An Introduction to the Music of Parsifal
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Treatment of the Thematic Material
 This music which is in perpetual
evolution is probably the most highly personal musical invention
of Wagner - it places the emphasis for the first time on uncertainty, on
indetermination. It represents a rejection of immutability, an aversion to
definiteness in musical phrases as long as they have not exhausted their potential
for evolution and renewal. 
[Pierre Boulez on Parsifal]
 ince the thematic material of Parsifal is the subject of a separate article it will not be discussed at length here. A few
important points are worth noting, however. There are thematic elements in the music
of Parsifal that might be regarded as Leitmotives, i.e. recurring musical
ideas that are encountered as presentiments of events in the future, or as
reminiscences of events in the past. (It is possible for the occurrence of a motif to
be both at once: as when Gurnemanz tells the recruits about the seduction of
Amfortas, we hear the teasing motif associated with the Kiss, that will be
heard again when it is Parsifal's turn to be seduced. ). Many of the extended
Leitmotives to be found in the score turn out, on closer examination, to be
complexes built up from basic motives, each consisting of only a few notes.
In fact, there are five kinds of thematic element in this motivic web of evolution
and renewal:
- complexes, such as Kundry's Curse or Nature's
Healing
- main subjects, of which there are few, including
Faith, Holy Grail and Prophecy
- basic motives, to which we can apply such labels as
Suffering, Yearning, Nature and Bells
- characteristic intervals, such as the tritone associated with
Kundry
- characteristic chords, such as the added sixth chord
associated with Parsifal.
number of commentators on the work have observed that it is entirely made out of a
small number of closely-related motives. They are related either by common elements
(e.g. complexes sharing basic motives and characteristic intervals), or by their
common origin in one or more thematic elements heard earlier in the work. Even the
monody that opens the work, which I have referred to elsewhere as the
Grundthema, is itself a complex which is, at the higher level of structure,
composed of three short motives that will later develop their distinct associations,
and at the lower level made up of a broken chord (that of Parsifal) followed by a
number of tiny melodic cells that will be combined and developed later. Several of
the extended themes (e.g. Prophecy) are revealed fragment by fragment until,
at the appropriate moment, they are heard complete and connected to the dramatic
action. Where there is contrast, it is mainly provided by the development of
chromatic variants of diatonic originals, or by changes of rhythm.
Mediation
 ach
of the four principal characters has his or her own motif (although Gurnemanz, as a
neutral narrator, does not seem to have one of his own). These Leitmotives, together
with those associated with objects, events and abstractions, blend into one another
according to the relationships between the characters. This is deliberate; in this
music Wagner was concerned with mediation. Whereas in earlier works he had used
strong contrasts, he was now concerned with shadings, as of grey between the poles of
black and white.
I recognise now that the characteristic fabric of my
music (always of course in the closest association with the poetic design), which
my friends regard as so new and significant, owes its construction above all to the
extreme sensitivity which guides me in the direction of mediating and providing an
intimate bond between all the different moments of transition that separate the
extremes of mood. I should now like to call my most delicate and profound art the
art of transition, for the whole fabric of my art is made up of such transitions:
all that is abrupt and sudden is now repugnant to me; it is often unavoidable and
necessary, but even then it may not occur unless the mood has been clearly prepared
in advance, so that the suddenness of the transition appears to come as a matter of
course.
 agner referred to and exploited the operatic tradition by making use of
traditional operatic forms. It is possible to identify accompanied recitative,
arioso, ensembles and even strophic passages in Parsifal. The traditional
forms, however, are scarcely recognisable, since Wagner transcended their
limitations.
 he
German musicologist Alfred Lorenz analysed the forms of Wagner's works in his
Das Geheimnis der Form bei Richard
Wagner. In the later works, Lorenz found many examples of bar form
(stollen; stollen; abgesang), as described by David in the first act of Der
Meistersinger von Nürnberg, often on a large scale. According to Lorenz, the
second act of Parsifal is constructed of nineteen musico-poetic periods,
each of which has its own tonality. In terms of bar form, on the architectural scale,
the first Stollen (periods 1 to 7) ends with the disappearance of Klingsor; the
second Stollen (periods 8 to 12) ends at the reappearance of Kundry; and the scene
between Kundry and Parsifal forms the Abgesang. Since it returns, in periods 18 and
19, to the tonality of b minor (associated with Klingsor,
and therefore the tonality of period 1), and since material from earlier in the act
returns in reminiscence during these two periods, this act can also be seen as an
example of arch form. As can the entire opera, through the parallelism of acts 1 and
3, a structural aspect that Parsifal shares with Tristan und
Isolde.
Diatonic and Chromatic
In greatly simplified terms, the use of musical
motives in Parsifal is governed and conditioned by the contrast of
chromaticism and diatonicism: the chromaticism that conveys the deceptions of
Klingsor's kingdom also expresses the anguish of Amfortas, while the expressive
range of the diatonicism reaches from the naive simplicity of Parsifal's motif to
the sublimity of the Grail themes. As categories of musical technique, chromaticism
and diatonicism also have an allegorical significance: the very fact that two
motives are both chromatic - an insignificant characteristic in itself, because it
is so general - creates a dramatic association between them. The connection between
deception and suffering, between the magic garden and Amfortas' lamentation, is as
unmistakable as, in the diatonic sphere, that between the naivety of the "pure
fool" and the Grail kingship that awaits Parsifal at the end of his path to
recognition. The fact that Wagner based the differentiations and ramifications of
the dramatic argument, which have caused so much torment to exegetes, on so simple,
so obvious a contrast, which holds good for the stage action as well as for the
music, is the proof of his theatrical genius.
he
domain of the Grail, which is physically the location of the first and last acts of
the drama, is predominantly diatonic; whereas that of the magician Klingsor, which is
the physical location of the second act, is predominantly chromatic. Parsifal's
motivic group is at the diatonic extreme; Klingsor's motivic group is at the opposite
extreme of chromaticism. The music of Amfortas and Kundry lies between these
poles.
 n
the domain of Klingsor (or when Gurnemanz refers to it) we hear, in minor keys,
chromatic versions of Leitmotives that were originally diatonic and predominantly in
major keys. Consider the use of the Redemption theme (motif 1A) in
Parsifal's outburst after the Kiss. This kind of variation according to context is
not just restricted to the melodic and rhythmic elements. This also applies to
another important element: the transformation music that accompanies Parsifal's
access to the Grail Castle in each of the outer acts. At the climax of the second act
prelude, there is a distorted parody of the transformation music that takes the
listener into Klingsor's distorted version of the Grail Castle. Like the reflections
in Klingsor's mirror, all that is found in his castle is a distorted, sterile
reflection of the domain of the Grail.
lthough there are some triadic passages in the score, there are also passages in
which diminished seventh chords are prominent. One such chord is the Tristan
chord, which is heard for example in the second act, at the moment of the Kiss, and
other diminished seventh chords are the basic element of Parsifal's subsequent
outburst, from Amfortas! Die Wunde! to Hier, hier!. Later, it is a
diminished seventh chord (B flat, D flat, E and G) that dominates the desolate music
of the third act prelude. Both harmonically and melodically, Wagner's consistent use
of minor thirds and tritones to some extent replaces the traditional triadic
harmonies based on perfect intervals.
Fig. 1 Cadences
Tonality
everal commentators have noted that there are relatively few unequivocal cadences
in the work. Note, shown above, the outburst of diatonic harmonies, with three very
definite B major cadences, after Gurnemanz hails the pure
one as the new Grail King. Obviously something extremely important is happening at
this moment. It is followed by the 26 bars during which Kundry is baptised. Then, as
Kundry weeps, the music reaches the remote key of b flat
minor (the tonal center of the prelude to this act), returning to B major for Parsifal's motif in its final development. In his essay in
the Cambridge Opera Handbook on Parsifal,
Arnold Whittall has observed:
It is clear that Wagner's essential musico-dramatic
technique is not merely a matter of preparing and then evading cadences, but an
almost ironic reversal of traditional cadential function. The fewer the points of
diatonic cadential resolution, the greater their structural significance might
appear to be. But if some of these resolutions are outside of the prevailing
tonality ... they resolve nothing; they rather enhance the prevailing instability,
and create an even stronger contrast with the truly structural cadences which
do confirm prevailing tonal tendencies.
 ot
only does Wagner sometimes seem to be evading cadences, but also avoiding the
appearance of the implied tonic, e.g. by establishing the dominant of an unheard
tonic. As for example in the first scene with Kundry, where the shifting chromatic
harmonies at times suggest an underlying b minor, although
the tonic chord is never heard. The emphasis on keys a tritone apart is one factor
that has frustrated attempts to analyse this music with the techniques appropriate to
sonatas and symphonies, including Schenkerian analysis. Listen, for example, to the
change from D flat to A major at
the end of Gurnemanz's narration in the first act (durch hell erschauter
Wortezeichen Male ) and the equally powerful shift from D
major to A flat major on the word Gral in
Parsifal's final phrase (Enthullet den Gral, öffnet den Schrein! ) at
the end of the work.
Orchestration
n
the orchestration of Parsifal, Wagner returned to the quadruple woodwind he
had used in the Ring, but omitted the so-called Wagner tubas, bass trumpet and
contrabass trombone. In his scoring of the work, Wagner seems to have returned to the
blocked instrumentation of his earlier operas, rather than the integrated scoring of
Tristan and Die Meistersinger, where melodic lines pass seamlessly
from one instrument to another and textures are built with instruments from different
divisions of the orchestra. Parsifal actually begins with this kind of
orchestration, but when the motives of Holy Grail (motif 2) and
Faith (motif 3) appear, they are played by different instrumental groups in
turn. The block-like scoring is less evident in the more contrapuntal passages, such
as the music of the Flower Maidens. As in Tristan, the horns are mostly
grouped with the woodwind, rather than with the other brass instruments.
Tempo
s
Pierre Boulez has remarked, the tempi of Parsifal are unstable in dramatic
passages and stable in reflective passages. There seems to be an increasing tendency
for conductors to emphasis the contrasts in tempi, for example taking the opening of
the work (marked sehr langsam) very, very slowly, and the prelude to the
second act (marked heftig, doch nicht übereilt) very, very fast.
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