Tristan & Isodel

The legend of Tristan and Isodel goes like this….Tristan the most trusted Arthurian knight of King Mark was sent to Ireland to escort Isodel for a royal marriage. Isodel’s mum was a sorceress who dabbled in white magic. In the olden days there was no such thing as marriage in the name of love, marriages were a sort of geo political accomodation to unite warring states and since King Mark was an old man. Isodel’s mum concocted a love potion to seal the union between her young daughter and the vintaged King. During the long voyage back to Cornwall. Both Tristan and Isodel fell madly in love. One night Isodel drank the love potion and kissed Tristan and gave him some…..in the morning when Bergaine, the lady in waiting to Isodel discovered the emptied bottle. She was horrified and ran to the upper deck to demand and explanation from the young knight. But before she could speak Tristan placed his fingers to his lips and pointed to her mistress who was still asleep in his arms. But Bergaine was so distraught that she whispered in a tragic tone of finality….do you realise that you have drunk the death of my dear lady and yourself. The heavens upon hearing this treachery thundered and skies darkened and the sea became unsettled. Tristan looked out beyond the horizon and replied, if you mean that from this moment I will be casted out of Cornwall as a traitor…..this I accept in the name of love. Bergaine sensing that the young knight did not fully understand the implications of both of them consuming the love potion went on to impress her point…but before she could commence. Tristan took out his dagger ran a bloodline on the palm of his hand and placed it on his heart as a testament of his resolve and said, ‘I know what I have done….if you mean that I will suffer from this moment the eternal pain of love for your lady…that too I fully accept in the name of love.’ Looking up at the Godless skies that thundered even more loudly as if angered by his admission of treachery. Tristan went on to say ‘and if this means I am condemned to suffer eternal damnation and pain in the hottest place in hell, that too I fully accept in the name of love.’

So began the legend of Tristan and Isodel….it would seem. The problem lies in the Tristan chord at the very beginning. Where F,B,D# and G# notes seem to just start from the middle only to hang followed by a series of more incomplete chords that do not seem to have any discernable beginning, middle or end. As if it was composed by a child who doesnt seem to understand the sonic convention of how a great opus should begin. I play the violin, somewhat badly I regret to admit, but I have always struggled to understand the beginning. When Wagner first played it to a bewildered audience…it might not seem unconventional today, but that is only because ours is an acquired taste that has been contaminated by pop culture, but at that time, the harmonic incompleteness was hardly typical as to how the opening stanza would be expected to just proceed harmoniously….it was only much later in my life when I read more about Wagner that I realised his genius as he was writing a story with chords and what he was trying to convey with his series of unresolved dissonances which should be immideately resolved to a happy resolution with consonances was the tragedy of the emotional state of the characters…here you have the contradiction of pain with pleasure, love with hate, life with death….pure genuis of story telling.