grail motive turns to D?, recalling the end of
the earlier passage (see bs 605-7), and precisely on the word Wortezeichen
(perhaps paralleling Rettungszeichen in b.714) the D? major triad
progresses, through a chromatic third motion, to an A major triad (with F-
e2 as an inner voice), exactly as in bs 607-8; and it is this triad that
becomes the dominant of D minor, the key of the Thorenspruch.Thus, in
bs 714-28 we have ventured from D minor through A, major and back,
thereby prefiguring the A6-D relationship made explicit by the relationship
of the Thorenspruchto the opera as a whole.
The refrain itself also has a role to play in the complex of musical and
dramatic ideas surrounding Amfortas and his wound, the Spear and
Christ. It is in fact the means through which Parsifal will enter this swirling
array of symbols and ultimately bring dramatic and tonal order. As in our
first essentially diatonic example from Act I (the entrance of Amfortas and
his train), the Thorenspruchis in D minor and appropriates the motive (E,
F) for a significant voice-leading function. Example 8a, which shows the
Thorenspruch,highlights the surface inner line which moves f-e'-eb'; and
Ex. 8b, which shows the underlying voice leading, shows the embedded
ascending line e-f-f# in the melody.
The refrain thus embeds both the descending semitone motion through
F and E to E6 and the ascending semitone motion through E and F to
F#
that we saw in the music of the Kiss in Act II, and it plants the idea that
both will be crucial to the eventual musical 'resolution' of the (E, F) figure.
Closer to the surface in the music are the descending melodic fifths as a
relatively transparent symbol of the innocence of the 'pure fool', and the
feeling of expectation that the text leads us to associate with the key of D -
a feeling that will be amply rewarded later.
In the immediate sense, the expectation generated by the first complete
statement of the Thorenspruchis fulfilled by the furore over the swan (bs
742ff.) and, soon thereafter, the entrance of Parsifal (b.773). We have
noted above the significance of Bbas the key of Parsifal's initial appearance.

MUSIC ANALYSIS 9:3, 1990 239


PATRICK McCRELESS

Ex. 8
a) Parsifal, Act I, bs 1404-12
1 Alt.
Il Altos. PP

"Durch Mit - leid wis - send, der rei - ne Thor:


2 Alt. "Made wise through pit - y, the hol - ly fool.
2 dAltos. PP

- ......4 I '
ir,' "Der Mit - leid - voll rei . - ne Thor:
1rTenor "Through pit - y wise, ho - ly fool.
1StTenors. PP

"Der Mit - leid - voll rei - ne Thor:


2, Tenor "Through pit - y wise, ho - ly
2dTenors. fool.__

PP.
"Der Mit - leid - voll rei - ne Thor:
"Through pit - y wise, ho - ly fool._

b) Linear Reduction of the above

In
A...

har - re sein, den ich er - kor!"


Wait for him, the one I chose."

har - re sein, den ich er - kor!"


Wait for him, the one I chose."

har- resein!"
Wait for him."

IIPP -
har re sein!"
Wait for him."

?'-"

240 MUSIC ANALYSIS 9:3, 1990


A REFERENTIAL DYAD IN PARSIFAL

Given the paradoxical association of the (E, F) motive in Gurnemanz's


narrative with both sin and redemption, it is surprising neither that the
dyad is embedded clearly in the music that introduces us to Parsifal, nor
that it works both ways: that is, since we have just been told to await
someone who supposedly will deliver Amfortas from his misery, it is
difficult not to interpret Parsifal as a redeemer of sorts; while at the same
time the cruel act through which he makes his appearance shows him to be
himself a 'sinner', incapable of Mitleid. Thus, the music in Bbat bs 742ff. -
music that simultaneously seems to fulfil our hopes for a deliverer and to
disappoint those hopes because of the violent act that they accompany -
embeds in its diatonicism the chromatic motion e12-f2 (Oboe 2, Violin 2, bs
745-8). Even more striking is the use of the (E, F) dyad a few moments
later, when Parsifal, in a brief moment of revelation that anticipates his
more dramatic awakening in Act II, begins to grasp the implications of his
deed and of the pain that he has inflicted. The dramatic import of the
passage is clear both from the stage directions - 'Parsifal has listened to
Gurnemanz with growing interest and emotion; now he breaks his bow and
hurls his arrows away' - and from Gurnemanz's question, 'Are you now
conscious of your misdeed?"'6In bs 876-7 the relation of the (E, F) dyad to
Parsifal's state of sin is made even more explicit than it was at the
beginning of the scene, since it now leads directly into the melody
identified by Lorenz as the Mitleidmotiv in bs 877-80 (english horn, Horn
3).17 The relationship is solidified in b.877, which contains the (E, F)
motive (double bass), and precisely the same diminished-seventh chord as
that which accompanies Parsifal's F-E cry of recognition, 'Amfortas!', in
Act II. Furthermore, bs 878-80 feature an out-of-phase chromatic voice
exchange that suggests Act II, bs 987-90; and the orchestration, string
tremolo, harmony and P-e' fragment of b.879, and juxtaposition of A
major (with seventh) and B%minor-major triads in bs 879-80 bring Parsifal
into the musical and spiritual realm of bs 591-608 of Gurnemanz's
narrative.
From the above examples we can venture to suggest that the (E, F)
motive seems to radiate from the central turning point in Act II into the
critical dramatic and musical moments in Act I; and we shall later see that
it permeates Act III even more explicitly. Thus what is overt at Kundry's
kiss and Parsifal's revelation is submerged in inner voices, or in fragments
of longer melodies, in Act I, and brought into clear relief in Acts II and III.
Wagner himself, in a comment made to Cosima in 1878, as he was
composing the Amfortasklage towards the end of Act I (bs 1259-1404),
gives a hint of this process:

R[ichard] speaks of the perplexity with which Parsifal listens to


Amfortas'scomplaints;his mysterious,unconscious gestures of fellow
suffering,which comes out into the open with Kundry'skiss and only
then becomes clearto him.'"

MUSIC ANALYSIS 9:3, 1990 241


PATRICK McCRELESS

Wagner's comments refer specifically to Parsifal's silent, gestural


reaction to the Amfortasklage.Although there is no evidence that he was
referring to the (E, F) dyad as a musical symbol, still analysis has shown us
that not only has Parsifal's 'fellow suffering' been associated with that dyad
since his first entrance, but also that the whole dramatic-musical complex
involving suffering and redemption has turned on the dyad at least since
Amfortas's own entrance early in Act I. While the Amfortasklageitself -
perhaps the most chromatic, least tonally focused music in all of Act I -
must remain beyond the scope of our efforts here, the brief citation of a
few examples and their associated texts will show how the dyad (E, F)
continues to exert an influence. The Heilandsklage (that is, the music
accompanying Amfortas in bs 1259-60), a central motive here, juxtaposes
f and e2, either in the highest or in the next to highest voice, every time it
appears in bs 1259-1404. Particularly telling in this regard are the two
occurrences of the motive in association with text concerning Christ as
Redeemer (bs 1369-71, 1372-4). A long, ascending line, e'-f-'f~, spans the
orchestral accompaniment as Amfortas, in bs 1280-9, refuses Titurel's
demand to uncover the Grail. A similar descending line, g-f#-ft-e, orients
Amfortas's melodic line on the crucial words, 'Was ist die Wunde, ihrer
Schmerzen Wuth gegen die Noth, die H611enpein, zu diesem Amt
verdammt zu sein?' (What is the spearwound and its torment compared to
the pain, the hellish hurt of being condemned to serve the Grail?). Other
dramatic occurrences of the dyad - and here it should be sufficient simply
to note bars in the score, since the musical and dramatic point is becoming
self-evident - include bs 1308-14; 1316-22, especially on the word
'Gnadenreichen';19 1356-61, with the Violin 1 line g'-g?'(f~')-f, transferring
to the bass E in b.1361; all of bs 1382-92, but especially the line eb'-e'-P-f~'
in the Violin 2, bs 1382-4, and the line f4'-f-f-e' (various instruments, but
easy enough to follow in the vocal score) in bs 1384-92; and, at the climax
and conclusion, the line f#-e,-f, (viola, bs 1394-6), connecting to
fl'-e-e
d?'-d' (Violin 2, bs 1397-8), the E-F bass line of bs 1398-9 and, of course,
Amfortas's final word, 'gesunde', with the final two notes, f and e.
Thus does Parsifal, the guileless fool, begin to learn the meaning of
suffering. That his growth towards wisdom and compassion is the crux of
the drama, and that the motivic dyad (E, F) articulates that growth,
become even more evident in Act II. This complex, chromatic act is, in
essence, about Klingsor's threat to Parsifal, as embodied in the
Zauberschloss,the Blumenmddchen and Kundry. It poses the question of
whether the pure fool can become wiser: through Mitleid can he become
wissend? Can he renounce temptation rather than succumb to it, like
Amfortas in the same situation?
The danger of Klingsor's threat is implicit in his opening words, 'Die
Zeit ist da' (Act II, bs 69-70). The pitches to which these words are sung,
ff-f-e, comprise a retrograde of the e-f-fy motion that was embedded in the
Thorenspruchin Act I - and also, it might be added, a retrograde of

242 MUSIC ANALYSIS 9:3, 1990


A REFERENTIAL DYAD IN PARSIFAL

precisely the same pitches in the sinuous line (Clarinet 3) that accompanies
the same words, 'Die Zeit ist da' in bs 1067-8 of Act I, there sung by
Kundry as she falls asleep immediately before the Verwandlungsmusik.
Throughout the remainder of the act, E and F recur as a dramatic and
musical axis around which Klingsor's threat to Parsifal unfolds. Most
frequently they occur as the bass line of the Zaubermotiv.This is, of course,
the progression underlying the music of the Kiss, and we can also hear it as
an accompaniment to Klingsor's first description of Kundry early in the act
(bs 81-2). Yet there are numerous other cross-referential occurrences of
the (E, F) dyad as the act develops. As in the Amfortasklageat the end of
Act I, I shall introduce only the most significant instances of the motive,
and with a minimum of commentary, since all of them touch upon the
prevailing themes of sin and suffering:
* At bs 132-41, Kundry, still apparently asleep, rises to Klingsor's call.
The motion f2-f~ is worked first into the second highest voice of the
Heilandsklage,then into the highest voice.
* At bs 152-5, just after Kundry has uttered her second cry of misery,
Violin 1 and Clarinet 3 play the line f~l-fl-el-d?', recalling bs 592-3 of Act
I, but now with the explicit progression F?-E in the bass (bs 153-4), and f
and E superimposed harmonically in b. 154.
* At bs 166-7, Kundry's first sung notes of the act, on a hoarse moan, are
e' and fP.
* At bs 214-35, in the dialogue leading up to Klingsor's description of his
self-mutilation, the ordered pitch classes G, F?, F and E trace a relatively
stable line through a series of harmonies that comes close to breaking the
bonds of tonal logic. At b.224, the orchestral chord on the word 'keusch' is
the same as that which accompanies Parsifal's cry, 'Amfortas!'
* At bs 297-305, the bass line G-GC-F-E articulates Kundry's refusal to
seduce Parsifal as well as Klingsor's sighting of him in the distance. In Act
II, as in Act I, the key of B%major, in association with the (E, F) dyad,
accompanies Parsifal's approach.
* At bs 739-51, the inner strings trace the line gt'-P-e'-(d')-eb' underneath
Kundry's initial seductive cry to Parsifal. The same line, with shifts of
register, is interwoven into Kundry's vocal line. Both the pleasure and the
pain of the Kiss are thus submerged in the first words that Kundry utters
to Parsifal.
* At bs 916-19, a voice exchange (d'-e?'-e'-f' in the upper strings and
winds, F-E-D in the bass) brings in the (E, F) motive in connection with
Parsifal's realization that he himself must bear the blame for his mother's
death, and prepares for the similar voice exchange at the Kiss.
* Parsifal's first anguished cries after his moment of recognition (bs 994-6)
are permeated with the (E, F) motive, as is the accompanying orchestral
music. A similar saturation occurs on the words 'Qual der Liebe...' and
the music that follows in bs 1037-46. Note especially the flgflfl

MUSIC ANALYSIS 9:3, 1990 243


PATRICK McCRELESS

embedded in the vocal line, and the Gt-F-E in the bass of bs 1041-6. The
succession g2_-fPe2 is also embedded in the beginning of the progression
that accompanies the words 'Es starrt der Blick dumpf auf das
Heilsgefdiss...'; again, sin and redemption are 'joined by a single head'.
* Another long passage in which the pitch classes F#, F, E and D# provide
an element of stability in the context of the most startling harmonic
progressions, as in bs 214-35, is bs 1159-91, in the passage that climaxes
with Kundry's demonic laugh at Christ. Again, I shall refrain from detailed
analysis but simply call attention to the vocal line of bs 1168-74 and to the
orchestra at bs 1186-90.

Act III brings redemption and baptism to Kundry and Parsifal, healing
to Amfortas, deliverance and a renewed life in the Communion service to
the knights of the Grail. In the complex web of tonal relations through
which the music participates in the resolution of dramatic conflicts, the (E,
F) motive again plays a central role, both as a surface cross-reference and
as a focus of deeper structural relationships. Its role is explicit at the very
beginning of the Act III Prelude, where the first four notes of the melody
articulate the motion f -e' in the context of Bb minor. To be sure, an
equally important relationship here is that of B6 and E, which, in typical
Wagnerian fashion, foreshadow the B-E polarity of the Act III Verwand-
lungsmusik, where these two keys are directly juxtaposed (bs 811-12,
826-7). The F and E in the initial bars of the Prelude therefore perform at
least three functions: first, they establish a local voice-leading connection
within the tonal context of B6 minor, rather as they do for Parsifal's
entrances in Acts I and II in Bbmajor; second, they form large-scale cross-
referential relationships with the many other (E, F) pairs in the opera; and
third, they are essential to the prefiguring of an important element of the
tonal structure of the act as a whole.
As the act progresses, gradually developing its theme of redemption, it
naturally takes advantage of the well-established motivic resonance of F
and E at its central dramatic moments. The most compelling instances
include Gurnemanz's waking of Kundry (bass of bs 57-8, 86-104 and 106-
7); Parsifal's entry in black armour (bs 175-85) - this entrance being in Bb
minor, rather than major, with the music combining his heroic horn call
and the opening melody of the Act III Prelude, and with overt emphasis on
the (E, F) dyad; Gurnemanz's recognition of the Spear (bs 334-7; see note
12 below); Gurnemanz's telling Parsifal of Titurel's death (bs 413-27);
Kundry's washing of Parsifal's feet (bs 548-60), with an explicit reference
to bs 592-3 of Act I; Gurnemanz's announcing that it is Good Friday (bs
663-8); and the beginning of Titurel's funeral procession (melody of bs
863ff.).
The act reaches its point of greatest intensity as the funeral procession
ends, and we are confronted with the possibility that this will be Amfortas's
final time - das letzte Mal - to serve Holy Communion. Here once more, at

244 MUSIC ANALYSIS 9:3, 1990


A REFERENTIAL DYAD IN PARSIFAL

the peak of Amfortas's torment, the music turns to the motivic (E, F)
dyad. Its symbolic association is most fully realized in the music accom-
panying the grim final words of the funeral procession, 'Zum letzten Mal!'
and the immediately succeeding words of Amfortas's final prayer (Ex. 9).
We have seen in previous examples the tendency of F and E to progress
chromatically in either direction - to F# above or E6 below. In the present
example both are used, and with remarkable effect. The f-e'-d~' of the
threatening words 'Zum letzten Mal' - note how reminiscent this passage
is of Klingsor's 'Die Zeit ist da' - initiate a descending chromatic motion
that passes into the upper strings at bs 918ff. and arrives at d' at b.922. At
this point, as Amfortas begins to speak, an ascendingchromatic line begins
in the bass, E-F-G,-G-At,. At the intersection of the two in b.924, the
melody from the beginning of the Act III Prelude enters, thus asserting yet
again the B-E polarity of the Verwandlungsmusik,and simultaneously
creating, as a support for Amfortas's tortured cry, 'Wehe! Wehe!', precisely
the same sonority that accompanied Parsifal's cry 'Amfortas!' just after the
Kiss in Act II.

III THE (E, F) DYAD AND THE TONAL STRUCTURE OF


PARSIFAL: DAVID LEWIN'S ANALYSIS OF AMFORTAS'S PRAYER
AND THE END OF THE OPERA

Amfortas's words, 'Ja, Wehe! Wehe!', begin his prayer to Titurel - his final
solo scene, and in the formal structure of the opera, an outburst that
parallels the Amfortasklage of Act I.20 Here, in the distorted and twisted
harmonies of the king's final anguish, it is for us, in our quest to
understand Parsifal, a serendipitous coincidence that only for this scene, to
the best of my knowledge, does there exist an analysis which takes note of
the (E, F) figure as a dyad of structural significance in the opera. That
analysis is David Lewin's masterly 'Amfortas's Prayer to Titurel and the
Role of D in Parsifal: The Tonal Spaces of the Drama and the Enharmonic
CV/B',mentioned briefly above. Lewin's article, to be sure, does not take
the (E, F) dyad as its principal analytical issue. His primary focus is on the
related ideas of enharmonicism and substitution, first in the context of the
Prayer itself and then in the context of the entire work.
Lewin's analysis abounds with original insights into Parsifal and into the
magical musical language in which the drama unfolds. His understanding
of the unique way in which the tonal system works in the opera is, in my
view, extraordinary; and it has exerted considerable influence on my own
analysis. The present study, conceived and even publicly presented a few
years ago21 purely in terms of the (E, F) dyad, has benefited immeasurably
from its encounter with Lewin's analysis, which provides a global tonal
theory that the (E, F) motivic hypothesis complements and supports.
Indeed it is precisely in Amfortas's Prayer, the penultimate scene that

MUSIC ANALYSIS 9:3, 1990 245


PATRICK McCRELESS

Ex. 9 Parsifal, Act III, bs 914-26

Mal sei des Amtes ge-mahnt! Zum letz - ten Mal!

Gral's,zum letz-ten Mal seidesAmtesgemahnt! Zumletz-ten Mall

" Sei des Amtes ge-mahnt zum letz - ten Mall

mahnt,zum letz- ten Mal sei desAmtesge-mahatl Zumletz-ten Mall

AIM qi AV
iib ic So a
(•ich
AMFORTAS ma tein enig aufricklend.)
92
924
919 922

-he!
Ja We We
-he

ptu P pp

,•,... . • • , , • >( i I ..... ...


Weh'-
F ii mich So
-nber .

19 9 2
.. ... .IS
grills sI

246 MUSIC ANALYSIS 9:3, 1990


A REFERENTIAL DYAD IN PARSIFAL

prepares for the final resolution of the dramatic and tonal issues of the
opera, that Lewin's observations and mine intersect; and his ideas will
provide an extra surge of energy for my own as we approach the multiple
tonal resolutions that unfold at the conclusion of the work.
Lewin's analytical focus on substitution and enharmonicism begins with
a discussion of the Prayer itself. He notes that the entire formulaic Barform
of the section can be construed in terms of a simple, 'Gluckian Aussensatz'
in D minor, with the puzzling exceptions that a passage in Do minor
substitutes for D minor in the first Stollen (in Lewin's analysis, bs 933-56),
and that passages in D? major substitute for D minor in the second Stollen
(bs 957-75) and for D major in the Abgesang (bs 976-93).22 The 'cadence-
seeking' F-E occurs numerous times in the upper voice of Lewin's
Aussensatz. It occurs initially in the unaccompanied first violins at a
dramatic moment (bs 936-7) early in the Prayer, where time virtually
stands still as Amfortas lifts himself up and turns to address Titurel's body
for the first time. Lewin also points it out in bs 965-6 of the second Stollen
(where, I might add, it accompanies the words 'erflehe von ihm, daB sein
heiliges Blut', in association with the very same chord that we heard with
the dyad on the words 'darein am Kreuz sein g6ttlich Blut auch floss' in
Act I) and bs 983-4 of the Abgesang.
Now Lewin does not extrapolate from the local F-E gesture of the
Prayer to find significance for it in the opera as a whole, since it is only a
secondary feature of his argument. He does, in a footnote, relate the dyad
to two of its other important appearances in Act III:

The F-E gestureariseslocally from mm. 936-7. The harmonyof mm.


965.5-967.5 remindsus that the melodic gesturewas embeddedin the
motives of the Ode [Act III, bs 1-2] and Waffenschmuck[the
transformationof Parsifal's horn call, at Act III, bs 169-71, that
directlyprecedeshis third-actentrance].23

Nevertheless, his central concerns in introducing the motive are, on the


local level, to show how the F-E gesture strongly suggests an imperfect
cadence and also strongly 'seeks' a perfect cadence in D minor; and on a
global level, to show how these ostensibly straightforward dominant-tonic
relationships in the D minor of the Prayer become 'magically' entangled
with the issues of substitution and enharmonicism in the opera as a whole.
Of particular interest with regard to the intersection of my 'F-E' line of
thinking and Lewin's 'substitutional' line of thinking is another instance of
the dyad noted by Lewin. In bs 969-73 of the Prayer, he notes, a passage
in D major substitutes for one in D minor. In his D minor Aussensatz of
this passage - that is, the hypothetical version of the music that would
occur without the semitonal substitution - the (E, F) dyad occurs in bs
972-3, literally as f-el'; but in the real music, where a semitone substitution
is taking place, it occurs as f~'-et'(see Ex. 10).

MUSIC ANALYSIS 9:3, 1990 247


PATRICK McCRELESS

Ex. 10 David Lewin, Analytical Reduction (Aussensatz) of Parsifal, Act


III, bs 933-93

la. Stollen 1.
( clthegrul;

Ib. Stollen 2. 3

-9 F F: M

I c. Abgesang.

i_+ M

MAt-Leid

E_----
.A6*Aei
07
J 6

248 MUSIC ANALYSIS 9:3, 1990


A REFERENTIAL DYAD IN PARSIFAL

This example brings up the interesting question: 'When is (E, F) not


(E, F)?' When, for example, might a real (E, F) be disguised as (E,, F1) or
as (E?, F ) at the surface of the music? My own answer here is that such
substitutions are indeed possible, and that they play a vital role in the
musical language of Parsifal. Examples that might be adduced include not
only bs 972-3 in Act III, but also bs 597-8 in Act I, in the discussion of
which I briefly introduced Lewin's idea of substitution above. In the earlier
instance, where, we noted, Al substitutes in b.598 for A, it is clear that
Gurnemanz's melodic line, f -e6, in bs 597-8 temporarily substitutes for f-
e. Furthermore, the idea of substitution accords well with the idea that the
(E, F) dyad is extended frequently a semitone in either direction, a
phenomenon of which we have seen innumerable examples already. In
such cases it may be difficult to ascertain whether, say, the dyad (Et, FO)is
substitutingfor (E, F) or extending it. A case in point is the passage at bs
526-8 of Act I (the Tristanquotation), where there is an (E, F) dyad - or,
to be precise, an (E, E#) dyad - between highest and lowest voices; yet the
e02-fo of the upper voice behaves much as the dyad (E, F) behaves
elsewhere in the opera. Unfortunately, although the issue under discussion
here is of the greatest theoretical interest, and although there are many
other interesting examples in Parsifal, our present energies are kept more
than fully occupied by real Es and Fs, so we must be content to have
touched upon (E, F) substitutes in passing and to save them for a future
endeavour.24
We cannot, however, escape dealing with the idea of substitution if we
wish to understand Lewin's view of the tonal structure of the opera, and if,
more importantly, we want to relate that tonal structure to the (E, F) dyad
that has governed our discussion thus far. To clarify these issues will
require a substantial digression from our guided (E, F) journey through the
opera. Yet the payoff for such a digression will be the understanding of
how the global resolution that ensues in the final 111 bars of the opera (bs
1030-141) is a resolution from two different but complementary points of
view.
Let us examine first Lewin's analysis of the large-scale implications of D
as the tonic in the Prayer, and of its substitutions. Since Lewin's argument
is so concentrated, I shall be obliged to quote him directly. With respect to
the substitutions for D in the Prayer, he notes:

At this point, it will be useful to consider some broad and abstract


structural implications of the tonal relations we have just been
discussing. Wagner has informed us, via bracket 4 [in Lewin's
Aussensatzof the second Stollen,reproducedas Ex.10 above], that the
A, which substitutesfor A-as-dominantis in fact the very Ab,which is
the tonic key of the drama.When this Al appearsin a dominantrole, it
suggests tonicizing a subdominantDbfrom which one might build a

MUSIC ANALYSIS 9:3, 1990 249


PATRICK McCRELESS

final plagal cadence for the opera. But since A,-as-dominant is a


substitute for A-as-dominant, since it inflects Db only as a substitute
for D-as-local- tonic, the abstract possibility arises that D itself might
serve as a functional (substitute) subdominant, so that the alternative
plagal cadence might proceed from D-for-DL to AI-as-tonic. And in
fact the idea that we are awaiting D as the structural key for an
ultimate cadence is supported by the structure of the Thorenspruch.
That motive begins over a sustained dominant of D and tells us to
await something. We can presume the 'something' in question to
involve a tonicized D.25

Later, summarizing the Prayer's tonal implications for the remainder of the
drama, he concludes:

The abstract implication of these identifications is that AI-or-A-as-


dominant will summon a tonicized DI-or-D, fulfilling the prophecy of
the Thorenspruch;at that point the subdominant D-or-Db can cadence
plagally into AI-as-tonic (Liebesmahl), and the opera can end with the
communion service itself. Amfortas believes that the obligatory D?-or-
D is his own death, for which he pleads eloquently during the Prayer
and the subsequent Verzweiflung.But the knights know better, as the
deceptive cadence of m. 993 tells us, denying Amfortas his D cadence
with a gruesome shock. For if Amfortas dies, cadentially tonicizing D?-
or-D, who will be left to uncover the Grail, i.e., to execute the
obligatory plagal cadence from D,-or-D to AI-as-tonic?26

Armed with the above analysis,we are now preparedto move beyond the
Prayeritself and to understandLewin's interpretationof the conclusion of
the opera.Lewin continues, answeringhis own question:
Of course we know the solution to this problem. It is Parsifal, the reine
Thor of the prophecy, who is to take upon himself the indicated
subdominant weight of D-or-DL, just as he takes Amfortas's office
upon himself; in that capacity he will perform the plagal cadence and
uncover the Grail.27

Thus, Lewin locates the long-awaited subdominant at the moment at


which Parsifaltakes over Amfortas'soffice:the magnificentD majordown-
beat of b. 1057. Here Parsifalhas, in the immediatelyprecedingbars, at last
identified himself as the expected fool, now made wise through the pity
that he has learned from Amfortas'ssuffering('Gesegnet sei dein Leiden,
das Mitleids hachste Kraft, und reinsten Wissens Macht dem zagen
Thoren gab!'). He now, at b.1057, precisely coordinated with the onset of
D major, can return the Spear, the loss of which through Amfortas's sin
brought about the wound in the first place, and assume the office. As

250 MUSIC ANALYSIS 9:3, 1990


A REFERENTIAL DYAD IN PARSIFAL

Lewin points out, it is this moment, b.1057, not Parsifal's healing of


Amfortas by touching his wound with the Spear (b.1035) that claims the
structural weight. The entire passage surrounding the healing itself (bs
1030-56) is set in A major, the dominant of D, and thus, to adopt Lewin's
terminology, the dominant of the D-as-D? as subdominant. And so, as he
notes,

The curingof Amfortas'swound is 'thrownaway'on the stage, during


the A-majorpassage.Our analysisshows us the logic here:it is not the
pain of the physicalwound which Amfortasfinds unbearable,and it is
not the healing of the wound which the drama makes obligatory.
Rather, it is Amfortas'sinabilityto performhis office which he finds
unbearable,and it is the relievingof Amfortasfrom that duty which is
the obligatoryevent.28

Lewin's view here, of course, not only accords well with the musical
(orchestration, dynamic level, triumphant recall of Parsifal's motive) and
textual (Parsifal's having just identified himself as the long-awaited Thor)
emphasis on b.1057, but also with the explicit text (quoted above) from
the Amfortasklage of Act I: 'What is the spearwound and its torment
compared to the pain, the hellish hurt of being condemned to serve the
Grail?' Later, this same D-as-subdominant and D as fulfilling the
Thorensprucharticulates, for Lewin, the D-to-AX progression that is 'the
obligatory structural gesture of the opera' at bs 1084-8: 'Parsifal, firmly in
command of the office, discharges his foreordained duty by directing the
unveiling of the Grail.'29 Only at the very end of the opera, at the
conclusion of a prodigious sequence of plagal cadences leading around the
circle of fifths from D all the way to A6 (bs 1109-27), is the real sub-
dominant of Db prolonged and emphasized.30
Working hand in hand with the substitutional relations outlined by
Lewin is another aspect of the role of D in the drama: its arising through
an enharmonic, rather than a diatonic, relation to the Ur-tonic of A6. After
his discussion of the significance of b.1057, he further argues for the
centrality of D in the opera as a whole by pointing to the Thorenspruch
stretto at bs 1050-6 (where Parsifal identifies himself as the reine Thor) and
noting:
We have heard this stretto before. A more extended version led to
Parsifal'scoronationearlierin the act; there the strettoled to a similar
triumphantdisplay of the Parsifaltheme, then in B major as Parsifal
reached an importantpreliminarygoal in fulfillingthe prophecy.The
way to D often leads through B in this drama.The D majorof mm.
1057ff. reminds us, too, that Parsifalfirst seized control of the spear,
towardthe end of the second act, in D major. [Andthat D came out of
the B ambiencein Klingsor's realm.]31

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PATRICK McCRELESS

The pivotal relation of the D of the Thorenspruch,the prophecy that guides


the dramatic structure and ultimately brings the D cadence of b. 1057, to
the global tonic of Ab is thus governed in part by substitution, in part by
enharmonicism, for the tonal motion of the opera at the broadest level
takes us from the A6 of the opening, through the B of Act II, to the
climactic D of Act III, bs 1057ff., and eventually through the awesome
circle of descending fifths that returns us to A6 at the conclusion. (Could
the C that ends Act I and the B6 that begins Act III be construed, from this
point of view, to be substitutes on either side of B?) And in getting from A6
to B to D, it is crucial to note, with Lewin and against Lorenz,32 that the
structural D towards the end of Act III is not E66 reached through the
global progression AC-CV-Ebband thus a kind of dominant, but rather that it
is really D, achieved through the broad progression AV-CB-D, where C? is
actually changed to B enharmonically so that D is reached through two
minor thirds and four scale steps rather than through two minor thirds and
five scale steps. This enharmonic shift is, according to Lewin, the 'flaw',
the 'splice', the 'hidden seam' that is 'a topographical or geographical
feature of the spaces in which the music [of Parsifal] moves'.33

Indeed, Klingsor's magic C1/B castle is an embodiment of the


geographicalmetaphor.... It is ... 'a flaw in the terrainthroughwhich
we can move' from one space of the dramato anotherand back ... In
the diatonicStufen space of the Grailbrotherhoodin Act I, we do not
go wrong if we measure topographyby scale degrees. But the magic
and miracle of things has been lost; we know it only in story
(Gurnemanz)and as a residual trauma (Kundry, Amfortas). In this
Stufen-world,things are exactly as they seem, for the miracles have
been expropriatedby the forces of evil. Only by voyaging to and
throughthe magic C/B castle, the seam that permitsan interfacewith
the other world, can Parsifalultimatelyrepatriatethe miraculousfor
the forces of good, returningwith the Spear.34

Lewin locates the specific moment of the enharmonic shift at the Kiss (Act
II, b.983). As he notes, at the instant that Kundry cadences, on the word
'Kuss', on C?, Wagner begins notating the orchestra in B.35
We thus have come full circle, back to the Kiss, with which our
discussion of the (E, F) motive began, firmly in possession of two
analytical points of view, rather than just one. But are the two compatible,
and, if so, what do they have to do with one another? The answer, it seems
to me, is hinted at towards the end of Lewin's article. An early
manifestation of the A JCVIB-Dprogression in the opera occurs in the
sequential Glaubensthemain the Prelude to Act I (bs 44ff.). Lewin shows
this progression schematically as follows (Ex. 11). He then notes
immediately that his abstraction is in fact the Zaubermotiv,at the very pitch
level at which it occurs at the moment of the Kiss.36 Reflecting on the

252 MUSIC ANALYSIS 9:3, 1990


A REFERENTIAL DYAD IN PARSIFAL

Ex. 11 David Lewin, Reduction (two possible spellings) of Parsifal, Act I,


bs 44-55
a) b)
t•
jlP
IIL
IL IP/
b ,, II it
...9),, , . .

ramifications of this motive for the opera as a whole, he suggests:

Indeed, the dramaticaction of the opera involves precisely 'bringing


the magic back' to the communionservice.Significantly,it is not clear
just what the Stufen transformationis that 'bringsZauberback to the
Liebesmahl.'37

He then poses the following possibilities (Ex. 12).

Ex. 12 David Lewin, Possible Enharmonic Spellings of Zaubermotiv

a) b) c)
3322
2
?7313 j2

Now whichever of the possibilities we choose - and for our purposes it


makes little difference - the crucial relationship brought out by the
example is that, as Lewin observes, the Zaubermotivis in fact a chromatic
version of the Liebesmahl,the melody that opens the Act I Prelude, and to
which we return at the end of the opera, after the 'magic' is returned to the
communion service through the act of Parsifal.

IV DRAMATIC RESOLUTION AND THE RECUPERATION OF


THE (E, F) DYAD

Here we may at last carry on where Lewin has left off, incorporating with
gratitude all the 'magic' that we have learned from him, and connect his
views of tonal structure to the (E, F) motive. Although one possible
interpretation of the Zaubermotiv is to hear its initial notes as simply
arpeggiating the A-Ck-ELbbdiminished triad, and then passing through Ebto
the neighbouring sixth scale degree, 1F (as in Ex. 12a), we can also hear the
motive as arpeggiating an AX minor triad, such that D is a lower
appoggiatura and F,, again, the upper neighbour (as in Ex.12b). It is
through this latter interpretation that the Zaubermotivbears such a striking
resemblance to the Liebesmahl, since both arpeggiate the A6,triad (minor
and major, respectively), then move up to the sixth degree, and then move

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PATRICK McCRELESS

either back to Eb (the Zaubermotiv) or on to the octave (the Liebesmahl).


The telling difference between the two, other than the mode of their
respective triads, is, of course, the semitone between the b6and ?6 scale
degrees - that is, between FI(E) and F. Our central dyad thus involves
more than a purely referential semitone in the opera: it in fact embodies
the conflict that separates the diatonic world of the Grail (the Liebesmahl)
and the magic world of Klingsor (the Zaubermotiv);in this 'Lewinesque'
sense it is the 'flaw', the 'splice', the 'hidden seam' between the two
worlds. On the other hand, in the compatible, but different, '(E, F)' sense
of the present analysis - a sense firmly supported by the use of the dyad
throughout the opera - it can also be construed to be 'the wound' that it is
the mission of the opera to heal. And this wound is not only the physical
wound of Amfortas, with which, as we have seen, it is often associated
throughout; it is also, at a far more profound level, the 'wound' that
underlies the broad 'comic' structure of the opera, the wound that
represents the spiritually wrong state of affairs in which the drama opens.
That spiritual wound is in fact a rift, a separation of a community from its
own 'magic', a separation occasioned by sin.
And how is the wound to be healed? It must be healed, to borrow a
term from literary critics, by recuperation- that is, by working it through its
state of wrongness or incompletion into an effective rightness and
wholeness that can be the basis of an ongoing situation, and by such a
transformation to render the story's continuation unnecessary.38 On the
global level, that recuperation is achieved as described by Lewin; we expect
a gigantic cadence in D, prepared by a dominant in A; and the cadence in
D turns out to have a subdominant function in the ultimate tonic of A,,
which is eventually restored through a real subdominant cadence, Db - Ab.
Closer to the surface, the (E, F) motive articulates virtually every step
along the way from Amfortas's healing at bs 1029ff. to Parsifal's return of
the Spear and his ascending the steps to the altar at bs 1088ff. The 'letzte
Mal' so feared by the knights immediately before Amfortas's Prayer turns
out not to be so final after all, and instead it becomes the celebration of
redemption and the return of life to the brotherhood of the Grail. The
effective agent in this first step of the redemptive process is, of course,
Parsifal himself, who, in preparation for taking over Amfortas's office in
serving the communion, heals Amfortas's wound by touching it with the
now reclaimed Spear. At b. 1029, at Amfortas's final word, 'Gral', the bass
of the Grail motive, here in F, arpeggiates in descending motion the
painful and familiar F-C#-A augmented triad, with the explicit motion f'-e'
in the third trumpet. Parsifal's first words at b.1030 bring the A that is the
dominant of D, which is itself the substitute subdominant of the ultimate
tonic of At,.On his words, 'Nur eine Waffe taugt: die Wunde schliesst...'
his vocal line moves up as far as ft'; and on 'der Speer nur', he sings the
healing notes, e#' and e' - the very dyad that has, at various moments in the
opera, articulated the seduction of Amfortas by Kundry, his wound, his

254 MUSIC ANALYSIS 9:3, 1990


A REFERENTIAL DYAD IN PARSIFAL

suffering, his hope of release through the suffering of Christ, Parsifal's


entrance into the drama, his first feelings of pity, his near-seduction by
Kundry, his renunciation of her through his vision of Amfortas's pain, his
being himself 'recuperated', his own 'recuperating' of Kundry through
baptism and, now, his 'recuperating' of Amfortas through the return of the
Spear.
The powerful A major tonal centricity of bs 1035ff. masks the actual
complexity and networking of cross-references that characterizes the
cadence of bs 1034-5. The G# dominant in the second half of b. 1034 could
be, enharmonically, V7 or the global subdominant, Db (C?). Or, it could
also resolve, again enharmonically, up a whole tone to B%,the key which in
bs 599-602 of Act I substituted briefly for A at the first mention of the
hope of deliverance by means of the Spear and the Grail from Christ's
Crucifixion, and the key in which Parsifal enters the drama.
Of course, the cadence that really occurs in b.1035 is not a cadence to
Bb or Db, but one to A; and here Wagner follows solidly in the best
tradition of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert in the manner in
which he begins to resolve the E-F conflict out of the work. Here, in the
context of A major - which, we must remember, is only a preliminary
resolution - he recuperates the disturbing chromatic element that is central
to the tonal 'plot' of the piece by incorporating it into an essentially
resolveddiatonic situation (rather as Beethoven does with C? and F? in the
coda of the final movement of the Seventh Symphony). Thus, at bs
1035ff., where A major reigns in unquestioned diatonic supremacy, we get
the cello theme associated with Amfortas's pain (Act I, bs 264ff.), now
clearly in A major, a third higher than in its original appearance, so that
now the voice bearing the (E, F) dyad is not the bass but the third highest
voice of the accompanying harmonies; it thus moves up rather than down,
and indeed to a satisfying resolution to the tonic (see the second violin line,
doubled in the winds, e'-e#'-f#'-g#'-a'). Furthermore, the initial chord
accompanying the cello melody here is now a major triad rather than a
dissonant one, for the F that initially made the sonority augmented is now
'resolved' to or replaced by E (cf. the original appearance of the melody at
Act I, b.264).
However, it is clear that the resolution of the (E, F) dyad, at least
insofar as it is really resolved in this section in A major, is dependent less
upon linear direction than upon tonal and dramatic context - the
incorporation of the motive into a relatively unambiguous diatonic
structure and its continual coordination with 'resolving' words in the text.
Thus, it is the broad context of what we understand from the text, of what
we hear in the music (diatonicism, major triads, new orchestration and so
forth) and of what we see on stage (the healing of Amfortas, his face
shining 'with holy rapture'), along with what literally happens to the
motive, that leads us to interpret it as having been resolved. We
instinctively provide a similar interpretation for the remaining (E, F)

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PATRICK McCRELESS

juxtapositions in the A major passage at bs 1030-56: for Parsifal's e'-f on


'Sei heil!' (bs 1038-9), for the F-E in the bass of bs 1040-1 on the word
'entstihnt', for the inner-voice e2-f-f#2 on the crucial words 'Denn ich
verwalte nun dein Amt', for the same inner-voice progression, an octave
lower, on 'Gesegnet sei dein Leiden' in bs 1046-7, and for the retrograde
of the same progression, an octave lower yet, on 'dem zagen Thoren gab'
in bs 1054-5.
After the climactic cadence on D at b.1057, the (E, F) motive is
temporarily absent, as Parsifal's theme sounds out in a brilliantly diatonic
D major. Parsifal's first words after this cadence announce his return of the
Spear to the brotherhood of the Grail ('Den heil'gen Speer, ich bring ihn
euch zurtick! Oh! Welchen Wunder's hOchstes Gltick!'). The music here
resonates with referential chords, substitutions and (E, F) dyads in a
virtual riot of Wagnerian symbolism. The G( major triad at the beginning
of the Engelmotiv (b. 1064) recalls the G? in which Gurnemanz first told of
the angel's entrusting the Grail and Spear to the knights (Act I, bs 575-91,
614-22; we have not dealt at all in this analysis with the GC). This
transposition of the motive allows the juxtaposition of pure B%minor and A
major triads on the downbeats of bs 1065 and 1066, with the triads
separately or together bearing the accumulated weight of meaning
associated with Parsifal (B%), Amfortas's wound (A major triad in
association with f-e2 of upper voice) and Christ's passion (juxtaposition of
B%minor and A major triads, again with juxtaposition of f and e2). The
sequence (or substitution?) of the Engelmotiva semitone higher in bs 1067-
9 delays the literal appearance of F-e2 until b.1069; however, one is
tempted to speculate that the B minor and B%major triads of bs 1069 and
1070 in fact magically substitute for B%minor and A major triads, such that
f#2-f
is really a substitute for F-e2 - a not unlikely piece of wizardry, since
the juxtaposition of G and B triads in bs 1067 and 1068 strongly recall the
world of Klingsor, and the coordination of Klingsor's key of B minor with
the word 'Wunder' on the downbeat of b.1068 is particularly intriguing
(the 'bringing back of the magic'?).
Parsifal's final words, at bs 1070-88, bring the central symbols of the
drama - the wound, the Spear and the Grail - together for the last time:

Der deine Wunde durfteschliessen,


ihm seh' ich heil'gesBlut entfliessen
in Sehnsuchtnach dem verwandtenQuelle,
der dort fliesst in des GralesWelle.
Nicht soil der mehrverschlossensein!
Enthiilletden Gral,
Offnetden Schrein!

His words here are strictly consistent with the point of view elaborated
throughout the text of the drama, and correctly observed by Lewin: that is,

256 MUSIC ANALYSIS 9:3, 1990


A REFERENTIAL DYAD IN PARSIFAL

important as the wound and its healing are, they are secondary to the
return of the Spear, the 'obligatory structural gesture' of the drama. Thus
the Spear, not the wound, is the subject of Parsifal's final text. Although he
acknowledges in his opening words that the Spear has healed the wound
(he 'throws it away'), the text here really focuses on his macabre, but
symbolically essential, vision: he sees the Spear flowing with blood,39which
seeks to join the fountain that is its source, the Grail. Or, to render these
symbols as ideas, Parsifal, having healed the actual physical wound of
Amfortas with the Spear, can now move on to heal the more important
spiritual rift - the systemic disease of which the wound itself is but a
physical manifestation - that has given rise to the entire drama. The ritual
uniting of the blood of the Spear and that of the Grail returns the magic
that was lost (symbolically, the Spear) to its source - a source that is, by
the way, identified here as explicitly divine, and to which Parsifal himself is
subservient40 - and it is this reclamation of what was wrong, what was
incomplete, that permits him to order the uncovering of the Grail, the
opening of the shrine, and, as it were, to complete the dramatic structure.
Wagner's musical symbolism is also perfectly consistent. The (E, F)
motive, here as throughout the opera, symbolizes both the physical wound
and the spiritual distress that is at the root of the drama. The goal of the
music to which Parsifal's last words are set is to resolve the (E, F) out of
the tonal structure once and for all, within the broader context of resolving
the global tonal structure, which, of course, turns principally on the
'obligatory structural gesture' of returning the 'magical' D of the Spear to
the Abof the Grail.
The music of bs 1070-5 prefigures the structural D-A, motion of
bs 1084-7. Bars 1070-2 begin with the D minor/F major area in which we
perceived Amfortas's experience of pain (Act I, bs 264ff.); then they are
sequenced more or less literally up a minor third in bs 1073-5, which
unambiguously establish AX, and which create a melodic and harmonic
parallelism for the rhyme schliessen/entfliessen.There are a number of nice
tonal and motivic touches here. The string tremolos and the harmonic
ambience recall Act I, bs 592-3. At the same time, the word 'Wunde' is
realized melodically on a-ar, suggesting ever so fleetingly a resolution from
the A/D area associated with the wound to Db, the 'real' subdominant of
Ab. More obviously, the word 'schliessen' is set to the notes e-f; the wound
'closes' on (E, F) precisely as the harmony turns toward At.At bs 1069,
1072 and 1075, the ascending fourth motive (horns and clarinets)
associated with the Spear and usually in D or Db is sequenced through
statements beginning on f, abland b', such that 1) the successive first notes
of the three statements articulate a diminished triad that hints at the world
of Zauber that is here being reclaimed for the forces of good; 2) the
statement in Ab,is coordinated with the text describing the closing of the
wound; and 3) the first note of the three statements is f, the last e2 - a
relationship highlighted by Parsifal's ~ in b.1069 and his e2 in b.1075, with

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PATRICK McCRELESS

no higher notes in the interim. The first violins, which reiterate the motive
e'-f throughout bs 1072-3, achieve g' at the downbeat of b. 1074, at which
point they reverse direction and move back through f and fb' as the text
begins to describe the flowing of the Spear's blood back to the Grail.
Finally, the melodic notes to the rhyme schliessen/entfliessenarticulate the
motion e'-f -g'-a1', thereby bringing the (E, F) dyad into the realm of Ab
rather than that of the A of the actual healing of the wound (cf. bs 1035-9).
At the instant at which the blood on the Spear begins to flow towards
the Grail (b.1075), all the musical forces in the passage coalesce to press
towards the conclusive V-I cadence in Ab at bs 1087-8. Before considering
the many wonderful details of the passage, we should review briefly two
conflicting points of view concerning this cadence. Lorenz attributes
enormous structural weight to the dominant cadence and uses it, in
retrospect, to argue for his global tonal interpretation of Act III as
involving a progression from B%minor at the beginning (using his Riemann
function symbols Sp in At) to D minor, the Leittonwechselklangof B%,and
thus ultimately a kind of V/V in At, in Amfortas's Prayer, to the E? triad of
b.1078, to the A6 of bs 1088ff., thus giving the large-scale progression (in
Riemannian terms) Sp-(D)-[D]-T.41 Lewin, on the other hand, suggests
that this reading

... does extremeviolence to all the plagalfeaturesof the large-scaleD;


it surelygoes too far. Besides, his progressionis abstractlybizarre:his
(D) [D] tonicizes a large-scaleE6 which never appears,unless Lorenz
means the solitary El harmony of [b.1078] to carry the structural
dominantweightfor the entire second half of Act III.42

Going on to compare the relative merits of Lorenz's reading and his own
(that is, his identifying the movement in bs 1084-7 as the structural
D-A,
cadence, with plagal meaning), he notes:

But, just as Lorenz's dominantreadingfor D minor goes too far as a


large-scalephenomenon,so my plagalreadingof III, 1084-86 goes too
far as a local reading,insofaras it denies any force to the obviouslocal
reading(D+DD) [D]; T.43

My own view is that the 'local cadence' at bs 1084-8 is, as it is for


Lorenz, a global V-I cadence; but that, following Lewin, the tonal situation
of the opera also demands, and receives, a subdominant cadence, such that
Amfortas's Prayer is subdominant in function, but the cadence here both
dominant and global in effect.
Understanding how these cadences work requires a close look at the
bass line, beginning with its change of direction, in association with the
text, on the words 'Blut entfliessen' at bs 1074ff. Example 13 shows the
bass line of bs1074-88. The meaning of this bass line I take to be as

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Ex. 13 Bass Line of Parsifal, Act III, bs 1074-88

l699 l

follows. The ascending chromatic line from the E? of b.1074 attempts to


recuperate into Ab the crucial chromatic element (E, F), here spelt F6E-E?
(bs 1075-6). This attempt, however, is unsuccessful, because the line's
ascent towards Ab is interrupted by the D of b.1078. This D has two
important functions. First, it imparts a profound double meaning to the
word 'Quelle': the blood is returning to its source, the Grail (in Ab), but the
real-life source of that blood was Christ's (and by extension, Amfortas's)
suffering (in D). This turn to D in b.1078 is foreshadowed by the A major
triad and the pungent e2-E? dissonance in b. 1076, the spelling of bs 1076-7
and the V2 Of D in b. 1077; it also makes possible a last harmonic statement
(in b.1078) of the (E, F) dyad in the context of D minor. Second, the turn
to D here, along with the D minor spelling of bs 1076-8, makes it clear
that the bass motion, although its long-range motion began on A,, involves
for the time being not a stepwise ascent to A,, but an ascent to A (as
substitute for Ab).
At b. 1080 the D is adjusted to E6, which functions as a dominant of the
At,(b.1081), which in turn by its arrival completes the long-range motion
from E6 to Ab in bs 1074-81. After b.1081 the bass motion towards the
structural cadence is more straightforward, with alternate bars beginning at
b. 1081 articulating the motion A-&F-F-EV-Ab.
The upper parts of bs 1075-81, like the bass, begin a surge towards the
arrival of the Abharmony in b. 1081, but they do not achieve resolution to
Ab. The Spear motive, b'-cI2-d 2-e2, of bs 1075-6, reverses its direction
when it reaches its highest note, just as the first violins did in bs 1072-4. At
this e2 of b.1076, Parsifal's vocal line merges with the melody that began
with the Spear motive in the preceding bar. The melody hovers around e12
and d2, the semitones on either side of eV2,then descends in what could
easily become a Schenkerian structural descent in bs 1078-81, except that
the semitones surrounding eV do not resolve to it, and the expected ab'of
b.1081 is replaced by a melodic b'1 while a seventh is added to the
resolving Abharmony. Nevertheless, Parsifal's e2 and d2 resolve to the
lower-octave ebin b. 1081, preparing for the resolution of the same notes in
the correct register in bs 1087-8.
More to the point with respect to the analytical view of the present
essay, bs 1075-88 finally purge the troublesome (E, F) dyad from the
opera. This purging happens in two stages - first in the orchestra (bs 1078-
80) and then in the vocal line (bs 1083-8). First let us look at the
orchestral resolution. We have seen that bs 1076 and 1078 reinvoke the

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dyad in a musical context that suggests sin and suffering (Heilandsklage,A


major triad, key of D minor) - indeed, all that has been wrong in the opera
and that it is Parsifal's duty here to correct as he returns the Spear and
unites it with the Grail. The ultimate purging of the (E, F) dyad occurs in
Violin 2, bs 1078-80. In the second half of b.1078, the second violins
introduce the pitch f' in the harmonic context of D minor. The f' is
suspended to b.1079, where it is resolved to e' on the second beat in the
temporary (substitutional) context of A minor. On the third beat of
b.1079, the f returns, but this time its resolution is corrected to eb' at the
downbeat of b.1080 - just as the harmony turns to Ab. The f'-e' of b.1079
marks the last orchestral occurrence in the opera (with one exception, bs
1133-35, which is clearly only a reminiscence) of the (E, F) dyad, either as
a linear adjacency or as a simultaneity. The meaning of the textual and
musical symbolism here I take to be that, at the moment when the blood
from the magic (D) Spear flows into the Holy (Ab) Grail, then the (E, F)-
sin that brought about the (E, F)-wound can be recuperated or redeemed
by the sacrificial (E, F)-act of Christ, because (if we may paraphrase
Christian theology, particularly the Incarnation, which is surely realized
artistically by Wagner here), the redemptive act (E, F) of the Redeemer
works only because he takes on the (E, F) suffering of humankind at a
human level, thereby exalting humankind to a divine (Eb, F!) level. In
Parsifal what this means is that (E, F) suffering and (E, F) redemption are
'joined by a single head', and that only through the 'mitleidvoll' sacrificial
act of Christ, as experienced (Mitleid), understood (Wissen) and acted
upon (Macht) by Parsifal, can the brotherhood of the Grail be uplifted
from its (E, F) condition of sin and suffering to the divine [(E,, F) in A6]
condition appropriate to the brotherhood of the Grail, the 'dedicated
society, serving the Grail and representing a sphere spiritually exalted
above the normal realm of life'.
The purging of (E, F) from the vocal line in bs 1082-8 occurs as Parsifal
utters his last ritual words:

Nicht soil der mehrverschlossensein;


Enthiilletden Gral,
Offnetden Schrein!

The final vocal juxtaposition of E and F in the opera is brought into relief
by Parsifal's e' and f of bs 1083 and 1086. Symbolically, the brotherhood
must never let the Grail be verschlossen(e'); they must uncover it (f). Or,
in musical terms, in the Ab of the Temple of the Grail, they must never
have a (chromatic) condition of E (M6above 5, or altered 5 passing to 6)
relating to F, but a (diatonic) condition of EE ('8ffnet den Schrein!')
relating to F.
Simultaneously with the (E, F) resolution in these bars, the following
resolutions take place as well. First, the idea of surrounding eb1with the

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semitones above and below, introduced but not fully resolved in bs 1076-
81, is realized fully here in Parsifal's vocal line with the e' of b.1083, the d'
of b.1085 and the eblof bs 1087-8. The Spear motive of bs 1075-6, b2-c2•-
d2_-e2, is repatriated to the diatonic world of At through the lower
contrapuntal line embedded in Parsifal's melody in bs 1082-8: b'-c?'-d'-e1'.
Finally, in the harmonic realm, the descending bass line AL-GG-F-E?
(alternate bars beginning with b. 1081) spins off descending thirds from its
first three notes to bring 1) a harmonic statement of the semitones above
and below E,, in the E major and D major triads of bs 1082 and 1084; 2)
Lewin's structural plagal D in b.1084; and 3) Lorenz's structural dominant
in b. 1087.
Having been structurally purged from the score in Parsifal's final ritual
text, the (E, F) motive returns only once more, and then as a brief
reminiscence. It arises at bs 1133-5, just as the sopranos' final a2 dies
away. Here the subdominant harmony, Db, now finally prolonged, moves
for a single bar to A minor harmony (cf. Act I, bs 607-8), as Kundry - she
in whom the (E, F) world of sin was embodied - sinks lifeless to the
ground. The magic has returned to the communion service, and the (E, F)
dyad has been recuperated into the diatonic world of the Grail.

V HISTORICAL RAMIFICATIONS

In the course of our analysis some readers may have wondered how
Wagner's use of a single pitch-class dyad for both motivic-referential and
tonal-structural purposes fits into his oeuvre as a whole. The question is a
difficult one, and one that I am unable to answer fully; but it is
nevertheless relevant and intriguing, and worthy of a brief discussion here.
Surely the course of Wagner's career from Der fliegende Hollander to
Parsifal articulates, on the one hand, the composer's gaining progressively
tighter large-scale control over his pitch materials and, on the other, his
tendency to use a progressively more chromatic surface. From the point of
view of tonal organization, his great achievement in the early parts of The
Ring - up to and including the second act of Siegfried, after the
composition of which he abandoned the cycle to write first Tristan and
then Die Meistersinger- was to develop a global means of tonal structure
whereby the referential use of keys, with the help of a text, made possible
the coherent use of all twelve major-minor keys in a single monumental
work, such that the tonal 'background' was controlled not by the linear
unfolding of a single triad but by the choice, based on dramatic
considerations, of various of the twelve keys for certain symbolic purposes.
All this worked perfectly well - indeed, it works for the most part according
to the dictates of Opera and Drama - except that when, under the influence
of Liszt, he began to use a far more chromatic surface in Siegfried,he was
unable to justify surface chromaticism with background structure, and in

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PATRICK McCRELESS

the first two acts of that opera the diatonicism of music such as the Forging
Songs and the Forest Music coexists awkwardly with the chromatic music
of Mime, Alberich and Fafner.
One reason why the chromaticism in Tristan makes such intuitively
better tonal sense is that Wagner, rather than using just keys as his primary
tonal and dramatic symbols, as he had in the past, also used a single,
tonally ambiguous chord as a crucial dramatic and tonal symbol. In doing
so he took the step of attributing large-scale tonal meaning and dramatic
weight to an essentially chromatic entity, rather than reserving that
meaning and weight for diatonic elements; and he thus thrust
chromaticism far deeper into the structural fabric of the opera as a whole.
An opera could still move from one strongly established key at the
beginning to another at the end, as in the earlier parts of The Ring, but the
whole structure works much better because the chromatic elements - and
one chromatic element in particular - plant the seeds of future tonal
growth early on, and then function at a deep level as a fulcrum on which to
turn an act from one key at the beginning to another at the end.44
The ultimate source of Wagner's use of the (E, F) dyad in Parsifal is
probably the Tristan chord, for the two share the essential features of
being 1) a usually untransposed set of pitch classes, 2) tonally ambiguous,
3) capable of resolution to structural diatonic keys in the opera, and
4) heavily weighted with symbolic meaning in the drama. A closer source is
perhaps the same chord in Gatterddmmerung,where, in the Norns' Scene
(Prologue to Act I), the F-Af-CV-E?chord that is so interwoven into the EF
minor music of the spinning of the rope of time is eventually transposed up
a semitone, to F?-A-C-E, as the rope breaks at the end of the scene, where
the music turns to B minor, so that it functions as a fulcrum in the
'double-tonic complex' EW/B.45With the chord in Gdtterddmmerung there is
added to the four features noted above for the Tristan chord the crucial
additional element of a structural semitone transposition, which even more
explicitly looks forward to Parsifal.
To be sure, both the Tristanchord and the referential chord of the same
type (and at the same pitch level!) in Gotterddmmerung seem in a way more
obvious and less hidden than the (E, F) dyad in Parsifal. Yet I would
maintain that there is a genetic relationship connecting the three, not only
because of how they function, but also because, ironically enough, they all
three involve the same chord, F-Af-CV-E6or its enharmonic equivalents. It
would be dangerous to attribute too much significance to the fact that the
Tristanchord, the chord of the Norns' spinning and the initial chord of the
Kiss in Parsifal are the same. But, coincidence or not, to trace the manifold
implications of this single chord in the three operas is to trace Wagner's
growing ability fully to integrate chromaticism into all structural levels of
the tonal language of the later nineteenth century.

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NOTES

1. Hugo Riemann, System der musikalischen Rhythmik und Metrik (Leipzig,


1903), p.14.
2. Ernst Kurth, RomantischeHarmonik und ihre Krise in WagnersTristan (Berlin,
1920); Alfred Lorenz, Das Geheimnisder Form bei Richard Wagner,Vol. 4. Der
musikalischeAufbau von Richard Wagners Parsifal (Berlin, 1933), pp.14-15,
29ff.
3. The model of comic structure used here is derived from Northrop Frye,
Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), pp.163-
71.
4. Helen M.Mustard and Charles E. Passage, Wolframvon Eschenbach:Parzival
(New York: Knopf, 1961), p.vii.
5. Plato, Phaedo, trans. B. Jowett, in The PortablePlato (New York, 1948), p. 194.
6. This relationship is pointed out in Lorenz, Parsifal, p.125.
7. Ibid., p.130.
8. The best discussion of Wagner's adaptation of Wolfram's Parzival into the
opera libretto is Lucy Beckett, Richard Wagner: Parsifal (Cambridge: CUP
1981), pp.7-17. For the important letters to Mathilde Wesendonk, see
Richard Wagner und Mathilde Wesendonk, ed. W. Golther (Berlin, 1909),
especially pp.52-3, 120, 148, 242-4.
9. For this and many further examples I must refer the reader directly to the
score rather than reproduce the lengthy excerpt.
10. The ascending fourth motive of the Spear is introduced into the opera in the
a,-bb-c'-d~'of b.4 in the Prelude to Act I. Gurnemanz's narration of how it
was lost begins in Db, yet its return to the Temple of the Grail by Parsifal in
Act III, bs 1057ff., is in D. The relation of Dbto D with respect to the Spear,
and of both of the above to the opera's central key of Ab, which represents the
other primary visual symbol of the work, will take on progressively more
structural importance as we proceed.
11. See, for example, the recurrence of the motive at Act III, bs 548-53, as
Kundry washes Parsifal's feet.
12. It is a later, transposed appearance of this extraordinary set of parallel fifths to
which Wagner referred in a comment recorded in Cosima's diary on 21
December 1878, as he was composing Act III. The diary reads: 'I [Cosima]
did not yet know Gurnemanz's joy when he recognizes the spear. [Wagner:]
"He howls for joy, and the parallel fifths I've got there, you'll be amazed!"'
Cosima Wagner's Diaries, Vol. II: 1878-83, ed. and annotated by Martin
Gregor-Dellin and Dietrich Mack, trans. Geoffrey Skelton (New York, 1977),
p.235. For the musical passage see Act III, bs 334ff. Incidentally, at such a
climactic moment, it is no surprise that, despite the key of C? major, two
occurrences of the (E, F) motive are woven into the passage.
13. David Lewin, 'Amfortas's Prayer to Titurel and the Role of D in Parsifal: The
Tonal Spaces of the Drama and the Enharmonic Co/B', 19th-CenturyMusic,
Vol. 7, No. 3 (April 1984), pp.336-49.

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PATRICK McCRELESS

14. Parsifal, pp.53-4.


15. For the concept of the Thorenspruchas a large-scale refrain I am indebted to
Robert Bailey. According to Bailey, four of the five 'movements' of Act I are
articulated by the Thorenspruch:the first at bs 320ff., preparing the orchestral
transition at b.365; the second at b.728, before Parsifal's entrance; the third
by the Verwandlungsmusik,not the Thorenspruch,at bs 1106ff.; the fourth at
b.1404; and the fifth at the end of the act.
16. The translations here and elsewhere are from the Schirmer vocal score.
17. Lorenz, Parsifal, pp.57-8.
18. Cosima Wagner'sDiaries, Vol. 2, p.18. Entry of 11 January 1878.
19. It is to passages such as this in the Amfortasklagethat Wagner's comment to
Cosima in early 1878 (see previous note) must have referred. The Peters
Edition of the orchestral score of Parsifal, which includes annotations added
from Wagner's own performance suggestions in 1882, inserts in these bars
(1316-22) the direction, 'Parsifal steht so, daB3er Amfortas sehen kann. Er
folgt desser Gebaren mit starrer Aufmerksamkeit.'
20. A point noted in Lorenz, Parsifal, p.188.
21. 'A Motivic Problem in Wagner's Parsifal', paper delivered at a meeting of the
American Musicological Society, Louisville, Kentucky, 20 October 1983.
22. Lewin, 'Amfortas's Prayer' pp.337-9.
23. Ibid., p.339.
24. For an interesting paper on similar substitutions in the music of Prokofiev and
Shostakovich, see Richard Bass, 'Prokofiev's Technique of Chromatic
Displacement', Music Analysis, Vol. 7, No. 2 (July 1988), pp.197-214.
Although a direct historical link to Wagner seems unlikely, substitution crops
up as a common compositional technique in the music of Russian composers
in the first half of the twentieth century.
25. 'Amfortas's Prayer', pp.339-40.
26. Ibid., p.341
27. Ibid., p.341.
28. Ibid., p.341.
29. Ibid., p.342.
30. Ibid., p.343.
31. Ibid., pp.341-2.
32. For Lorenz's view, see Parsifal, p.182.
33. 'Amfortas's Prayer', p.347.
34. Ibid., p.347. Perhaps the loss of magic in the realm of the Grail explains the
somewhat overly conventional C major music that brings us into the Temple
of the Grail after the Verwandlungsmusikin Act I. Wagner might be making
this music deliberately conventional, and even slightly banal, in keeping with
the real loss of spiritual health that afflicts the brotherhood here. The
technique recalls Schubert's ability to mock the narrowmindedness of some of
the bourgeois figures that he portrays, as in 'Am Feierabend' and 'Der Jaiger'
from Die schaneMillerin.
35. Ibid., p.349.

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36. Ibid., p.348.


37. Ibid., p.349.
38. See, for example, Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics (Ithaca, 1975),
pp.178ff.
39. The blood-tipped Spear is, of course, an element taken by Wagner from
Wolfram, although it is imbued with considerably more symbolic significance.
See Beckett, Parsifal, pp.16-17.
40. In this respect the text supports Beckett's thoroughgoing Christian inter-
pretation of Parsifal. See ibid., pp. 129ff.
41. Lorenz, Parsifal, p.182.
42. 'Amfortas's Prayer', p.343.
43. Ibid., p.343.
44. See Robert Bailey's explanation of his term 'double-tonic complex' with
respect to Tristan in Richard Wagner. Prelude and Transfigurationfrom Tristan
and Isolde (New York: Norton, 1987), pp.121ff. For a detailed analysis of
how the referential F-A -C chord works in the Norns' Scene of
Gitterddmmerung, see my -E,
'Schenker and the Norns', in Analyzing Opera, ed.
Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1989).
45. See Robert Bailey, 'The Structure of the Ring and Its Evolution', 19th-
CenturyMusic, Vol. 1 (Summer 1977).

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