Well, the sky is the limit today! We have two commissioned squares to show you. First, Castle on a Cloud from Les Miserables. This is for Joy, whose 11 year old granddaughter is taking singing lessons and just loves them. Where “nobody shouts or talks too loud, not in my castle on a cloud”, it’s a safe place where love is all there is, for Cosette, and for a hundred other boys and girls.
We decided we
needed a real-looking castle – not just a fairy castle from Disneyland – but
one with trees and turrets and ghosts and secret passages. And we tucked it
into one of our favourite sky fabrics, tinted in our anniversary coral hue. We hope you like it, Joy!
The second
square today is for Sophie, who wanted a reflection on the Liebestod, which I
understand literally means “love death”, but to those in the know refers most
often to the final aria in Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. Isolde is singing in
rapture over Tristan’s dead body, and at first glance this is of course very
odd! The text calls us to look into Tristan’s eyes – “how they fondly open” ---
“how he smiles” and then we get it: she is quite simply in a trance, lapsing
into the utmost, unconscious joy of being joined with him in death.
What captivated
Sophie about this single aria, however, is how beautiful it is as a resolution
to all the struggles in the opera. And it was at this point I learned about
“The Tristan Chord”! According to Professor Wiki, this is a chord made up of
the notes F, B, D# and G# (illustrated in the chord below). More generally, it
can be any chord that consists of these same intervals: augmented fourth,
augmented sixth, and augmented ninth about a root. In themselves, these notes
are not that unusual – and form a half-diminished seventh chord. But what is
unusual is its relationship to the implied key of its surroundings.
Now I am not a
musicologist, and I only just begin to understand the significance of this.
However, I can understand why when this was first heard in 1865, it was
innovative, disorienting and daring. I also understand that I am yearning to
hear the resolution of this chord but I am denied it throughout the entire
opera. The Tristan Chord is first heard in the opening phrase of opera, (Tristan’s
leitmotif) and this dissonance is sustained even through the love duet! We don’t
get to any kind of resting point until the heroine’s dying breaths at the end
of her aria – I guess that’s another interpretation of her “utmost joy” – ours
too!
Here is a
quote from Alan Shapiro, from his short reflection on “Difficulty and Ease in
Richard Wagner’s Liebestod” which further explained it for me:
“The
climax of the Liebestod is magnificent; there is a feeling of tremendous
achievement, of soaring and freedom. It seems all obstacles are
overcome—only there is this amazing thing: the highest note, a C#, is outside
the chord, and there is a terrific feeling of dissatisfaction, as it wants to
pull back down to the B, the home key. Then the orchestra and Isolde
gradually descend and the music comes to an E minor chord—a moment of
darkness. Wagner seems to be saying, “In your achievement, don’t forget
the struggle.” Finally, after Isolde’s last notes—an octave leap from F#
to high F#—a single oboe bravely plays a high D#, the sweet major third of the
key, the full orchestra joins it, and the music resolves on the pure B major
chord it has been aiming for from the beginning. It is because the
struggle is honored that the achievement is both believable and so satisfying.” Alan
Shapiro, Aesthetic Realism Associate, Jazz Pianist, Music Educator
I find
this specific and clear and helpful. There seems to be an enormous amount of
analysis about this one chord on the internet, and how it is the starting point
for the modernist disintegration of tonality, etc. I can’t comment on that but I do
think it is enormously effective and dramatic, and I am glad I have learned
about it. What a fascinating journey this quilt is taking me on! However - back to the particular square at hand. I asked Sophie what image this extraordinary musical gem conjures up
for her, and said that it’s like the sun suddenly breaking through the storm
clouds. Ah! So here it is:
Thank you, Sophie, and see you all soon!
Susan
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