- Bartels, Ulrich. Analytisch enstehungsgeschichtliche Studien zu Wagners “Tris-
tan und Isolde” anhand der Kompositionsskizze des zweiten und dritten
Aktes. Cologne: Studio, 1995. 3v. ISBN 3-8956-4009-3. ML410 .W15 B27.
Not seen. Presents text, sketches, and facsimiles. - Groos, Arthur. “Appropriation in Wagner’s TristanLibretto.” In Reading
Opera(#218), 12–33.
The libretto was first published in Leipzig in 1859, one year before the score
and six years before the Munich premiere. Wagner’s view of the Tristan
romance as told by Gottfried von Strassburg was very negative. He used it only
as a stimulus, changing it from an external telling of events to an internal
account of feeling. In this respect his pronouncements in Oper und Drama
matched his actual compositional method. Groos labels Wagner’s approach to
the original story as “appropriation” rather than adaptation. The article con-
cludes with a similar study of Parsifal. - Zuckerman, Elliott. The First Hundred Years of “Tristan.” New York: Colum-
bia U.P., 1964. xiv, 235p. ML410 .W1 Z8.
Deals with various topics: sources of the music and of the legend, the impact of
early performances, Nietzsche, influence on symbolist poets and novelists,
20th-century analytic approaches. An appendix gives the premiere dates of
Tristanand the other operas in major cities. Notes but no bibliography.
Expansive index of names, titles, and topics. - Knapp, Raymond. “The Tonal Structure of Tristan und Isolde: A Sketch.” MR
45 (1984): 11–25.
The macroproblem for analysts is that the three acts end in three keys: C
major, D major, and B major. How does this tonal motion support the drama?
Knapp works out a plan that is based on the tonalities of the prelude, where
the elements occur “in a modulating but tonally focussed theme” of love mov-
ing to death. Although the original puzzle is left unsolved, there are interesting
observations here. Support is offered for Mitchell’s analysis of the “Tristan
chord” (#2075). - McKinney, Bruce. “The Case against Tonal Unity in Tristan.” Theory and
Practice8 (1983): 62–67.
The “case” is essentially based on Wagner’s statements, not on the musical
conditions in the opera, but the author does stress that “dissonances are not
allowed to resolve,” which limits the element of tonality in the structure. - Burnstein, L. Poundie. “A New View of Tristan: Tonal Unity in the Prelude
and Conclusion to Act I.” Theory and Practice8 (1983): 15–42.
While the analytic tradition assigns the prelude to the key of A minor, Burn-
stein reads it in “C major alone,” holding that A does not resolve any signifi-
cant harmonic tensions and thus cannot be the tonic.
Richard Wagner 387