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Updated: June 29, 2025
The blending of the death-theme with one of the love-themes, when Isolda speaks of love's goddess, "the queen who grants unquailing hearts ... life and death she holds in her hands," is one of the miracles of music stern beauty made up of defiance of fate and careless voluptuousness.
There are a dozen love-themes and two death-themes and a great number of what in a symphony would be called subsidiary themes. I shall not for the moment discuss the full significance of the themes as subsequently unfolded: it suffices now to note the use they are put to in this prelude. No melody ever sang more clearly of the sea; no melody was ever less like a sailor's chanty.
This is perhaps Wagner's greatest piece of music; and certainly his loveliest is Tristan's description of the ship sailing over the ocean with Isolda, where the gently swaying figure of the horns, taken from one of the love-themes, and the delicious melody given to the voice, go to make an effect of richness and tenderness which can never be forgotten.
At the last he sees Isolda throwing down the torch as she did in Act II, and as darkness comes over his eyes we hear the same music combined with the love-themes. There is only one thing of the kind to match Isolda's lament Donna Anna's grief over her father's body in Don Giovanni. The rest of the act is largely made up of music which has been heard before.
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