Honors Program Millsaps College

Metaphysics and Music Dramas: Schopenhauerian Elements of Sex, Music, and Compassion in

Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Parsifal

by

Ann Gabrielle Richardson

A thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Honors Program

February 9, 2013

_____________ Timothy Coker

 

PRELUDE TO ACT ONE........................................1 ACT ONE – The Philosophy

1. Scene One – German Intellectualism...................4 a. The Authority and Autonomy of Reason b. Kant’s Transcendental Idealism c. Schopenhauer’s Modifications

2. Scene Two – Schopenhauer’s Metaphysics..............15 a. Metaphysics of Sexuality b. Metaphysics of Music c. Metaphysics of Compassion

PRELUDE TO ACT TWO.......................................27

ACT TWO – The Music

1. Scene One – Sexuality in Tristan und Isolde.........30 a. Species vs. individual b. Metaphysics in the text c. Character of the music d. Psychology of the individuals e. Imagery and representations

2. Scene Two – Music in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.........................................44

a. Metaphysics and aesthetic contemplation b. Musical convention and elitism c. Character of the music d. Psychology of “Wahn

3. Scene Three – Compassion in Parsifal................57 a. Brief introduction b. Compassion as the basis for morality c. Psychology of the individuals d. Metaphysics in the text e. Character of the music f. The Will and concluding remarks

POSTLUDE.................................................99

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SUPPLEMENTAL DVDS......................101

 

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PRELUDE TO ACT ONE

Parsifal is a work of summation, in which the composer

gathered and joined together the threads of his past.

– Carl Dahlhaus, Richard Wagner’s Music Dramas1

First conceived in 1845, sketched in 1865, and finally

premiered in 1882, Richard Wagner’s music drama Parsifal

holds the distinction of being not only the last but one of

the first of the German composer’s philosophically mature

works. Wagner’s final period of creative output delivered

a collection of epic music dramas comprised of his Ring

cycle, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg,

and Parsifal. Tristan and Meistersinger in particular have

come to be considered “Schopenhauerian music dramas”, so

named because Wagner based them upon the metaphysical

theories of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer,

whom he first read in 1854 and whose ideas he adhered to

thereafter. Much research has been published directly

correlating Tristan and Meistersinger with Schopenhauer’s

conception of the metaphysical Will (see Richard Wagner’s

Music Dramas, by Carl Dahlhaus; The Tristan Chord by Bryan

                                                                                                               1 Dahlhaus, Carl. Richard Wagner’s Music Dramas. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1971. Book. p. 144  

 

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Magee; Wagner by Michael Tanner, etc.). However, the last

of Wagner’s music dramas, Parsifal, has inspired far fewer

inquiries into the possible connection with Schopenhauer’s

metaphysics; this may be partly because of its subject

matter and plot, and partly because it is different

musically from Tristan and Meistersinger.

The difficulty lies in the fact that the connections

between Parsifal and Schopenhauer’s metaphysics are not as

evident as they are in Tristan and Meistersinger. Wagner

based Tristan upon Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of human

sexuality, and Meistersinger upon Schopenhauer’s

metaphysics of music. These connections are plain, and

will be discussed in subsequent chapters, but because the

metaphysics are not perceptible in Parsifal in the same

manner that they are in the previous music dramas, the work

tends to be approached with caution. This thesis will view

Parsifal through a Schopenhauerian lens, using original

research to draw connections between the music drama and

Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of compassion. It is the

author’s expectation that the result will offer a unique

perspective from which to view Wagner’s summary work, a

perspective that, should it be accepted, would identify

Parsifal as Wagner’s last Schopenhauerian music drama.

 

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This paper has been organized in a two-part

investigation. The first half of the paper will acquaint

the reader with both Immanuel Kant’s philosophy of

“transcendental idealism” and Arthur Schopenhauer’s

conceptions of the noumenal and phenomenal experience in

terms of the metaphysics of the Will, all of which form the

foundation of study for Wagner’s music dramas. The second

half of the paper will take a diachronic approach to

Richard Wagner’s productions: it will draw upon published

research in order to explore in detail Wagner’s treatment

of sexual and musical metaphysics in Tristan und Isolde and

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg; and the paper will conclude

with this author’s original commentary on Parsifal.

 

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ACT ONE – THE PHILOSOPHY

SCENE ONE – GERMAN INTELLECTUALISM

There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with

experience. – Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason2

~ The Authority and Autonomy of Reason ~

During the latter half of the eighteenth-century

Enlightenment, German intellectuals were struggling with an

issue that posed significant concerns for the understanding

of human philosophy: the authority of reason.3 There had

arisen a higher order of critical thinking, called meta-

criticism, which threatened the validity of reason by

maintaining that the critique of reason is self-reflexive,

i.e., if reason possesses the authority to assess all

ideas, then ipso facto it must possess the authority to

criticize itself.4 This questioning of reason’s innate

critical authority resulted in a disturbing impasse: either

thinkers were reduced to denouncing their beliefs and

                                                                                                               2 Magee, Bryan. The Philosophy of Schopenhauer. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1983. Book. p. 65 3 Beiser, Frederick C. The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1987. Book. p. 1 4 Ibid, p. 6

 

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professing skepticism (From whence comes the authority of

reason? How do I know that I know this?), or they had to

denounce both reason and the demands of meta-criticism and

dogmatically accept the gaps in their own rationale.

It was out of this confused philosophical environment

that thinker Immanuel Kant emerged with his Critique of

Pure Reason. Dubbed the “Father of German Idealism”, Kant

aimed in his Critique to develop an understanding of

ultimate reality – what we really know, and how we really

know it. He proposed a dualistic model that sought to

uphold both the value of empirical thinking and the

autonomy of reason; this theory was known as

“transcendental idealism.” The theory argued that reason

functioned according to certain laws, and that “...these

laws [were] the necessary conditions for any possible

experience”.5 Prior to Kant, reasoning could not be based

on an un-provable concept, therefore ultimate reality could

not be known based on empiricism. Kant’s starting point

for transcendental idealism, however, was based on that

exact caveat: “What we can perceive, experience or know

must inevitably depend not only on what there is to

perceive, experience, or know, but also on whatever

apparatus we have for perceiving, experiencing, and                                                                                                                5 Ibid, p. 6

 

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knowing....” Thus, Kant said that we cannot know or

experience anything beyond what our senses allow us to know

or experience. This idea of the limitation of the human

subject’s ability to perceive objects surrounding it

provided the basis out of which the motto for German

idealism eventually grew: “Selbst dann bin ich die Welt” (I

myself am the world).

~  Kant’s Transcendental Idealism ~

 

    The idea that we can only understand what we perceive

seems straightforward, and indeed it is; however, the idea

does imply some pre-existing conditions, two in particular.

1) The first pre-condition is that we be able to perceive

what our sensory apparatus communicate to us; i.e., if we

cannot receive visual, tactile, olfactory, gustatory, and

aural data through our senses, then we cannot organize the

data into a perception.6 2) The second pre-condition is

that an object exists independently of experience, as ding-

an-sich, or as a “thing in itself”, but that we cannot

perceive it as such.7 In order to illustrate the concept of

ding-an-sich, philosopher Bryan Magee, in The Philosophy of

                                                                                                               6 Magee, p. 64 7 Ibid, p. 65  

 

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Schopenhauer, posed the following helpful thought

experiment: If we try to comprehend an apple, all of our

knowledge about its shape, color, taste, smell, size,

structure, etc. is dependent on our sensory apparatus; if

we experimentally attempt to conceive of what the apple is

in itself, without the aid of these sense-dependent

faculties, we arrive at something that is

“indistinguishable from nothing at all.” We simply cannot

perceive what the apple is in itself; we have “no access”

to its nature other than what is supplied to us by our own

senses. Thus, we distill the following conclusions from

the two pre-conditions: we are limited by our senses in so

far as what objects we, the human subject, can perceive;

and objects may exist independently of our human subject,

i.e., outside the realm of those sensory limitations.

Using the nature of things-in-themselves and the

limits of human mental perception, Kant took the next step

in formulating the crux of his theory.

“Kant... supposed that the objects of our experience

must have some substratum of independent existence –

in other words, that there must be things in

themselves, independently of our experience of them –

but that what they thus were in themselves was

 

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something which we could form no conception of, since

everything about the way we can conceptualize them is

experience-dependent.”8

This “substratum” of independent existence, of which we

cannot conceive or know, Kant dubbed the “noumenal”

existence; the stratum of dependent existence of which we

can conceive and know, he dubbed the “phenomenal”

existence.9 To state this differently, all that we can

understand, perceive, or know is contained within the

phenomenal, and all things-in-themselves are contained in

the noumenal, of which we have no conception because it

lies outside the capabilities of our senses. To summarize,

then, the core of Kant’s transcendental idealism theory,

are three consequential points:

1) If our senses cannot perceive and organize data, then we

cannot conceive of the data as falling under a concept.

2) Because we can only experience what we can sense, our

version of reality is constrained to what we perceive.

3) We can surmise that though we realize the noumenal

reality exists, we can never know it as long as we are

limited by the phenomenal state of our senses.

                                                                                                               8 Ibid, p. 68  9 Ibid, p. 94

 

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~Schopenhauer’s Modifications~

One certain aspect of Kant’s transcendental technique

and its dualistic nature between the noumenal and

phenomenal prompted finicky contention with critics: the

statement that we can “...know nature insofar as it

conformed to our a priori concepts, but not insofar as it

existed apart from and prior to them [i.e., nature as a

thing-in-itself]”.10 Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, in

particular, professed dissatisfaction with Kant’s claim

that we could not experience things-in-themselves or the

noumenal world, and made it his philosophy’s aim to

correctly identify and characterize the phenomenal-noumenal

worlds.11 While the core of Schopenhauer’s philosophy was

based on Kant’s distinction of the phenomenal and noumenal

worlds, with which Schopenhauer enthusiastically agreed,

Schopenhauer did not accept Kant’s point that humans are

incapable of experiencing things-in-themselves or the

noumenal; he thus modified Kant’s transcendental theory to

include the bridging concept of the Will.12

                                                                                                               10 Beiser, p. 13 11 Thilly, Frank and Ledger Wood. A History of Philosophy. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston Inc., New York, 1957. Book. p. 497  12 Tanner, Michael. Schopenhauer. Routledge, New York, 1999. p. 5

 

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Schopenhauer’s diversion from Kant occurred in the

second book of the his key work, The World as Will and

Representation. Schopenhauer accepted the reasoning that

our limited senses will only allow us to experience the

phenomenal world, and deliberately chose the word

“representation” to mean “the content of experience”;

unlike Kant, however, he could not accept that we have no

access whatsoever to the noumenal world or things-in-

themselves, and rather thought that we can access the

noumenal through a faculty called the Will.13 In order to

explore this concept, here, paraphrased, is the opening

passage from chapter two of Schopenhauer’s second book of

WWR. Schopenhauer says that our knowledge, or our

“representation,” of the phenomenal world, though bound by

higher-order pre-conditions, nevertheless is delivered to

us by our body and its senses; therefore, because

representation comes to us from the body, and the body

itself is individualized from any other body (principium

individuationis), then we ourselves are simply phenomenal

representations. Ergo, if we are phenomenal

representations, then our own “things-in-themselves” must

exist in the noumenal world. Schopenhauer gives us the key

to connecting to our thing-in-itself in the form of the                                                                                                                13 Ibid, p. 9  

 

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Will, which he defines as “the unified cosmic principle

that is everything, and underlies all appearances, as

unconscious, mindless, therefore only like our own wills in

respect of its ruthless striving”;14 otherwise defined, the

Will may be thought of as an undifferentiated “force” or an

“energy” underlying the total existence (i.e., the

phenomenal and the noumenal worlds together), whose

essential nature is characterized by drive.15

Schopenhauer attributes two relevant meanings to the

word “will”: either to the Will as the cosmic

undifferentiated Will-in-itself, defined above, or to the

concept of will as is generally understood to mean a human

want, desire, or striving. These two concepts form the

link between our phenomenal representations and our

noumenal thing-in-itself. Schopenhauer asserts that the

world as it really is is the Will, and that the world as it

appears is representation.16 Returning to the same passage

paraphrased on the previous page, Schopenhauer states that

“the action of the body is nothing but the act of will

objectified”, meaning simply that the all senses and

functions of the body occur as an expression of human will,

since “action” implies nothing more than a will acted

                                                                                                               14 Ibid, p. 13 15 Thilly, Wood. Ibid.  16 Tanner, Schopenhauer. p. 12

 

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upon.17 Schopenhauer is supposing that the body is a

representation of our human will; and because the human

will is a manifested striving or drive, his next claim

supposes that the human will is the phenomenal

manifestation of the noumenal Will-in-itself. Following

Schopenhauer’s logic, it is indeed possible to know the

noumenal and things-in-themselves, because by “knowing what

we will, we have a direct line to what we really are.”18

Thus, Schopenhauer’s most important modification to Kant’s

theory implied what transcendental idealism did not: it

allowed that we are phenomenal representations of the Will,

which itself, by encompassing the phenomenal and noumenal

worlds, constitutes total existence, or ultimate reality;

Schopenhauer therefore identified ultimate reality as the

Will-in-itself.

Schopenhauer also believed, in a second modification

of Kant’s theories, that the nature of the noumenal world

was singular, not plural. Recall Kant’s supposition that

“...the objects of our experience must have some substratum

of independent existence – in other words, that there must

be things in themselves, independently of our experience of

them”. We have seen how Schopenhauer modified Kant’s

                                                                                                               17 Magee, p. 124 18 Tanner, Schopenhauer. p. 11  

 

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notion that things-in-themselves are unknowable; however,

Kant’s conception of the noumenal world held what

Schopenhauer considered to be an error, which he took upon

himself to correct. Kant envisioned the noumenal world to

be the substratum of existence containing things-in-

themselves, which we could not experience because the

noumenal world cannot obtain the experiential concepts of

space, time, and causality. However, by the exact same

reasoning, because space, time, and causality were

considered to be subjective and did not apply to the

noumenal, the noumenal could not therefore obtain

plurality: i.e., “things as they are in themselves, lying

as they would outside all possibility of space and time,

would not be differentiable”.19 Kant’s oversight on the

nature of things-in-themselves in relation to the noumenal

world prompted Schopenhauer’s response that the noumenal

must be free from all plurality; according to Schopenhauer,

the noumenal is singular, one, and wholly undifferentiated.

The principium individuationis of the phenomenal world

disappears in the noumenal.20 Thus, the critical conclusion

runs as follows: since Schopenhauer sees the Will as the

total reality of existence, and since all differentiation

                                                                                                               19 Magee, p. 129 20 Ibid.

 

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in the phenomenal is illusory, then all things-in-

themselves, including our human things-in-themselves, are

ultimately part of one whole and completely

undifferentiated thing-in-itself – the Will. This

conclusion has far-reaching implications for Schopenhauer’s

metaphysics. The conclusion also made a great impact upon

Wagner as he penned his music dramas; indeed, Wagner so

infused the idea into his works that it surfaces as a

central key to understanding both Tristan und Isolde and

Parsifal, both of which will be discussed presently.

 

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SCENE TWO – SCHOPENHAUER’S METAPHYSICS

Behind our existence lies something else that becomes

accessible to us only by our shaking off the world.

– Arthur Schopenhauer21

Schopenhauer defined the Will as an undifferentiated

energy that constitutes ultimate reality by encompassing

both the phenomenal and noumenal realms. He also described

the Will’s nature as being characterized by an intense

drive or striving. Schopenhauer believed that this drive,

or striving, of the Will is represented in humanity as an

attempt to ensure the continued existence of the Will – he

contended that the Will-in-itself survives by manifesting

itself in us as the will-to-live.22 Schopenhauer thought

that this will-to-live was the strongest human urge in the

phenomenal world – consequently, he reasoned that we

ultimately pursue it over any other end. The striving of

the Will is also manifested in the longings of day to day

needs (hunger, sexual desire, sleep, etc.. Since these

yearnings are insatiable, our satisfaction, once attained,

is immediately thwarted; thus the Will ultimately sets us

                                                                                                               21 Qtd. in Magee, p. 161 22 Thilly, Wood, p. 498  

 

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on a path toward unhappiness, fear, and frustration – the

characteristics of Schopenhauer’s pessimistic view of

reality. In addition to its being a source of misery and

frustration, Schopenhauer also considered the human will’s

perpetual longing to be the source of human selfishness,

ego, and motive; in turn, he saw selfishness, ego, and

motive as being the sources of potential immoral behavior.

Following this logic, the only means by which we might

detach ourselves from a life of constant misery,

frustration, and immorality would be to detach ourselves

from our phenomenal will-to-live, subsequently negating the

striving influence of the Will itself. According to

Schopenhauer, the foremost step to achieving this

detachment is to obtain a reflective state of awareness: a

state in which one has recognized the will, acknowledged

the will’s influence, and consciously reflected upon the

workings of the will. Once an individual has reached this

critical state of awareness concerning the will, he may

then rationally decide whether to affirm it, or to deny

it.23

Schopenhauer explored three alternate metaphysical

means to achieving this calming, or quieting, of the Will:

                                                                                                               23 Kossler, Matthias. “Life Is but a Mirror: On the Connection between Ethics, Metaphysics and Character in Schopenhauer.” European Journal of Philosophy, 16(2), pp. 230-250: Aug. 2008. p. 238

 

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the means of human sexuality, music, and compassion.

Sexual and musical metaphysics correspond to Wagner’s

Tristan und Isolde and Meistersinger, respectively; the

metaphysics of compassion in relation to Parsifal will be

discussed later in this paper. Because the metaphysical

topics play critical roles in the music dramas, it shall be

useful to explain them further.

~ Metaphysics of Sexuality ~

Schopenhauer stated that, second to the will-to-live,

the sexual impulse is the strongest human urge: “Next to

the love of life, it [the sexual impulse] shows itself here

as the strongest and most active of all motives.... What is

decided by it is nothing less than the composition of the

next generation.”24 Indeed, the sexual impulse is simply

another manifestation of the ultimate Will – both the will-

to-live and the impulse to procreate are manifestations of

the Will’s drive to survive.

“For all amorousness is rooted in the sexual

impulse alone, [it] is in fact absolutely only a

more closely determined, specialized, and indeed,

                                                                                                               24 Schopenhauer, Arthur and E. F. J. Payne (translator). The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2. Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1958. p. 533 - 534

 

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in the strictest sense, individualized sexual

impulse...therefore the will of the individual

appears at an enhanced power as the will of the

species... That which makes itself known to the

individual consciousness as sexual impulse in general,

and without direction to a definite individual of

the other sex, is in itself, and apart from the

phenomenon, simply the will-to-live.”25

The sexual impulse, therefore, represents not the

principium individuationis concept of love, but the Will as

reflected in the will-to-live of the phenomenal species.

Thus, passion, being the realization of the sexual impulse,

is also the manifestation of the will of the human species,

and is thus a representation of the ultimate Will.

Schopenhauer asserted that passion is heightened based

on a) the compatibility of two individuals, and b) the

magnitude of the will; the better suited, the more intense

the longing.

“The highest degrees of this [sexual impulse]...

spring from the suitability of two individualities

to each other. By virtue of this, the

will...exhibiting itself in the whole species, feels a

longing. This longing is in keeping with the                                                                                                                25 Ibid, p. 533 - 535

 

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magnitude of the will, and therefore exceeds the

measure of a mortal heart.”26

Because the longing of the will is a manifestation of the

longing of an entire species as well as the fundamental

Will, it outstrips the individual human’s ability to long

endure it without a respite: “Here the individual is too

weak a vessel to be capable of enduring the infinite

longing of the will of the species which is concentrated on

a definite object.”27 Thus, the necessity for relief in

some form arises. The calming of the sexual impulse may be

attained through the release found in the sexual act,

which, in affirmation of the will, satisfies the will’s

desire to survive; it also may be calmed through the denial

of the will, in which case the state of reflective

awareness allows for either a rational decision to spurn

the sexual impulse, or the individual chooses to escape the

sexual impulse by giving up his life and escaping the

phenomenal entirely. This denial of the will’s drive to

procreate also negates the will-to-live: “To free [life]

from this [constant suffering] is reserved for the denial

of the will-to-live; through this denial, the individual

will tears itself away from the stem of the species, and

                                                                                                               26 Ibid, p. 537  27    Ibid, p. 554  

 

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gives up that existence in it.” The individual ultimately

attains peace through detachment from the will.28

~ Metaphysics of Music ~

The metaphysics of music likewise come into play in

Wagner’s second Schopenhauerian opera, Meistersinger.

Schopenhauer states the following:

“...music, since it passes over the Ideas, is also

quite independent of the phenomenal world, positively

ignores it, and, to a certain extent, could still

exist even if there were no world at all, which

cannot be said of the other arts. Thus music is as

immediate an objectification and copy of the whole

Will as the world itself is...music is a copy of the

Will itself.”29

Schopenhauer considered music to be a direct representation

of the Will itself; music, then, may be considered an

analogue to the human will in so far as it is a direct

manifestation of the ultimate Will.30

                                                                                                               28 Ibid, p. 560 29 Schopenhauer, Arthur and E. F. J. Payne (translator). The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 1. Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1958. p. 257 30 Barry, Elizabeth Wendell. “What Wagner Found in Schopenhauer’s Philosophy.” The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 124-137: January 1925. p. 127

 

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“[Music] therefore expresses the metaphysical to

everything physical in the world, the thing-in-

itself to every phenomenon. Accordingly, we could

just as well call the world ‘embodied music’ as

‘embodied will.’”31

Hence, in the same manner that the human will is

characterized by a drive which constantly seeks release,

music also may be considered as being characterized by a

striving which seeks satisfaction, as both the human will

and music are direct representations of the ever-striving

Will. Schopenhauer names several topics, all taken from

the study of music theory, as examples of the striving and

calming found in music: dissonance vs. consonance, the

suspension, the melody, the complete cadence, and the two

modes of major and minor.

Dissonances of pitch represent the striving of the

music, and consonances represent the calming, or

satisfaction, of the music.

“The connection of the metaphysical significance

of music...rests on the fact that what resists our

apprehension, namely the irrational relation or

dissonance, becomes the natural image of what

resists our will; and, conversely, the consonance or                                                                                                                31 Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 1. p. 262

 

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the rational relation, by easily adapting itself to

our apprehension, becomes the image of the

satisfaction of our will.”32

This concept of dissonance vs. consonance underlies the

rest of the examples named by Schopenhauer. The element of

the suspension is a definitive illustration of the striving

and calming in music: the presence of a dissonant pitch

against normal, or correct, harmonies creates a longing for

consonance and resolution. When considering melody,

Schopenhauer acknowledges the existence of an antecedent

and a consequent melodic phrase; these two phrases

constitute a musical “period”. He considers the period to

be an arch from a settled state, to a striving state, back

to a settled state – thus, the melodic line itself is

characterized by discord and reconciliation. Music is also

characterized by discord and reconciliation in its harmonic

construction – if the music begins in one key, or is

supported by one fundamental tone, but at some point

deviates to another key, it is in a state of discord;

however, the return to the original key or fundamental tone

at the complete cadence returns the music to a state of

reconciliation. Likewise, if the music does not return to

the complete cadence, if that resolution is continuously                                                                                                                32 Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2. p. 451

 

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denied, the discord continues. Schopenhauer also saw a

correlation between the two states of the will –

dissatisfaction and satisfaction – and the existence of two

general modes – minor and major, respectively. The minor

mode, being associated with longing and/or unsettledness,

is a musical state of dissatisfaction, and the major mode

is the analogous state of satisfaction. In these musical

examples of striving and calming, Schopenhauer saw and

recognized “an analogue of the satisfaction of the will

which is enhanced through delay.”33

~ Metaphysics of Compassion ~

The metaphysics of compassion will be connected

further to Wagner’s final music drama, Parsifal, in the

final chapter of this paper; for now, they simply need to

be understood. Schopenhauer saw compassion as a means for

calming the metaphysical Will. Since we understand that

the phenomenal individual is itself a representation of our

undifferentiated oneness in the noumenal reality, we can

experience compassion for those individuals who are in a

                                                                                                               33 Ibid, p. 456

 

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state of suffering.34 We also realize a connection with

other individuals by acknowledging the “character of the

species”, or rather, by recognizing that the human will is

merely the drive of the human species, and not the

individual’s will:35

“Thus, whoever is still involved in the principium

individuationis, in egoism, knows only particular

things and their relation to his own person, and

these then become ever renewed motives of his

willing. On the other hand, that knowledge of the

whole, of the inner nature of the thing-in-

itself...becomes the quieter of all and every

willing.”36

These realizations are only possible if an individual has

moved past the principium individuationis and attained a

clear, reflective awareness of the will: “Only when the

thinking subject forgets his interest in the particular and

becomes ‘a clear mirror of the object’ does the world

become comprehensible as a whole.”37

Briefly recall Schopenhauer’s concept that ego,

                                                                                                               34 Fox, Michael Allen. “‘Boundless Compassion’: The Contemporary Relevance of Schopenhauer’s Ethics.” The European Legacy, Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 369 – 387. 2006. Journal article. p. 372  35 Kossler, p. 238 36 Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 1. p. 379 37 Kossler, p. 238.  

 

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selfishness, and motive are the sources of corrupt

behavior. Schopenhauer identified three preeminent motives

for human behavior: egoism, malice, and compassion.38 Of

these three, the only motive from which works of

philanthropy and justice can spring is compassion:

“[Schopenhauer] claimed that there are four ultimate

ends for human action; namely, one’s own weal, one’s

own woe, another’s weal, and another’s woe. ...Virtues

of justice and loving kindness are based on

compassion, and since [Schopenhauer] holds that these

are the cardinal virtues, he claims to have proven

that compassion is the basis for all virtue. ‘Only

insofar as an action has sprung from compassion does

it have moral worth; and every action resulting from

any other motive has none’.”39

Schopenhauer believed that a person’s inner intelligible

character was determined for life; however, though we

cannot change our character, we may acquire empirical

character through heightened self-awareness and reflection

on the will.

In summary, compassion ultimately quiets the Will

                                                                                                               38 Fox, p. 372 39 Cartwright, David E. “Compassion and Solidarity with Sufferers: The Metaphysics of Mitleid.” European Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 16 Issue 2, pp. 292-310: Aug. 2008. Journal Article. p. 295 - 296

 

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because, in feeling sympathy for others, one essentially

denies the individualistic egoism of the human will.40

“An individual possessing a good character sees

through the principium individuationis, space and

time, and ‘cognizes immediately, and without

inferences, that the being in itself of his own

appearance is also that of others, namely, that will

to life which constitutes the inner nature of

everything, and lives in all’.”41

The more aware our character is of the workings of the

will, the more heightened our capacity for compassion will

be; and the more heighted our capacity is for compassion,

the easier it will be to calm the struggles of the human

will, and subsequently, the Will-in-itself.

END ACT ONE

                                                                                                               40    Barry, Elizabeth Wendell. P. 130  41 Cartwright, p. 297

 

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PRELUDE TO ACT TWO

Born in Leipzig in 1813, Wagner had no ambitions in

his early career other than simply becoming an established

composer and conductor of opera. His early French grand

operas (Die Feen, Das Liebesverbot, Rienzi) were based on

the models of French opera and the works of Donizetti and

Rossini; they were loose attempts at operatic composition,

the works of a juvenile composer who had yet to define his

identity. The composition of his Romantic operas (Der

Fliegend Holländer, Tannhäuser, Lohengren) occurred during

and after the period of the 1848 European revolutions;

during this period, Wagner attained the support of King

Ludwig II of Bavaria, whose patronage eventually enabled

him to realize his dream of building a specialized

Festspielhaus (festival drama house) in Bayreuth.

It was during this period as well, in 1854, that

Wagner was introduced to the pessimistic philosophy of

Arthur Schopenhauer; the philosophy struck a chord with

Wagner, who recognized in Schopenhauer’s philosophies a

likeness to his own pessimistic outlook. The resulting

music dramas of this period, the Ring cycle, Tristan und

Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Parsifal, were

 

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the mature expressions of Wagner’s ideas on operatic

reform. Two of Wagner’s final three dramatic works,

Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger, became known

commonly as his “Schopenhauerian operas” due to the

specificity of Schopenhauerian references in the plots.

Those two music dramas, plus Parsifal, were Wagner’s last

staged compositions: each was a modified Gesamtkunstwerk,

and each featured in some capacity Wagner’s concept of

endless melody.

The term Gesamtkunstwerk was introduced by Wagner as

part of his view on operatic reform; the compound means

“synthesized art work,” and called for a new form of opera

in which all elements – music, drama, staging, sets –

should be simultaneously independent yet inextricable from

one another. Wagner further developed this idea by

juxtaposing Unendliche melodie (“endless melody”) upon the

Gesamtkunstwerk; in part because Schopenhauer accorded

music the metaphysical distinction of being a direct link

to the Will, Wagner came to believe that music should

ultimately drive all other elements of the Gesamtkunstwerk.

Thus, the orchestra became the prime mover of Wagner’s

Schopenhauerian music dramas. Often, Wagner’s music dramas

are considered to be symphonic works with vocal commentary;

 

Richardson 29

this is a misconstrued outlook on Wagner’s perception of

the total Gesamtkunstwerk – indeed, he believed that the

music should support all other elements, however, yet he

felt that the libretto and the music should function in an

“intercutting” relationship rather than remain isolated

from one another. The term “endless melody” refers to

Wagner’s technique of composing fluid instrumental music,

sonorities and lines that are continuously eliding from one

unit to the next, from the beginning of a prelude or act

until the end of the section. Endless melody drives the

drama forward without respite, and as such is a compelling

device, particularly in a Schopenhauerian Gesamtkunstwerk

as it mirrors the incessant drive of the Will.

Recall this paper’s intent: to use original research

to draw connections between Parsifal and Schopenhauer’s

metaphysics of compassion. This perspective will be

presented in its entirety in Scene Three; however, in order

to provide models for how that discussion will proceed,

this paper will now turn to existing research with which to

explore diachronically Wagner’s treatment of sexual and

musical metaphysics in Tristan und Isolde and Die

Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

 

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ACT TWO – THE MUSIC

SCENE ONE – SEXUALITY IN TRISTAN UND ISOLDE

Wagner is not interested in the mechanics of seduction

as such; he is concerned with the forces which bring people

together, which are out of the control of either of them.

– Michael Tanner, Wagner42

~ SPECIES VS. THE INDIVIDUAL ~

“The genius of the species generally wages war with

the guardian geniuses of the individuals; it is their

pursuer and enemy, always ready to ruthlessly destroy

personal happiness in order to carry out its ends (from

Metaphysics of Sexual Love).”43 This Will-of-the-Species is

precisely the metaphysical root of Wagner’s first

Schopenhauerian music drama, Tristan und Isolde. The work

is widely considered to be both an erotic piece and a

tragedy, however both designations seem to fall short of

capturing the essence of the work in light of its

metaphysical subject matter. The work is essentially an

                                                                                                               42 Tanner, Michael. Wagner. Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1996. Book. p. 43 43  Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2. P. 556  

 

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exposé on the struggle of two individuals who have been

irrefutably attracted to each other by the will of the

species.44 Their attempts to quiet their yearnings by

attaining the noumenal realm are thwarted repeatedly by the

intrusion of the phenomenal world, and they only find

relief from the phenomenal when they have both willingly

released their holds on life, passing into “liebestod”, or

“love-death.”45 It is understandable why Nietzsche called

Tristan an “opus metaphysicum”: Wagner’s primary source

being Schopenhauer’s Metaphysics of Sexual Love, the drama

is metaphysical “...precisely insofar as it grants the Will

an overwhelming musical-dramatic presence.”46

A fine line now arises that must be carefully

delineated before progressing. Upon initial study, two

contradictory impressions of Wagner’s treatment of

Schopenhauer’s sexual metaphysics surface in Tristan: the

first is in accord with Schopenhauer’s insistence that

reflective awareness and moral contemplation are the only

paths to quieting the Will; the second is a deceptive

suggestion that the Will may be quieted through sex

                                                                                                               44 Barry, Elizabeth-Wendell. P. 135 45    Wagner, Richard. Tristan und Isolde. G. Schirmer Opera Score Editions. Copyright 1934. Piano score. p. 186, first system, m. 2-3  46 Müller, Ulrich and Peter Wapnewski. (Trans. ed. John Deathridge). Wagner Handbook. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1992. Book. p. 290

 

Richardson 32

itself.47 The latter is not metaphysically correct in the

context of the music drama: the sexual act may only succeed

in temporarily satisfying the Will, while Tristan und

Isolde as a whole is concerned with calming and utterly

escaping the incessant drive of the Will. Wagner composes

in a manner that seems to suggest both impressions; only

the stipulations of the metaphysical source material lend a

clear solution to the muddle.

Tristan illustrates the three methods described in

Schopenhauer’s Metaphysics of Sexual Love for negating the

Will-of-the-Species. It illustrates the attempt to calm

the Will by the attainment of a state of reflective

awareness and contemplation, as brought about by the

introduction of the Love-Death potion in Act I (though this

attempt fails and leaves them in yearning, as they are not

fighting only against themselves but are attracted to each

other by the ultimate Will-of-the-Species).48 It

illustrates the satisfaction of the Will through the

completion of the sexual act itself (Act II, Tristan and

Isolde’s colloquy), though in accordance with the

metaphysical nature of the Will and the sexual act, the

satisfaction they derive is fleeting and leaves them

                                                                                                               47 Ibid, 291. 48 Wagner, Richard. Tristan und Isolde. Piano score. Act I, Scene V

 

Richardson 33

yearning still; and it also illustrates the third method of

quieting the Will, that of the voluntary giving up of life,

the tearing away of one’s individual will from the Will-of-

the-Species, and the deliberate detachment of oneself from

the phenomenal – this final method is the only recourse

that ultimately (in the last scene of Act III) allows

Tristan and Isolde to escape the unbearable yearning of the

phenomenal realm and attain oneness in the noumenal.49

~ METAPHYSICS IN THE TEXT ~

Wagner penned his own librettos to all of his works,

taking particular pains that the text of his

Schopenhauerian music dramas accurately reflected the

source material. He accomplished this both by including

direct textual references, and, arguably, by manipulating

the structure of the poetry itself. As Act II functions as

the centerpiece of the drama, both in placement and in

content, it will serve as the source for the following

textual examples.

“The colloquy between Tristan and Isolde is so

far removed from the antithetical dialogue of traditional

drama that it seems almost irrelevant whether the speaker                                                                                                                49 Dahlhaus, p. 51

 

Richardson 34

is Tristan or Isolde; the sentences and fragments of

sentences are interchangeable, and indeed sometimes are

exchanged.”50 Indeed it is so; the beginning of Act II,

Scene II finds the dialogue between Tristan and Isolde very

juvenile, excited, overlapping, almost as if they are too

excited to contain their speech and are compelled to finish

each other’s sentences. As the duet progresses, their

lines become longer, less individualized, and more

sophisticated – instead of finishing each other’s words,

they are saying the same words; and near the end of the

colloquy, they have become so in tune with each other that

their thoughts no longer need expounding. The text of the

two individuals essentially undergoes an artful transition

from separate and frantic to mature and unified. This

reflects a sophisticated handling of text with attention

paid to metaphysical meaning – Wagner has written a textual

transition in which two people become one in will.

A direct example of a textual reference is the word

wahn, or “folly”. The term is a key one for the work;

Hartmut Reinhardt argues that it signifies that “...an

individual is permanently deceived by the Will-of-the-

Species, which in its urge to exist exploits the love

                                                                                                               50 Ibid, p. 49  

 

Richardson 35

instinct toward its own ends.”51 Another recurring term is

“Sehnsucht”, or “Sehnen”, both of which are equivalent to

“longing” or “yearning”. At any point during the work that

Tristan is ensnared in the phenomenal realm, he is in a

heady state of “Sehnsucht”; this term, this longing, is

arguably the key to the entire music drama.52 Last to be

considered is the potent phrase “Selbst dann bin ich die

Welt”, which translates to “I myself am the world.”

“In the centre of the work, at the climax of the

most famous part of the so-called love duet, the

lovers sing together, ‘Selbst dann bin ich die

Welt’, an astoundingly audacious claim...: if each

of them is the world, then they are one another.

That, too, is something from which they don’t flinch,

as they move on to the final stretch of the duet,

and do indeed exchange... identities, building upon

wave after wave of orchestral sound, in what is

without competition the longest, most extreme climax

in music – and still they have not achieved what they

were striving for, precisely because they are still

in a state of striving.”53

Tristan and Isolde, by acknowledging “I myself am the

                                                                                                               51 Müller, p. 292 52 Tanner, Michael. Wagner. P. 148 53 Ibid, ps. 142- 143  

 

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world”, acknowledge that they will be one and the same in

the noumenal; this is a clear and compelling reference to

German Intellectualism as expounded upon by Schopenhauer.

~ CHARACTER OF THE MUSIC ~

Wagner himself stated that musically, Tristan is about

the art of transition.

“The beginning of the scene [Act II] offers life,

pressed down and running over in the most turbulent

emotion – the ending, the most solemn, intensely felt

longing for death. Those are the cornerposts: now

just you take a look, my dear, at how I’ve connected

them, how it leads over from one to the other! There

you have the secret of my musical form.”54

The preludes and the eliding melodies and leitmotivs form a

musical journey; they continuously transform us from our

initial, unaware state of mind in terms of the Will to a

reflective state of mind by the end of the work.

Dahlhaus elegantly describes Wagner’s use of

leitmotivs in Tristan und Isolde:

“The [leit]motives associated with death and

day are primarily musical allegories and provide                                                                                                                54 Qtd. in Dahlhaus, p. 57

 

Richardson 37

an analogy to the allegorical tendency of the

text...Not only are motives related to one another –

the Suffering motive is an inversion of the Yearning

motive, and Marke’s motive, at least at the outset,

is an inversion of Tristan’s – but they also blend

into one another and are finally lost in shapeless

intangibility.”55

Dahlhaus implies that Wagner so far developed the idea of

transition from phenomenal to noumenal that he incorporated

the idea into his treatment of leitmotivs – they reflect

the eventual merging of the phenomenal into unity,

particularly the Love’s Longing, Love’s Bliss, and Love’s

Deception themes, and to an extent the King Marke and

Tristan’s Honor themes. Tristan’s Honor first appears in

Act I, Scene V, as Tristan makes his entrance before

Isolde; the codified repetition (over ten soundings) serves

to drive home Tristan’s knightly character; this theme also

expresses Tristan’s station in the opera as King Marke’s

most trusted escort to Isolde. Wagner later in Act II,

Scene III, inverts the Tristan’s Honor theme, after Tristan

has unwittingly betrayed King Marke. This inverted version

later becomes the Tristan’s Deception theme. In the

prelude to Act III, the music has again been derived from                                                                                                                55 Ibid, ps. 62 - 63

 

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the Tristan’s Honor theme; however, the theme is now

developed to the point that it is hardly recognizable.

The Fate Theme is initially heard along with the

Tristan chord in the first four measures of the Act I

prelude, and it reappears throughout the acts at potent

moments, often foreshadowing or following a metaphysical

high point in the text. This theme, which features two

chromatic lines progressing in opposing directions, may be

said to induce a sense of yearning for resolution that is

never satisfied; and because they are in opposing

directions, they are contradicting each other, representing

conflict. This idea of chromaticism vs. diatonicism will

be revisited in the discussion on Parsifal. The Tristan

chord itself (F – B – D# – G#) heralds the instability and

longing for resolution to be encountered throughout the

music drama. With two raised pitches (D# and G#,

introducing two possible “leading tones” to the new tonal

centers of E and A respectively), it has the potential to

modulate to several tonal areas, making it harmonically

unsettled and causing a sense of anxiety in the listener.    

    By understanding that Schopenhauer considered death to

be the portal through which one passes into the noumenal

oneness, it becomes apparent that the Death Theme does not

 

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function as a foreshadower of tragedy, but rather as an

expression of Tristan’s inner desire to be free of the

yearning placed upon him in the phenomenal reality. The

Day Theme expresses the state of unquiet suffering that

Tristan must undergo; it is a direct reference to

Schopenhauer’s phenomenal realm. When it appears in

conjunction with text by Tristan, the implication is that

Tristan is feeling the constraints of his situation – he is

trapped in the phenomenal and is yearning to escape.

British philosopher Michael Tanner summarizes the

importance of the prelude: “The prelude to Tristan,

Wagner’s most renowned contribution to the history of

music, is something more than that. It is so complete an

expression of the yearning which permeates the whole work

that one might...assume that it must pre-empt what

follows.”56 The Act I prelude, introduced by the Fate Theme

and the Tristan chord, is pervaded by deceptive cadences

and harmonies that keep the listener in a state of

anxiousness; the prelude offers no sense of tonic center,

nor steady beat, nor sense of cadence; we are simply

swimming in a perpetual state of yearning. The Act I

prelude suggests the unattainable noumenal; likewise, the

prelude of Act II suggests the intrusion of the phenomenal;                                                                                                                56 Tanner, Michael. Wagner. p. 141

 

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it opens with a stark pronunciation of the Day Theme,

leaving no doubt that this act will be a struggle for

Tristan and Isolde. The prelude to Act III further

solidifies the oppression of the phenomenal world in Act

II. It is dark, minor, and ironically one of the more

harmonically stable sections of music in the work – ironic

because of the emotional turmoil pervading the characters

in this act. The prelude establishes Tristan’s despair as

he lies wounded, unable to attain the noumenal with Isolde.

~ PSYCHOLOGY OF THE INDIVIDUALS ~

Act I of Tristan is about abolishing one perception of

psychology and establishing a new one: psychology no longer

assumes individual relationships, it assumes only one self,

noumenal unity; all we see or hear from this point on in

the music drama will be based around this new concept.

“Act I is a stupendous psychological drama, worked

out with remarkable economy and thoroughness, but

all directed to showing the comparatively superficial

level of merely human passion... In Act II, from

Isolde’s sublime invocation of Frau Minne (the goddess

of a previously unheard-of love) onwards, psychology

 

Richardson 41

is rendered pointless for the rest of the act, so far

as the lovers are concerned. It is a demolition of

the very notion which psychology presupposes, that of

the self in relation to other selves and the external

world.”57

In other words, Wagner, in essence, is preparing the

audience for the psychological complexity of Acts II and

III by presenting over one-hundred pages of explanation.

Ultimately, Tristan und Isolde lives up to its name:

the psychological impact is focused entirely upon the title

characters, with only a brief nod given to King Marke in

Act II. The first Act focuses upon Isolde, Act II upon

both, and Act III upon Tristan and his metaphysical insight

as gained at the end of Act II; Act III reveals, however,

that though considerable emphasis is placed upon Isolde as

a prime mover in the action of the music drama, the work

has been dedicated much more so to Tristan than to Isolde.

It is Tristan’s character, and Tristan’s thoughts and

actions that are the psychological focus of the drama.

Wagner does give Isolde her moment, however, at the

conclusion of the work with her sublime Liebestod, or love-

death:

“Isolde, convinced that Tristan is smiling at her,                                                                                                                57 Ibid, p. 146

 

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ascends, or is submerged, with him to a point where

she can be absorbed ‘in des Welt-Atems wehendem All’

(in the world-breath’s encompassing all), and her

final words, as she sinks ‘as if transfigured’, Wagner

carefully writes, are ‘unbewusst, hoch’ste Lust!’

(unconscious, highest bliss!).”58

Though throughout the work it has been Tristan who has

gained metaphysical understanding and acted accordingly,

ultimately Isolde is the one who clinches Wagner’s thesis,

clarifying with the last words of the music drama what the

whole work has been about.

~ IMAGERY AND REPRESENTATIONS ~

Wagner, in the spirit of Gesamtkunstwerk, employed

three important images in order to reflect the poignancy of

Schopenhauer’s metaphysics. The most vital imagery is the

use of day and night to represent the phenomenal and

noumenal realms, respectively. Tristan and Isolde, in the

Act II colloquy, and indeed throughout the work, make a

case against the Day, the phenomenal situation in which

they live; when their expositions are complete, they are in

turn free to explore the Night, or the noumenal realm.                                                                                                                58 Ibid, p. 150

 

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This metaphorical day-night/phenomenal-noumenal

representation is not one of which Tristan and Isolde are

ignorant; when Tristan asks Isolde to accompany him to “Das

Wunderreich der Nacht” (the Wonder-realm of Night) in Act

II, he is referring to the noumenal oneness from “which he

left for this illusory world.”59 The second important image

is that of the love-death potion. The love-death potion

functions as the catalyst by which Tristan and Isolde

achieve a state of reflective awareness, a state without

which (according to Schopenhauer’s metaphysics) the

noumenal cannot be attained. The potion, contrary to

appearances, alters nothing; it does not cause Tristan and

Isolde to fall in love, it “simply brings into the open

something which already exists but has not previously been

admitted.”60 Tristan and Isolde acknowledge that they are

at the mercy of the Will-of-the-species and realize that

the only way they can defeat it is by dying to it; the

love-death potion is the concrete representation of these

abstract realizations.

                                                                                                               59 Wagner, Richard. Tristan und Isolde. Piano score. p. 210-211 60 Dalhaus, p. 51

 

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SCENE TWO – MUSIC IN DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG

Wollt ihr nach Regeln messen, was nicht nach eurer Regeln

Lauf, der eig’nen Spur vergessen, sucht davon erst die

Regeln auf! [Though his ways are not our ways, he seems to

have a way of his own. Such a song should not be

criticized by our rules, but we should seek for rules to

fit it].61 – Hans Sachs, Die Meistersinger

~ METAPHYSICS AND AESTHETIC CONTEMPLATION ~

On the surface, Wagner’s second Schopenhauerian music

drama differs substantially from the tragedy of Tristan und

Isolde. Meistersinger is a comedy, albeit a turbulent one;

it is the second piece by Wagner that is historically

based, set in circa 1550s Nuremberg with a central focus on

the historical figure of Mastersinger Hans Sachs; and

instead of the tremulous, chromatic music of Tristan, the

overture of Meistersinger facilitates a return to the

diatonic system, and the music maintains this clarity of

structure and harmony throughout most of the work.

However, underneath the surface, Meistersinger is perhaps

                                                                                                               61 Wagner, Richard. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Schott & Co., London, 1903. Orchestral score. p. 160, 1st – 3rd systems

 

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the most profound metaphysical statement on the value of

art yet composed.

“The greatest and most fascinating contrast between

Tristan and Meistersinger is not that one is

preoccupied with metaphysics, and the other

unconcerned with it, but that Wagner moves from his

most patently doctrinal work to his most covertly

instructive one.”62

As this quote implies, Meistersinger is not an obvious

presentation of Wagner’s newly developed musical and

psychological philosophies, like Tristan, but rather is a

refined and subtle discourse on the metaphysics of music

and the contemplation of art.

Schopenhauer’s philosophy is found in Meistersinger as

a subtle connection between metaphysics and aesthetic

contemplation. Recall Schopenhauer’s view that music

stands above all other arts with regard to the Will:

“...music, since it passes over the Ideas, is also

quite independent of the phenomenal world, positively

ignores it, and, to a certain extent, could still

exist even if there were no world at all, which cannot

be said of the other arts. Thus music is as immediate

an objectification and copy of the whole Will as the                                                                                                                62 Tanner, Wagner, p. 157

 

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world itself is...music is a copy of the Will

itself.”63

Now consider this quote by Schopenhauer:

“Because music does not...exhibit the Ideas or grades

of the will’s objectification, but directly the Will

itself, we can also explain that it acts directly on

the will, i.e., the feelings, passions, and emotions

of the hearer.”64

In other words, Schopenhauer’s assertion that music is a

copy of the Will itself explains music’s ability to

manipulate our drives, our passions, and our emotions. The

Will strives and therefore evokes in us a striving, thus

music also strives, evoking the equivalent striving in its

listeners. The way to escape this striving is to approach

one’s encounter with music from an aesthetically

enlightened perspective, thereby negating the Will and

allowing the subject to experience music contemplatively

without being compromised by the interest of the Will.65

Elizabeth W. Barry states the following:

“The tormented human soul in contemplating a work

of Art loses all sense of his existence in time and

                                                                                                               63 Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 1. p. 257 64 Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2, p. 448 65 Schopenhauer, Arthur and Bailey T. Saunders (translator). Complete Essays of Schopenhauer. Willey Book Company, New York, 1942. Book. Vol. VII, p. 43

 

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space, frees himself from his tyrannical Will and in

a state of pure perception gazes and becomes lost in

the Idea that is mirrored in the masterpiece.”66

This state, which might be called aesthetic meditation, of

disinterested appreciation, of contemplative attitude

toward music, is what Meistersinger is fundamentally about.

~ MUSICAL CONVENTION AND ELITISM ~

A central point of Meistersinger is the relationship

between music itself and conventional attitudes concerning

music. “Die Meistersinger is, more than anything else,

about the connections between life and art, between

individual’s lives and the art they produce, and between

the life of a community and its attitude to art.”67

Repeatedly throughout the plot of Meistersinger, issues

arise concerning the characters’ relationships with music:

the principle characters of Hans Sachs and Walther von

Stolzing have a profound discussion on the innate nature of

art in Act III; the Master Singers are concerned only with

dogmatically adhering to the set traditional rules of

composition; Walther is heedless of any limits imposed upon

                                                                                                               66 Barry, Elizabeth Wendell, p. 126  67 Tanner, Wagner, p. 160

 

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his singing and resultantly produces untraditional

compositions; and Beckmesser tries to adhere to tradition

but lacks beauty or creativity in his work, failing utterly

at any attempts to create art. That the focus of

Meistersinger is on the traditional vs. untraditional

nature of music in relation to socially accepted convention

is highly significant, for two reasons: firstly, this focus

is where much of Schopenhauer’s philosophy surfaces – the

aesthetical query of whether music holds more value in

being methodically created, in a detailed contemplative

process, versus whimsically created, in an instinctual and

Will-driven process; and secondly, this focus directly

refers to an interesting and long-standing query in music

history that was particularly relevant in light of Wagner’s

own musical accomplishments with Tristan und Isolde – the

question of whether music should continue to adhere to the

set conventions of its traditional diatonic harmonic

system, or whether music should push past those

conventions, progressing into new harmonic systems and

requiring the creation of new rules. On that note, C.A.

Barry eloquently stated the following in an 1881 address to

the Royal Musical Association:

“Die Meistersinger represents the victory of genius,

 

Richardson 49

aided by good sense, over pedantry and

conventionalism. The moral sought to be conveyed is

this: that art is progressive, and that rules are

useful, and are only to be broken by those who have

learned to observe them.”68

Meistersinger also brings into bold relief the debate

of whether music should cater to society’s musical elites

or whether it should be accessible to the majority. In the

first act, Hans Sachs makes a suggestion that the

Mastersingers should allow the public to have a vote in

matter of the annual singing competition, claiming that the

rules of the Mastersingers should be tried against society

in order to ensure their artistic validity; the

Mastersingers quickly object, saying that the moment the

common people enter into art is the moment that art

ceases.69 Immediately in the music drama, a dichotomy has

been identified between those capable and those incapable

of recognizing aesthetic value in music. While this is a

long-debated dichotomy in music history, in Meistersinger

the split functions also as yet another reference to

Schopenhauer’s metaphysical conditions of aesthetical

                                                                                                               68 Barry, C. A. “Introductory to the Study of Wagner’s Comic Opera, ‘Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg’”. Proceedings of the Musical Association, 7th Sess., pp. 75 – 98: 1880 – 1881. Journal article. p. 91 69 Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Orchestral score. p. 108 - 114

 

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awareness. The young knight Walther von Stolzing knows

nothing of the Mastersinger’s “Tabulatur” of musical rules,

yet in Act III he is inspired by a Schopenhauerian dream in

which he conceives the almost perfectly composed Prize

Song.70 In reverse, Beckmesser, who knows the “Tabulatur”

completely, has no natural creativity and his music is

stunted and unoriginal; for all his study of the

information, he has gained no aesthetical awareness.71 Hans

Sachs is the enlightened character who is able to come to a

balanced perspective on music through contemplation;

Walther is the unenlightened fool who, through the dreaming

process, acquires the aesthetical awareness to calm his

irrational urges; and Beckmesser cannot attain an

aesthetical perspective free of personal interest. All

three of these characters are caught up in the dual-

dichotomy of elitism/unawareness vs.

accessibility/awareness, and all three emerge from the work

with different results. Meistersinger makes the case that

“...There must be a balance between tradition and the

individual talent”,72 and that music as an aesthetic

experience may be made available to everyone through the

contemplative journey.

                                                                                                               70    Barry, C. A., p. 88  71 Schopenhauer, Complete Essays of Schopenhauer. Vol. IV, p. 36  72 Tanner, Wagner, p. 161

 

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~ CHARACTER OF THE MUSIC ~

Unlike the music of Tristan und Isolde, which is

heavily chromatic and pushes the edges of Romantic harmony,

Wagner’s music in Meistersinger is much more reminiscent of

conventional forms of music, seeking to emulate the

musical setting of 16th century Germany. This is ironic,

especially considering the previous section of this paper

which discussed the progression of music past set

conventions.

Meistersinger is reminiscent of early 16th century

German music in that Wagner employs older forms and

stylistic techniques, such as the bar form of stollen und

abgesang, chorales, grand choruses, non-declamatory

singing, and contrapuntal writing. Wagner also utilizes

more diatonic harmony in Meistersinger; however, while he

dramatically reduces the chromaticism as compared to

Tristan, he maintains what modern theorists would consider

a progressive approach by heightening the complexity of the

dissonances.73 While Wagner accomplishes abstract

illustrations of Schopenhauer’s philosophy directly in the

leitmotivs of Tristan und Isolde, the result here is more

                                                                                                               73 Dahlhaus, p. 73

 

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concrete: by decreasing the chromaticism, returning to a

somewhat “clean slate” of clearly recognizable musical

form, and then increasing the complexity of the

dissonances, Wagner throws into sharp relief the

theoretical elements of Schopenhauer’s musical metaphysics,

such as dissonance vs. consonance, suspensions, periods,

forms, cadences, keys, and modes.

Wagner’s overture to Meistersinger illustrates two

features of the music drama that, though they imitate the

conventional, carry over traces of Wagner’s style from

Tristan – these are endless melody and the leitmotivs.

“The overture, a masterpiece of sonorous

instrumentation and contrapuntal complicacy,

presents us with a thoroughly realistic picture

of mediaeval German life. Its leading themes

severally illustrate the pompousness of the

mastersingers, the pertness of their apprentices,

and Walther’s passionate love for Eva. Without

coming to a full close it leads directly to the

first scene.”74

Wagner retains the sense of endless melody, so perfected in

Tristan, by never allowing the motion of the music to

cease. Likewise, Wagner retains the concept of leitmotivs;                                                                                                                74 Barry, C. A., p. 81

 

Richardson 53

however, in Meistersinger, they do not serve so much to

represent Schopenhauer’s metaphysical elements, but rather

undergo a transformation from those of Tristan, a

transformation that will prove significant to the

metaphysical meaning in the music of Wagner’s ultimate

work, Parsifal. In Tristan, the leitmotivs are singularly

representational and appear individually, with the

occasional inversion or layering; however, “...in Die

Meistersinger, motives combine to build up themes, or

expand to create melodies...The principle of the motivic

linking is closely connected with that of the motivic

working – the symphonic development technique: both are

emanations of musical ‘logic’ as opposed to musical

‘plasticity’.”75 With this “motivic linking” of leitmotivs,

not only do Wagner’s themes begin to expand in length and

complexity, the metaphysical meaning associated with each

individual leitmotiv combines and expands as well, creating

“higher-order” leitmotivs, so-to-speak. Wagner’s aim is

not necessarily to create smooth musical themes so much as

to create rational, metaphysical statements. As such,

though the music of Meistersinger is itself not as imbued

with metaphysical meaning, it functions as the critical

                                                                                                               75 Dahlhaus, p. 78 – 79

 

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bridge between the metaphysical music of Tristan and the

metaphysical music of Parsifal.

~ PSYCHOLOGY OF WAHN ~

The term wahn is given a high degree of value in

Meistersinger, more so even than in Tristan, for Wagner

gives to Hans Sachs a full monologue in Act III that is

dedicated entirely to the contemplation of the term. Wahn

may be loosely defined as “folly”; Reinhardt described it

as signifying an individual that has been duped in some

form by the influence of the Will. If only a single

instance of Schopenhauerian influence had to be identified

from Meistersinger, the wahn monologue would be the

quintessential example. Sachs speaks of an ever present

striving, or folly, in mankind, and of how, “...stayed in

its course, in sleep it regains strength, and with new

force wakes.”76

“The ‘town and world chronicle’ which Hans Sachs

consults in his researches is to all intents and

purposes Schopenhauer’s World as Will and

Representation, and the conclusion which Hans Sachs

reaches is again entirely Schopenhauerian: whether a                                                                                                                76 Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Orchestral score. p. 368

 

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‘goblin,’ a ‘glow worm,’ or even the ‘lilac’ with its

wonderful scent ‘has done the damage’, in the final

analysis it is all a matter of that same blind Will

and that causality to which Schopenhauer is firmly

committed.” (Reinhardt)77

Sachs comes to the realization that the Will has been

affecting the circumstances of the plot to this point, and

takes it upon himself to rationally work some noble result

from the folly that has prevailed upon Nuremberg. Also,

Wagner delivers a hint of the metaphysics in this monologue

that will figure so prominently in Parsifal, those

concerning the metaphysics of compassion:

“For Sachs, [Wahn] is the word which characterizes

everything, and which therefore seems to mark him

out as a faithful Schopenhauerian. He begins...only

able to see ‘Wahn’ as a source of pain and evil –

tearing their own flesh, people mistake their own

cries for those of their neighbours whom they are

mistreating...” (Tanner).78

This is a reference to the unified state of humanity that

Schopenhauer declares exists in the noumenal realm. Wagner

also uses this monologue to summarize Meistersinger’s point

                                                                                                               77 Müller, p. 292  78 Tanner, Wagner, p. 163

 

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concerning the importance of aesthetic contemplation:

“Thus Sachs has realized that everything is ‘Wahn’,

that there is no getting round it or beyond it. So

if there is to be positive value in the world, as

well as ineliminable evil, that will be by ingenious

manipulation of illusion, not by its replacement by

truth, or reality.”79

Sachs achieves the insight in his monologue that the World

is merely a Representation; Wagner confirms the insight by

subtly asserting both the value of music as an art, and

also the importance of the aesthetic contemplation of music

as a vital way to achieve our independence from the Will.

                                                                                                               79 Ibid, p. 164  

 

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SCENE THREE – COMPASSION IN PARSIFAL

Durch Mitleid wissend, der reine Tor!

[The pure fool, made wise by compassion!]80

– Amfortas, Parsifal

~ BRIEF INTRODUCTION ~

This paper will now turn to its final intention – to

submit a purely Schopenhauerian perspective of Parsifal,

using original research to draw connections between the

music drama and Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of compassion.

Whereas much scholarship exists concerning the

relationships of Tristan and Meistersinger to

Schopenhauer’s metaphysics, such material on Parsifal is

limited. The literature in circulation is informative,

often speaking of Schopenhauer’s views or Wagner’s use of

compassion in the work; however most of the pieces do not

go into significant metaphysical depth, nor have any pieces

surfaced that view Parsifal from a purely Schopenhauerian

perspective. Such pieces include Edmund J. Dehnert’s

“Parsifal as Will and Idea” (The Journal of Aesthetic and

                                                                                                               80 Wagner, Richard. Parsifal. Schott & Co., London. No date. Orchestral score. p. 18

 

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Art Criticism, Vol. 18, No. 4; June, 1960), in which

Dehnert recognizes Schopenhauerian influence in the music

drama but also identifies Christianity as a main facet of

his perception. Another such piece would include Carolyn

Abbate’s “Wagner, ‘On Modulation’ and ‘Tristan’” (Cambridge

Opera Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, March 1989), in which Abbate

presents engaging commentary on Wagner’s use of poetic

ideas and metaphysical leitmotivs in Tristan und Isolde,

but does not consider their application to Parsifal. Also,

Kevin C. Karnes’ “Wagner, Klimt, and the Metaphysics of

Creativity in fin-de-siècle Vienna” (Journal of American

Musicological Society, Vol. 62, No. 3, Fall 2009) draws a

solid connection between the metaphysics of Schopenhauer as

applied to Meistersinger, but does not discuss any such

connections in Parsifal. In short, while treatises abound

on Tristan and Meistersinger, no such direct studies of a

Schopenhauerian, metaphysical base to Parsifal seem to have

surfaced. The exception would be William Kindermann’s A

Companion to Wagner’s Parsifal, which features an essay by

Ulrike Kienzle entitled “Parsifal and Religion: A Christian

Music Drama?”. This essay identifies compassion as a prime

mover in the opera, and attributes Wagner’s use of

compassion to his reading of Schopenhauer; however, though

 

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enlightening, the perspective is much the same as Dehnert’s

essay, in that it approaches compassion from a Christian

perspective. Therefore, in this chapter, I will use my own

research and a solely Schopenhauerian approach to highlight

the connections between Parsifal and the metaphysics of

compassion.

In order to provide context and orientation for the

upcoming discussion, a plot summary is here presented, as

condensed from the Metropolitan Opera’s synopsis of its

upcoming 2013 production of Parsifal.

ACT I. Medieval Spain. Near the castle of Monsalvat,

Gurnemanz, knight of the Holy Grail, rises. Two Knights

prepare a morning bath for their leader Amfortas, who

suffers from an incurable wound. Kundry, an ageless woman

of many guises, rushes in with balsam for Amfortas. As

Gurnemanz bewails Amfortas' wound, his companions ask him

to tell about the sorcerer Klingsor, who once tried to join

the knightly brotherhood. Denied because of his worldly

lust, he tried to gain acceptance by castrating himself and

again was rejected. Now an implacable foe, Klingsor

entrapped Amfortas with a beautiful woman: while the king

was lying in her arms, Klingsor snatched from him the holy

 

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spear (which had pierced Christ's side) and stabbed

Amfortas. The wound can be healed only by an innocent youth

made wise through compassion. Suddenly a swan falls to the

ground, struck by an arrow. The Knights drag in a youth,

Parsifal, whom Gurnemanz rebukes for shooting the bird. The

young man flings away his bow and arrows in shame. Kundry

relates that his father, Gamuret, died in battle; his

mother, Herzeleide, reared the boy in the forest, but now

she too is dead. Gurnemanz leads Parsifal to the castle,

wondering if he may be the prophecy's fulfillment.

In the Hall of the Grail, Amfortas and his Knights prepare

the Last Supper. The voice of Amfortas’s father, Titurel,

bids him uncover the vessel, but Amfortas hesitates, his

anguish rising in the presence of the blood of Christ. At

length Titurel orders the Esquires to uncover the chalice,

which casts a glow about the hall. As bread and wine are

offered, an invisible choir is heard from above. Parsifal

understands nothing. Gurnemanz angrily drives the

uncomprehending youth away.

ACT II. Klingsor summons Kundry to seduce Parsifal. Having

secured Amfortas' spear, he now seeks to inherit the Grail

by destroying Parsifal, whom he recognizes as the order's

salvation. Kundry, hoping for redemption, protests in vain.

 

Richardson 61

In Klingsor's magic garden, Kundry, transformed into a

siren, enters to woo Parsifal with tender memories of his

childhood and mother. As she offers a passionate kiss, the

youth recoils, understanding at last the mystery of

Amfortas' wound and his own mission. Cursing Parsifal to

wander hopelessly in search of Monsalvat, she calls on

Klingsor, who hurls the holy spear. The youth catches it

and makes the sign of the cross, causing the castle to

vanish.

ACT III. Gurnemanz, now an old hermit, finds the penitent

Kundry exhausted in a thicket. As he revives her, a knight

in armor approaches. Gurnemanz recognizes Parsifal and the

spear. Parsifal describes years of trying to find his way

back to Amfortas and the Grail. Parsifal anoints Kundry,

then exclaims at the beauty of the spring fields. They walk

toward the castle. The Communion table has vanished from

the Hall of the Grail. No longer able to uncover the

chalice, Amfortas begs the Knights to end his anguish with

death, but Parsifal touches him with the spear, which heals

the wound. Raising the chalice, he accepts the homage of

the Knights as their new leader. Kundry, released at last

from her curse of wandering, falls dying. (Opera News;

accessed September 16, 2012, from www.metoperafamily.org).

 

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~ COMPASSION AS THE BASIS FOR MORALITY ~

For Schopenhauer, the sole basis of morality was the

element of compassion. Recall from the earlier

conversation on the metaphysics of compassion

Schopenhauer’s position that the Will holds over humanity

the illusion of principium individuationis, or the dupe

that we are separate, selfish bodies in the phenomenal.

Recall also Schopenhauer’s belief that compassion removes

from us that sense of distinction from our fellows because

through it we have gained insight into the workings of the

Will, the insight that we are one in the noumenal:

“Schopenhauer believed that freedom could be

attained by the acquisition of a different kind of

insight: this is new information of a philosophical

sort...namely, the knowledge that the world is will

and that we are all co-sufferers on an equal par

with one another... Insight into the world as will

promotes good conduct – actions that are morally

praiseworthy – because it arouses our sense of kinship

with other sentient beings, and this in turn taps

into our feelings of sympathy with them.”81

Schopenhauer believed that by attaining a compassionate                                                                                                                81 Fox, p. 372

 

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state and realizing that our differences are superficial in

the phenomenal, we could then recognize whether our actions

are being driven by motives that would tend toward being

inherently moral.

“‘Actions of voluntary justice, pure philanthropy,

and real magnanimity’ are the ones that possess

genuine moral worth, in [Schopenhauer’s] view, which

means that they spring from a motive or ‘incentive’

other than egoism or malice. Since, as he holds,

all actions stem from either egoism, malice or

compassion (though one may give way to another), the

only choice left for a causal explanation and origin

of morally praiseworthy behaviour is compassion.

This brings us to the heart of the matter: malice

(aimed at causing injury) clearly cannot produce

actions of genuine moral worth; egoism (aimed purely

at self-gain) clearly cannot take the good of others

seriously as an end-in-itself and, as we learn from

experience, can only produce social good fortuitously.

Therefore only compassion, which does aim at

realizing the good of others, can yield actions of

genuine moral worth.” (Fox)82

                                                                                                               82 Ibid, p. 374

 

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This motivational analysis allows us to understand the

characters in Parsifal more clearly: Amfortas’ actions

spring from egoism; Kundry’s from fear, which is a

derivation of egoism; Klingsor’s from malice; Gurnemanz’s

from a combination of pity and desperation, ultimately

tending toward egoism; and Parsifal’s from total

compassion. More will be said on the individual psychology

shortly.

In addition to Schopenhauer’s view that actions spring

from three motives (egoism, malice, and compassion), he

also believed that though we cannot inherently change our

character, we can acquire character through a heightened

state of self-awareness. This acquisition of character is

the focal point of Parsifal’s self-journey throughout the

three acts; Parsifal’s character, his ability to

distinguish the motives behind his and other’s actions, and

his knowledge of the workings of the Will all remain

unchanged and “ignorant” until he gains insight into the

world, firstly after killing the swan and attacking Kundry,

and more completely after Kundry’s kiss in Act II. Kundry

muddles through her own self-journey, but never

accomplishes the insight necessary to overcome her

situation.

 

Richardson 65

Finally, Schopenhauer sees this acquisition of moral

character, discernment, and compassion as one that must be

accomplished inwardly, personally, and without aid from

others. One must arrive at the genuine moral state of

being via personal contemplation and insight, because if

instructed by an external source, we may act upon the

instruction with no more thought other than for our own

benefit. This is relevant to Parsifal’s relationships with

both Gurnemanz and Kundry; Gurnemanz tries to effect an

insightful change in Parsifal when he brings him to the

Grail ceremony in Act I, but Parsifal’s character, in order

to become truly noble, must be awakened from an inner moral

aspect, not from the houndings of Gurnemanz. However,

Gurnemanz’s earlier reproaches for shooting the swan do

affect Parsifal, because Gurnemanz ensures that Parsifal

enters into and shares the swan’s pain. Parsifal’s later

exhortations of Kundry in Act II, though, after he has

received her kiss and realized a moral direction, are

unfortunately useless until she herself can achieve the

insight from within.

Before delving any further into Parsifal as a

Schopenhauerian opera, the nature of compassion as the

basis for morality had to be explored, otherwise Parsifal

 

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becomes convoluted and difficult to interpret.

“Schopenhauer is not merely saying the obvious –

that one often feels good when doing good – but

that compassionate acts create an inner state of

harmony and equilibrium within the psyche, because

these acts are in tune with the deepest metaphysical

truth about the world, namely, that we are

fundamentally connected to one another.”83

This “inner state of harmony and equilibrium”, of balance

and symmetry, is a primary focal point for Wagner, evident

especially in the peaceful resolution of both the plot and

the music in Act III. I submit that an understanding of

the metaphysics of compassion as the basis for morality is

critical in order to comprehend Parsifal as a

Schopenhauerian music drama.

~ PSYCHOLOGY OF THE INDIVIDUALS ~

Despite being the title character, Parsifal is

unexpectedly the most psychologically straightforward

individual in the work. His motives are relatively simple

to search out, thanks to the fact that at the beginning of

the work, he has none! Parsifal, as the chorus intones                                                                                                                83 Ibid, p. 378

 

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(refer to sound ex. 1), is a “guileless one”, an ignorant

albeit innocent fool; he does not know the distinction

between good and wicked, he knows nothing of moral

character, nor does he know anything of compassion or pity.

His actions are instinctive, guided by the Will, and his

emotions stir to the point of violence: as Schopenhauer

stated, “Every fit of anger is something common – every

unrestrained display of joy, or of hate, or fear – in other

words, every movement of the Will.”84 The incident with the

swan is the first encounter Parsifal has with compassion,

or pain, or moral actions; Gurnemanz, suspecting that

Parsifal may be the pure one who can cure King Amfortas,

puts him through a “guilt trip” of rigorous, though gentle,

reproaches, and the moral exhortations cause such a rise of

remorse within Parsifal that he snaps his bow. This is the

first elementary step in his contemplative journey: the

passion with which he snaps his bow is still violent in its

outburst, very much an instinctual reaction to his pain.

He is no more enlightened than he was before.

Parsifal’s second step in his journey is an utter

failure; he will not learn compassion until Act II, when he

is confronted by Kundry. Gurnemanz leads him to the Grail

ceremony, hoping that the incident with the swan will have                                                                                                                84 Schopenhauer, Complete Essays of Schopenhauer. Vol. V, p. 43

 

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awakened in him some deeper capacity for compassion;

however, at the end of the ceremony, after Parsifal has

stood quietly throughout Amfortas’ desperate entreaties as

well as the communion rite, Gurnemanz finds that Parsifal

does not understand what has transpired.

“The Grail vision had, then, taught the ‘guileless

one’ nothing. He could not see his mission – he was

as yet unawakened to the deeper life of the spirit...

His inner life must be deepened and developed, else

he can never read aright the message of the Grail.”85

In frustration, Gurnemanz turns Parsifal out of the hall,

ending the first act. If Parsifal is to acquire the

sensibilities of moral character, he must acquire them on

his personal journey, not by the exhortations or

demonstrations of others.

Act II is the dramatic turning point for Parsifal; he

accomplishes, almost instantly, a metamorphosis of

character from the guileless, irrational fool to a fully

compassionate, rational individual. This transformation is

brought about by the tenderizing of his character to pain,

his and others. “If Parsifal feels compassion, it will be

by understanding pain, his own and/or someone else’s. At

                                                                                                               85 Haweis, Hugh R. Parsifal: Story and Analysis of Wagner’s Great Opera. Funk & Wagnalls Co., New York, 1905. Dissertation. p. 13

 

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the crucial moment, as we shall see, he won’t make the

distinction.”86 After being turned away from the hall of

the Grail, Parsifal arrives at the castle of the evil

Klingsor, where he is beset by beautiful flower maidens;

however, as the innocent pure fool, he has not yet learned

to be tempted, and resists them all easily. Parsifal also

resists Kundry’s advances, however her entreaties cause him

to begin to feel, and he lapses into a contemplative state,

broken only when she succeeds in kissing him. The kiss is

the centerpiece of the act; it is the medium by which

Parsifal enters into sympathy with Amfortas, feeling the

king’s physical and mental pain as his own (refer to sound

ex. 2). “This kiss, while arousing in him the stormiest

feelings, causes a sharp pain, as of Amfortas’ own wound,

piercing his very heart.”87

“[Parsifal] feels in himself the temptation, the

longing and the suffering of Amfortas, and perceives

the world as the aggregation of common guilt and an

unending circle of misery, which can be broken only

by compassion and renunciation, by rejection of the

will and its blind urging and compulsion.”88

Parsifal, in the long dialogue with Kundry, has passed from

                                                                                                               86 Tanner, Wagner. p. 189 87 Haweis, p. 15 88 Dahlhaus, p. 146  

 

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ignorance to enlightenment: “He steps forth unconquered,

still ‘guileless’, but no more ‘a fool’. The knowledge of

good and evil has come, but the struggle is already

passed.”89 He is now fully compassionate, sympathetic to

Kundry’s pathetic situation, and aware of his duty to heal

Amfortas and restore the harmony of the Knighthood.

Act III sees Parsifal return to the hall of the Grail

not as an ignorant fool, but as a redeeming figure,

bringing healing, salvation, and pardon to Amfortas and

Kundry. No longer is Parsifal ruled by the irrational

workings of the Will; he has acquired insight and

character, quieting the drive of the Will with compassion.

The “guileless one” from Act I has matured: once ignorant

of pity, instinctively irrational and ruled by the Will,

and unable to distinguish moral actions from evil ones, he

has become compassionate and contemplative, capable of

distinguishing the nature of the motives behind his and

others’ actions (refer to sound ex. 3).

While Parsifal is the namesake character of the music

drama, Amfortas is by far the most tragic figure.

Parsifal’s actions from Act II forward were driven by

motives of compassion (“...the ‘will’ that spurs Parsifal

on to deeds of valour is broken by the coming of                                                                                                                89 Haweis, p. 16

 

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compassion,”90), however Amfortas’ actions are driven by

egoism. Amfortas sinned firstly by ignoring the sacred

nature of the Holy Spear and taking it with him into battle

against the evil Klingsor, and sinned again when he lost

the Spear to Klingsor after being seduced by none other

than Kundry in the midst of the battle. Klingsor inflicted

a wound upon Amfortas that will not heal; it is a constant

source of suffering and agony for Amfortas, and though he

is bitterly remorseful and knows he is not worthy to

minister holy communion, the Grail will not let him die

until he has been redeemed.

The tragic nature of Amfortas’ situation is most

poignant:

“He [is] sore, stricken in sin, yet Guardian of

the Grail, guilty among the guiltless, oppressed

with pain, bowed down with shame, craving for

restoration, overwhelmed with unworthiness, yet

chosen to stand and minister before the Lord on

behalf of His saints!”91

The suffering which Amfortas bears is extremely personal,

and yet it is representative of the suffering that all

humanity endures; it is representative of our

                                                                                                               90 Dahlhaus, p. 144 91 Haweis, p. 11  

 

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interconnectedness.92 That interconnectedness, born from

the Schopenhauerian knowledge that we are one in the

noumenal, is what allows the other characters, and by

extent, us as an audience, to feel sympathy to Amfortas.

Gurnemanz looks upon Amfortas with compassion, for he knows

the circumstances behind Amfortas’ situation; Kundry also

feels compassion for Amfortas, though partly because she

feels bitter guilt for her part in his sin. Whereas the

knights press Amfortas and look upon him with only slight

empathy and desperation when he fails to summon the courage

to perform the office of communion, Parsifal is able to

extend full compassion to the fallen king because he shares

in part the king’s emotional suffering, as he also was

nearly tempted by Kundry. Ultimately, Amfortas will never

find peace until he is redeemed: “There can be no world

peace without inner peace.”93 Because of the division of

the principium individuationis, Amfortas (and by extent,

Kundry) are divided from peace, which only Parsifal can

grant them through redemption.

Here, however, the following question arises: if the

other characters, and we as an audience, feel sympathy for

Amfortas, why then can they/we not redeem him also? The

                                                                                                               92 Dahlhaus, p. 151 93 Fox, p. 379

 

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answer is found in the return to Schopenhauer’s three

motives, as well as in the nature of the “pure fool”: as

Kienzle puts it, “Parsifal is predestined by his

compassionate nature to overcome egotism...The will cannot

negate itself or redeem itself.”94 Parsifal is the only

character whose motives are not driven in some form by

egoism or malice; his motives are purely compassionate.

The motives of the other characters will be discussed

subsequently; suffice it to say briefly, in the context of

the question, that Gurnemanz, Kundry, and the Knights are

not capable of redeeming Amfortas because, though they are

sympathetic, their compassion is stained by some derivation

of egoism. In turn, we as an audience, though we also feel

sympathy for Amfortas, are unable to redeem Amfortas for

two reasons: 1) physically, our actions and emotions are

not able to interact directly with the ongoing drama

itself; and 2) metaphorically, we have not achieved the

self-awareness of our own wills necessary to afford us the

capacity for pure compassion. Thus, Amfortas, and by

extension the other characters as well, are all dependent

entirely upon Parsifal for redemptive compassion, and all

for the same reasoning. Amfortas’ situation is truly

                                                                                                               94      Kindermann, William and Katherine R. Syer. A Companion to Wagner’s Parsifal. Camden House, Rochester, 2005. Book. p. 94, 99  

 

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“realism raised to the sublime.”95

Kundry’s character is perhaps the most complex, made

so by her dual service to both the Grail and Klingsor. Her

actions are motivated by fear and remorse, both of which

are derivations of egoism. Kundry is the most world-wise

of all the characters, for under Klingsor’s spell she has

served for many lifetimes, all the while living with no

redemption because she had dared to mock the Christ upon

the road to the crucifixion. And yet, for all her worldly

wisdom, she has not acquired the pure insightful character

that Parsifal will attain; as long as she is tainted with

her sin, she cannot overcome the workings of her own will,

and is ultimately a slave to Klingsor, whose spell may be

considered to be a representative working of the Will.

In Act I, Kundry serves the Grail, bringing news,

delivering messages, and securing balsam for the king’s

wound. However, at any point during the action that Kundry

performs a deed of service on her own accord without being

ordered by the knights, the spell of Klingsor activates,

causing her to fall back into a sleeping trance (refer to

sound ex. 4). Her personal attempts to gain grace are

useless, and whenever those overtures toward goodness

occur, her suffering literally drags her back down.                                                                                                                95 Haweis, p. 15  

 

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“Those long trances... apparently last for months,

or years, and form the transition periods between

her mood of Grail service and the Klingsor slavery

into which she must next relapse in spite of

herself.”96 Such a trance occurs when Kundry, unbidden,

seeks to aid Parsifal when he swoons upon learning from her

that his mother has died; she returns to sleep, and is not

seen again until Act II.

In Act II, Klingsor bids Kundry to seduce Parsifal –

she resists, but is forced to serve him. In the duet that

follows between herself and Parsifal, as Parsifal resists

her, she begins to feel that he can redeem her, but through

Klingsor’s magic she is duped into believing that that

redemption can only come through her physical union with

Parsifal: in essence, she is duped by Will-of-the-Species

into believing that she can only escape her torment through

the sexual union. Or, recalling Reinhardt’s description of

“wahn” as signifying an individual that has been duped in

some form by the influence of the Will, it could be said

that Kundry exists in an almost perpetual state of wahn.

Parsifal, in this Act II duet, completes the

Schopenhauerian journey to insight, however Kundry does

                                                                                                               96 Ibid, p. 10

 

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not, and Parsifal’s moral exhortations for her to allow him

to redeem her fall upon deaf ears, because she cannot

understand that he means to redeem her through compassion,

not the sexual union.

Act III is Kundry’s turning point, as it is for

Amfortas. Upon Parsifal’s return to the hall of the Grail,

he has changed, in demeanor and in appearance, and Kundry

realizes that he can bring her true salvation. She

repents, and with pity he blesses, saving her from

Klingsor’s spell. Because of Parsifal’s compassion, she

can at last attain the peace of heart necessary to acquire

moral character. As Parsifal uncovers the Grail to perform

the office of communion, Kundry dies, finally pure and no

longer bound to service in atonement for her sin.

Klingsor is the truly vile character in the work, his

actions being entirely motivated by egoism and above all,

angry, burning malice. And yet, because of the very

reasons that he is evil, he merits a compassionate response

– not on the grounds that his fellow characters feel pity

for him, but on the principles of Schopenhauer’s

metaphysics. “Schopenhauer recognized what could be called

‘compassion at a distance’, compassion for individuals

beyond immediate perception...understood only as occupying

 

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undesirable social roles.”97 The manipulation of Klingsor

as an evil character and yet one worthy of our compassion

is an example of Wagner’s careful sleight of hand.

Klingsor, once wishing to enter the Grail brotherhood, was

denied entrance due to his egotistical motives; he went

away, trying to attain forgiveness, but he was unable to

conquer his sins, and in desperation castrated himself.

When he tried to reenter the brotherhood, he was scornfully

turned away by Titurel, Amfortas’ father; thus he became

enraged and, turning to wicked magic, gave himself over to

be wholly consumed by hate. In no manner do we as an

audience want to feel sympathy for this character. Indeed,

the first reactions of Titurel, Amfortas, and Kundry when

they encounter Klingsor are revulsion and bitterness.

However, on the metaphysical principles of compassion,

Klingsor is a character worthy of sympathy. Wanting to be

near the Grail, Klingsor tried to banish his sinful nature

through repentance as well as a desperate physical action,

but his hope was denied; in a manner, his situation is

almost as tragic as Amfortas’. As Schopenhauer stated,

“Consequently what can move [people] to good deeds and to

works of affection is always only knowledge of the

                                                                                                               97 Cartwright, p. 304

 

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suffering of others.”98 “...that knowledge of the whole, of

the inner nature of the thing-in-itself...”99 is what allows

Klingsor the merit of being afforded some manner of

sympathy: we can all sympathize with the reason for his

suffering, if not with the result of it, because we

recognize the interrelated nature of humanity and therefore

take part, in some capacity, in his suffering.

Finally, the psychology underlying Gurnemanz is

straightforward: he is the narrator of the story, passive

in action except for berating Parsifal for his unnecessary

killing of the swan and for his ignorance of the Grail

ceremony. The exasperation he exhibits in throwing

Parsifal from the hall in Act I is not so much anger

towards Parsifal, but disappointment for having allowed

himself the hope that Parsifal would be Amfortas’ foretold

redeemer. He extends compassion to Amfortas, as well as to

Kundry, albeit berating Kundry for her part in Amfortas’

fall in the same manner that he later does Parsifal for

killing the swan. Gurnemanz’s actions are motivated by a

combination of compassion for his fellows as well as

desperation for the healing and survival of the Grail

brotherhood; as such, he is driven by that proverbial human

                                                                                                               98 Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 1. p. 375 99 Ibid, p. 379  

 

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mix of egoism and compassion, which as Schopenhauer

perceptively said, the “one [which] may give way to

another.”

In summary of this section, Parsifal gains

philosophical awareness through the metaphysical means of

compassion, Amfortas and Kundry are both ultimately

restored by Parsifal’s compassion, Klingsor himself merits

a compassionate allowance, and Gurnemanz extends compassion

to Amfortas and Kundry, as well as to Parsifal. In some

manner, each principle character is connected with

Schopenhauer’s metaphysical idea of compassion.

~ METAPHYSICS IN THE TEXT ~

Wagner left more signs that Parsifal is about the

value of compassion than simply the characters’

psychological states; he also left clues in the libretto

that point towards the significance of compassion. The

term “Mitleid” is the German equivalent of “compassion”,

but its meaning also carries the subtle nuances of “pity”,

“yearning”, and “being in a state of sorrow with others.”

Wagner uses the term very specifically in his text in

regard to compassion and pity. The term is used thrice in

 

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reference to the Grail’s prophecy concerning Parsifal:

“Durch Mitleid wissend, der reine Tor” [The pure fool, made

wise by compassion!]. Amfortas uses the term as a

descriptor for Christ’s motivation for dying on the cross:

“...in Mitleid’s heiligem Sehnen,” [...with tender, pitiful

yearning.]. The Grail Knights herald the power of

compassion (“Durch des Mitleid’s Liebesmacht...” [Through

the power of compassion...]), and Gurnemanz uses the term

to greet Parsifal upon his return in Act III (“Mitleidvoll

Duldender, heiltatvoll Wissender!” [Pitying and patient

one, healing and knowing one!]). Kundry uses the term in a

morose recognition of her own guilt: “Ha! Wahnsinn!

Mitleid! Mitleid mit mir?” [Ha! Madness! Pity! Pity for

me?]. And finally, Parsifal uses the term in Act III in

reference to Amfortas’ suffering: “Gesegnet sei dein

Leiden, das Mitleid’s höchste Kraft, und reinsten Wissens

Macht dem zagen Toren gab!” [Blessed be your suff’ring,

which gave the power of compassion and strength or purity

to him – the timid fool!].

Wagner placed a great deal of textual emphasis on

forgiveness and repentance from sin, as well as on the

concept of redemption. Wagner made heavy use of those

subjects in order to set up his principles of compassion;

 

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without sin and the characters’ desires to repent from

their error, there would be no dramatic necessity for

Parsifal’s acquisition of moral character. With the

recognition that “the difference between him and me is now

no longer absolute,...Schopenhauer immediately connects

compassion to the pursuit of another’s well-being”.100 In

other words, Parsifal’s acquired cognizance of the workings

of the Will allows him the aptitude to carry out his

mission of aiding others through compassion:

“The magnanimous person who forgives his enemy

and returns good for evil is sublime, and receives

the highest praise, because he still recognized his

own true nature even where it was emphatically

denied.”101

Amfortas and Kundry are the two characters most

desirous of forgiveness, and are in a constant state of

repentance throughout the work. Amfortas’ plea for

forgiveness comes in Act I: “For Him and for His

benediction, my eager heart is yearning. My inmost soul

desires atonement from God, our only Saviour.”102 Kundry’s

penitent state is commented upon by Gurnemanz: “She seems

renewed, repenting sin long since committed, which at that

                                                                                                               100 Cartwright, p. 296 101 Ibid, p. 301  102 Wagner, Parsifal. Orchestral score. p. 71

 

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time was not forgiven.”103 Parsifal heals Amfortas, granting

his desire for forgiveness; as well, Parsifal baptizes

Kundry, then imparts to her a kiss symbolic of pardon and

peace.104 On the matter of Parsifal as a redemptive work,

Wagner took Schopenhauer’s view of compassion as a quieter

of the Will and expanded it:

“Schopenhauer claims that living itself is the

original sin. That Wagner always held a position

which amounts to that comes out in the fact that

the ‘redeemers’ in his works long to redeem just

as much as the sinners long to be redeemed. Hence

it is entirely appropriate, and could well have been

a planned effect, unquestionably casting light back

over a lifetime’s work, that the final words of

Parsifal, intoned by the chorus, are ‘Erlösung dem

Erlöser’(‘Redemption to the redeemer’).”105

Redemption as a subject is expressively treated by Parsifal

in Act II, upon having rejected Kundry’s advances: his

first expression describes the results of redemption upon

the world (“Redemption’s rapture, pure and mild, sends

healing power through creation!”106), and his second

                                                                                                               103 Ibid, p. 24 104 Haweis, p. 19 105 Tanner, Wagner. p. 38  106 Wagner, Parsifal. Orchestral score. p. 177

 

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expression describes the nature of redemption as being

sprung from compassion: “ ‘Yes, sinner, I do offer thee

Redemption,’ he can say to Kundry; ‘not in thy way, but in

the Lord Christ’s way of sacrifice.’”107 As Dahlhaus most

succinctly observes of the connection between compassion

and redemption throughout the entirety of Parsifal: “The

compassion that is a dull sensation in the first act, and

widens into recognition, ‘cosmic perception’, in the

second, is at last directed outwards in the third as the

‘deed of redemption’.”108 In other words, we are made aware

of compassion, then we understand compassion, and finally

we see compassion realized in action. Parsifal’s redeeming

actions would not have been possible had he not experienced

the journey toward awareness of compassion.

~ CHARACTER OF THE MUSIC ~

When describing his own works, Wagner once defined his

music dramas as “...deeds of music which have become

visible”;109 the description applies well to Parsifal.

Carolyn Abbate also acknowledges Wagner’s comments:

“Wagner argued (with rare consistency) from Oper

                                                                                                               107 Haweis, p. 18 108 Dahlhaus, p. 147  109 Ibid, p. 53

 

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und Drama in 1851...that a poetic idea, which

first takes shape as text, is projected into music

born of that 'poetic intention', and the music

realizes this poetic idea in the 'region of

perception that has no need of words. The drama

can proceed, according to Wagner's dogma, only from

the musical realization.’”110

Sound examples 5, 6, and 7 present excerpts from the

opening preludes of Tristan, Meistersinger, and Parsifal:

the character, or poetic intention, of each music drama is

quite distinct; the leitmotivs set up the chromatic

yearning in Tristan, the sound of convention in

Meistersinger, and, I submit, a dramatically different

sound-scape of compassion in Parsifal.

Once singular representations in Tristan und Isolde,

then evolving combinations of meaning in Die Meistersinger,

Wagner’s leitmotivs emerge in Parsifal as perfected,

metaphorical themes, constructed of up to two and three

smaller leitmotivs at a time. Wagner took special care

that the leitmotivs of Parsifal should come across so

clearly that, knowing their meaning, a listener could

perceive the poetic intention merely by following the

                                                                                                               110    Abbate, Carolyn. “Wagner, ‘On Modulation’ and ‘Tristan’”. Cambridge Opera Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 33-58: March 1989. Journal Article. p. 35  

 

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orchestra. The acute clarity of the “Wagnerian orchestra”

in this last Gesamtkunstwerk is in line with Schopenhauer’s

opinion on the supremacy of music above text: “The words

are...of secondary value, as the effect of the tones is

incomparably more powerful, more infallible, and more rapid

than that of the words.”111 This resonates in Parsifal –

though Wagner himself updated Schopenhauer’s view so that

the text and music intercut in importance, the drama itself

is more poignant because of the metaphorical implications

lent to it by the leitmotivs.

Parsifal is, I argue, Wagner’s most sophisticated

illustration of his mature leitmotivic technique.

“Music, according to Schopenhauer...is an art

which represents pure, unmixed feelings, passions

in the abstract, freed from the trammels of the

reality to which they owe their specific identity

and motivation... [Wagner] recognized that leitmotivic

technique provided him with the means to admit music

to a realm which is otherwise closed to it. Once

leitmotivs have been sufficiently clearly expounded

they are musical metaphors, and by their blending,

mingling or allusion to each other they make it

possible to express divided feelings or ambiguities                                                                                                                111 Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2, p. 448

 

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which are otherwise beyond the scope of music.”112

There are over twenty distinct leitmotivs in Parsifal, the

most prominent of which are the following: the Motive of

Faith, the Motive of the Pure Fool, the Motive of the

Grail, and the opening gesture of the Act I Prelude, which

is in itself a combination of the Sacrament Motive, the

Motive of Suffering, and the Motive of the Spear. The

Motive of Faith often appears in tandem with the Motive of

the Grail, itself actually taken by Wagner from the

religious “Dresden Amen” musical acclamation, which would

have been well known at the time Parsifal premiered: thus,

the two motives together serve as a metaphor attributing

spiritual essence to the plot (see Figs. 1 and 2 below).

Fig. 1, The Motive of the Grail (Dresden Amen)

(http://www.rwagner.net/e-frame.html)

                                                                                                               112 Dahlhaus, p. 153

 

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Fig. 2, The Motive of Faith

(http://www.rwagner.net/e-frame.html)

The Motive of the Pure Fool is heard every time the

words “Durch Mitleid wissend, der reine Tor” are sung; the

addition of music to this phrase further distinguishes and

singles out the role that Parsifal will play (see Fig. 3).

Fig. 3, Motive of the Pure Fool

(http://www.rwagner.net/e-frame.html)

 

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The opening gesture of Act I is made of the Sacrament,

a major triad, which bleeds seamlessly into the Motive of

Suffering – almost the exact same motive as the Day Theme

in Tristan – which then elides into the Motive of the Spear

(see Fig. 4).

Fig. 4, A = Sacrament, B = Motive of Suffering, C =

Spear (http://www.rwagner.net/e-frame.html)

The combination of these three motives foreshadows exactly

the heart of the dramatic dilemma for Amfortas: the office

of communion is accompanied by suffering, which only the

Spear can assuage. Also, the Sacrament motive is often

combined with the Grail motive (the Dresden Amen), itself

attached to the Motive of Faith. The Motive of Suffering

appears continuously throughout the work, underlying

instances of compassion and hurt on Parsifal’s part, as

well as the moments when Amfortas and Kundry are in the

 

Richardson 89

throes of redemptive suffering.

The various mixing and matching of leitmotivs to

create large, sweeping themes gives Parsifal a more

cohesive and holistic sound than Tristan or even to an

extent, Meistersinger. In general, the individual

leitmotivs fall into one of two categories, either diatonic

or chromatic; the diatonic motives are representative of

pureness, whereas the chromatic motives are representative

of suffering and evil:

“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 naïve simplicity of Parsifal’s motive to the

sublimity of the Grail themes.”113

Thus, if the themes which are normally diatonic are heard

in chromatic derivations, such as the “Dresden Amen” in Act

II during Klingsor’s declamations (see Fig. 5), the

implication is that the pureness represented by that motive

has been tainted.

                                                                                                               113 Ibid, p. 151

 

Richardson 90

Fig. 5, Dresden Amen, chromatic; p. 97 in score

In his essay “The Genesis of the Music” (A Companion to

Wagner’s Parsifal), William Kindermann also acknowledges

the diatonic vs. chromatic nature of the music of Parsifal,

particularly in passages associated with Amfortas (see Fig.

6).114

Fig. 6, Motive of Amfortas’ Anguish, Act II; chromatic

(http://www.rwagner.net/e-frame.html)

                                                                                                               114 Kindermann, p. 168  

 

Richardson 91

The Act III prelude exhibits this diatonic vs. chromatic

derivation (see Fig. 7):

“The opening prelude of the third and last act...

is full of pain and restlessness – the pain of

wretched years of long waiting for a deliverer,

who comes not; the restlessness and misery of a

hope deferred, the weariness of life without a

single joy. The motives, discolored as it were by

grief, work up to a distorted version of the Grail

subject... Is the Grail, too, then turned into a

mocking spirit to the unhappy Amfortas?”115

Fig. 7, Grail Motive, distorted; p. 204 in score

By manipulating the motives in this manner, Wagner adds yet

another layer of meaning onto the musical metaphors: he

takes the base meaning of a single leitmotiv, combines it                                                                                                                115 Haweis, p. 18  

 

Richardson 92

with a second leitmotiv to create a larger idea, and then

slightly manipulates those leitmotivs themselves in order

to create a super-layer of representation. Instead of only

having to consider the implications of the single

leitmotivs, one also must take into account simultaneously

what the leitmotivs mean when manipulated from their

original form. Wagner raises the leitmotiv from an

identifying musical gesture associated with a single idea

or person to an item of music that is dynamic (no pun

intended) and capable of raising musical questions.

Overall, the music of Parsifal is noble in character –

it is calm in tone, tinged simultaneously with joy and

sadness, and generally devoid of both the intense sexual

longing felt in Tristan and the more conventional musical

sound of Meistersinger. This is not to say that there is

no emotion in the music: of course there is a deep level of

emotion represented, however that emotion is musically

treated in accordance with the characters’ journeys toward

compassion. The music associated with Kundry, Klingsor,

Amfortas, Gurnemanz and Parsifal, illustrates the

appropriate state of each character along each step of his

or her own journey, from irrational to rational, from

impetuous to humble and9 controlled. Indeed, the overall

 

Richardson 93

musical soundscape of Parsifal is so distanced from the

yearning of the Will-of-the-Species in Tristan, as well as

from the more conventional “phenomenal” treatment of music

in Meistersinger, that it could be considered the

“compassionate distancing” from both extreme views of the

Will – it views the Will from an calm, understanding

perspective. The leitmotivs underscore the psychological

states of each of the characters, and add additional layers

of meaning in the form of combinations and modal changes.

The work is metaphorical, representative of the sublime

journey of compassion that the characters and the audience

are taking. Tanner most eloquently expresses the music’s

nature when considering the Act I Prelude: “The

Prelude...is a piece of scrupulous exposition which

simultaneously contrives to offer the faintest hope of

peace at the end of what is evidently going to be a long,

excruciating journey.”116 Schopenhauer’s reminder that music

is a direct representation of the Will resonates heavily

with Parsifal, and serves as an excellent explanation of

why its music as a whole is so powerful:

“[Music] never expresses the phenomenon, but only

the inner nature, the in-itself, of every phenomenon,

the will itself. Therefore music does not express                                                                                                                116 Tanner, Wagner. p. 190

 

Richardson 94

this or that particular and definite pleasure, this

or that affliction, pain, sorrow, horror, gaiety,

merriment, or peace of mind, but joy, pain, sorrow,

horror, gaiety, merriment, peace of mind themselves,

to a certain extent in the abstract, their essential

nature.”117

Therein lies the key point for the music of Parsifal: I

argue that the music does not represent any particular

rendering of compassion, but rather compassion itself in

its abstract nature (refer to sound ex. 8).

~ THE WILL AND CONCLUDING REMARKS ~

Wagner, in Parsifal, illustrates the Schopenhauerian

metaphysics of compassion with the journey of the

guileless, innocent fool.

“Wagner adopted Schopenhauer’s ethics...In

feeling pity for others we deny the Will as

expressed in ourselves and lose our individuality

in entering into or sympathizing with another being.

By constant practice in living in others we lose

the sense of a personal existence and thwart the

                                                                                                               117 Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 1, p. 261

 

Richardson 95

expression in ourselves of the ‘will-to-live’.”118

The difference with Parsifal is that the Will itself

assumes a more subtle role: though it still functions as

the ultimate antagonist in the work, it is not so

shockingly forward and wanton as in Tristan, nor is it the

plain subject of verbal commentary as in Meistersinger.

The Will here is a passive force in that the irrational

deeds driven by it have already been committed: Klingsor,

Amfortas, and Kundry have already faced the drive of the

Will and succumbed to it, and upon the beginning of the

opera are seen coping with the repercussions of their

actions. Twice we actually see the Will actively engage:

briefly in Act I, when Parsifal shoots the swan, and

substantially in Act II, when Kundry, under the influence

of Klingsor’s spell, is driven to seduce Parsifal by the

Will-of-the-Species. For the remainder of the music drama,

the Will’s presence is passive – present and ever working,

but subtle.

While in Tristan, clear references are made to the

noumenal night, the phenomenal day, and immeasurable

yearnings, and while in Meistersinger Hans Sachs quotes

nigh verbatim a Schopenhauerian passage concerning the

madness of wahn and the Will, not a single verbal reference                                                                                                                118 Barry, Elizabeth Wendell, p. 130

 

Richardson 96

is made to the Will in Parsifal. Ironically, this passive

treatment of the Will is precisely the reason why I have

concluded that Parsifal is Wagner’s most powerful

commentary on Schopenhauerian metaphysics. By allowing the

Will to take an ever present but passive position, Wagner

ensured that the audience would have to join the characters

in their journey of moral contemplation in order to

comprehend the work – we truly must work to follow the

reasoning behind the characters’ actions and motives,

instead of having them hand-fed to us as in Tristan and

Meistersinger. In order to appreciate Parsifal’s impact,

we must acknowledge our own oneness and the necessity for

compassion, in Schopenhauer’s terms; we must “enter into

sympathy with” and “lose ourselves” to individuality. “It

is only in terms of this ethic of compassion, founded on a

metaphysic of the unity of living things, that Parsifal

makes sense.”119 Viewed from this perspective, Parsifal

transforms into a personal metaphysical commentary, and it

is only with the aid of this metaphysical analysis of

compassion that I have come to understand Parsifal in what

I believe to be its full Schopenhauerian value.

END ACT TWO                                                                                                                119 Tanner, Wagner. p. 198  

 

Richardson 97

POSTLUDE

“Nothing should remain for the synthesizing

intellect to do in the face of a performance of a

dramatic work of art; everything presented in it must be

so conclusive that our feeling about it is brought to

rest; for in the bringing to rest of this feeling, after

its highest arousal in sympathy with it, lies that very

peace which leads us to the instinctive understanding of

life. In drama we must become knowers through feeling.’

[from Wagner’s treatise Opera and Drama].”120

For all the resources one may consult when exploring a

work or art, none have such an impact as the original

itself. As such, though we may identify the metaphysical

principles that underlie Wagner’s Parsifal, and though we

may gain a sense of the subtleties of the work, it is my

opinion that we will only achieve a full appreciation of

the work if we “enter into sympathy with it” and become

“knowers through feeling.” Parsifal as a music drama

demands our attention, draws us in, and becomes as relative

a personal commentary on our own actions as it actually is

for its characters.                                                                                                                120 Ibid, p. 9

 

Richardson 98

Parsifal as a message is a comment on the human

condition, while Parsifal as a music drama may be

considered in retrospect Wagner’s ultimate Gesamtkunstwerk,

not only in terms of its place as his final music drama,

but also in terms of its subject matter. Though this paper

has been specifically concerned with the metaphysical

importance of compassion in Parsifal, my study has also

identified references in the work to Schopenhauer’s

metaphysical theories of human sexuality and music. The

likelihood of Parsifal being Wagner’s deliberate

representation of all three metaphysical means to quieting

the Will is a fascinating, and not implausible, prospect,

and would constitute an excellent topic for further study.

For the present, however, I conclude this project with my

last, appreciative interpretation of the music drama, the

opinion that Parsifal achieves the sublime goal of bringing

us all, even if only momentarily, into a noumenal sense of

oneness with our fellow man through the element of

compassion.

 

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SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCES AND DVDS

23. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Conducted by James Levine. Metropolitan Opera, New York: 2001. DVD.

24. Parsifal, a Documentary. Narrated by Placido Domingo. RM Arts, 1998. DVD.

25. Parsifal. Conducted by Kent Nagano. Festspielhaus,

Baden-Baden: 2004. DVD.

26. Parsifal. Conducted by James Levine. Metropolitan Opera, New York: 1994. DVD.

27. “Parsifal Synopsis”, courtesy of Opera News, accessed

September 16, 2012; www.metoperafamily.org. Website.

28. “Richard Wagner: Parsifal Leitmotives”, accessed

September 22, 2012; http://www.rwagner.net/e- frame.html. Website.

29. Tristan und Isolde. Conducted by James Levine. Metropolitan Opera, New York: 2004. DVD.