 |
  Suffering |
Lorenz remarked that many of the smaller elements of Wagner's music, although they had not
been singled out as "leading motives" (Leitmotiven) by von Wolzogen or others, were
deserving of attention because of their structural importance. The Suffering motif was, in fact, noticed by von Wolzogen, who labelled it as
the sounds of woe. It would be easy to avoid labelling something as simple as a
descending three (or sometimes four or even five) notes of chromatic scale as a motif, were it
not so ubiquitous. Robin Holloway, writing in the ENO/ROH Guide to the work, considers the
harmonic complex (A) associated with this motif so important that he describes it as the
work's central, sonorous image
. As well as the three-note Suffering motif, this complex also includes an important element of the Agony complex (#14x).
It may even be a conscious reference to part of the central, sonorous image
of
Tristan und Isolde, since the three-note motif is a beheaded version of the first
basic motif of that work, a motif that also becomes associated with suffering. In his
analysis of Tristan und Isolde, Roger North has observed that these three notes,
differently harmonised, appear in a scene that Wagner laid aside in order to work on
Tristan: in Mime's Starling Song, which is also about
suffering.
 Four-note form (or is it five?) as it appears in the second act |
|
 Three-note form as it appears in the second act |
The basic motif of Suffering usually appears as three notes, sometimes extended to four, and sometimes followed by a rising minor third. It is closely related to the Agony motif (#14) and in the four-note form to its inversion, the Yearning motif (#35), which may also be regarded as a basic motif. Typical occurrences of the Suffering motif from act 2 are shown in (B) and (C) above.
Other analyses of the themes that appear in Parsifal have applied the label "suffering" elsewhere. There are several themes related to pain and suffering; to which of them we apply this label is unimportant. In applying it to this motif the author is following Carl Dahlhaus.