Hexatonic Poles and the Uncanny in Parsifal

{richard cohn}

Example 1 From Sigfrid Karg-Elerts Harmonologik.

I begin by reviewing the central argument of my earlier paper in a way that is

oriented to the concerns I will be developing with respect to Parsifal. My point of
entry is Alfred Lorenzs analysis of the music of Example 2, which accompanies
the re-covering of the Grail in act 1. At mm. 148384, a D major triad moves to A
minor and back; the progression is identical to the one that accompanies the death
of Kundry at the end of the opera. Lorenz asserts that the minor triad is actually a
dissonance. . . . The A stands in for B as a neighbor tone to A , while the E/C
third is understood as lower leading tones to F/D . Thus what is notated as a
major sixth Lorenz hears as a diminished seventh. The chord is therefore intensely dissonant and its enharmonic kinship to a triad is incidental.3
To understand the A minor triad as Lorenz does, it will help to reconstruct
several assumptions that remain tacit in his own account. Lorenz assumes that,
The Opera Quarterly Vol. 22, No. 2, pp. 230 248; doi:10.1093/oq/kbl008 Advance Access publication on July 20, 2007
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Example 1, reproduced from a 1930 harmony treatise of Sigfrid Karg-Elert, depicts

a hexatonic pole, a progression (in either direction) between a major and a minor
triad that features semitonal motion in each of the three upper voices.1 In a previous article, I demonstrated that hexatonic poles are frequently called upon by
composers to depict uncanny phenomena, and suggested that this association
follows from a homology between features of the progression and of the uncanny
as it was understood by early twentieth-century psychology.2 The examples used
in that article were brief, and drawn from a broad array of music, including
several from Parsifal. As Karg-Elerts annotation of Example 1 suggests, those
examples were merely the toe protruding from the sheets of the music drama.
This paper demonstrates that Parsifals abundant hexatonic poles are woven into a
semantic network that is deeply enmeshed in the uncanny aspects of Wagners
final music drama.

hexatonic poles and the uncanny in parsifal

Example 2 Act 1, mm. 1480 1485.

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when we hear the D major triad at the downbeat of m. 1483, we are conditioned
to respond by imagining it embedded into a scale in which that triad serves as
tonic. (This assumption is entirely reasonable, given the D major cadence
initiated at m. 1481.) In any major or minor scale, semitonal voice-leading in contrary motion always connects a consonant interval with a dissonant one.
Accordingly, when D moves down by semitone at the same time that A moves
up by semitone, Lorenz supposes that we are conditioned to hear the ensuing
pitches as engaged in a dissonance, even though the same two pitch classes
would constitute a consonance in some other enharmonic context; he assumes,
moreover, that this is so even though the third voice, E, would also be consonant
with those two pitches if they were perceived to be consonant with each other.
Lorenzs analysis does not end here, though. Under the appropriate circumstances, he observes, the putative A minor triad has the potential to act in the way
that its notation suggests. If the minor triad is held for awhile, it becomes
covered over by the appearance of a consonant triad. The psychological effect of
this procedure is magical, for while lingering on the notes that are initially understood as dissonant, the chord cleanses itself, without any motion, into the most
radiant beauty.4 In some cases, the self-cleansing process is enhanced by composerly intervention. Consider the progression from G major to E minor at measure
1481 (also Ex. 2). The second chord is initially heard in terms of an E /F dissonance. But in the following measure, an F passing tone splits the E /F dyad,
suggesting its components are related by leap rather than step, and hence constitute an E /G minor third, a suggestion confirmed by the subsequent D major
cadence. Lorenz writes that from G major follows the dissonance fF , A , E g,
sounding as E minor, which then . . . leads to D major as a ii chord.5

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The process works in the other direction as well. With self-purification comes
the possibility for self-defilement. The reverse also may arise: through progression toward an unfamiliar chord, an originally pure triad can be transformed
into a structure whose consonance is merely apparent, hence dissonant.6 Lorenz
does not provide an example, but we have one close at hand. Once we understand
the E minor chord at 1482 as diatonic to D major, we no longer have a secure
understanding of the G major chord that preceded it. From the standpoint of the
D cadence, the G major chord is now retroaudited as fA , C , Dg, an aggregation of the E minor chords chromatic neighbors.
So the dissonant can turn out to be consonant and vice versa. The music-theoretic
tradition in which Lorenz participates encourages us to adopt a metaphysical
interpretation. For early-century German theorists, consonance is affiliated with truth,
reality, and life; dissonance with falsehood, appearance, and death. In this context, we
can say that the minor triad is initially perceived as false and imaginary; once it
begins to function as a supertonic, it behaves as if it were true and real. Reciprocally,
the major triad is initially perceived as alive, but we come to understand it as dead.
The progression effaces the border between reality and appearance, between death
and life. And it is exactly such effacements that are the mark of the uncanny, as it was
theorized in contemporaneous psychoanalytic writings.7
Parsifal is an unheimlich tale. With the exception of Parsifal and the urheimlich
Gurnemanz, every named character in the drama straddles or manipulates the
boundary between life and death. Amfortas teeters on the brink of death; only his
office keeps him alive. Ancient Titurel inhabits a tomb; he lives only to watch
Amfortas perform his office. Kundry is older yet; only a curse keeps her from
death. Wagner imagines her death as the de-souling (Entseelung) of a zombie
(gazing up at Parsifal, Kundry sinks slowly to the ground, her soul removed).
And Klingsor conjures botanical abundance from a desert wasteland: from death
springs life.
The story of Parsifal is as much about objects and symbols as it is about characters singing on the stage, and these symbols too have unheimlich histories and
powers. The Grail contains the holy blood of the savior. After a thousand years,
the blood maintains its capacity to nourish the Monsalvat brethren. This capacity
is activated by the Communion service, when the opening of the Grail transforms
its ancient contents into the fiery blood of life. As the blood performs its nourishing work, Amfortass agony is intensified beyond his ability to bear it. This is the
central problem for which the opera provides a solution.
From this uncanny gnarl, four distinct components can be extracted: the holy
blood of the savior; its repository, the grail; the Communion service, in which the
animating and agonizing potentials of the blood are released; and the pain of
Amfortas, who suffers the bloods agonizing power at the moment of
Communion. Hexatonic poles play a vital role in the setting of each of these

hexatonic poles and the uncanny in parsifal

233

components. To my knowledge, no one has inventoried the hexatonic poles in

Parsifal, much less explored the syntactic contexts or semantic networks in which
they participate.8 The situation is peculiar, since Parsifal is crawling with hexatonic poles.9 They occur as early as the third phrase of the prelude, and as late as
the final curtain. In music of the nineteenth century, it is axiomatic that chromatically marked events at the boundary of a composition are clues to the contents of its interior; when those boundary markings match, it is a near certainty.

Hexatonic Deformations of the Grail

Example 3 Act 1, mm. 39 41.

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The Grail theme is brief, tightly knit, and metrically stable. It appears many
times in the opera, usually snapped into the same metric grid, so that when
deformations are introduced one can easily trace them to their source. The initial
diatonic presentation, provided in Example 3, begins with three harmonic progressions by descending third. Following David Lewins adaptation of Riemanns
symbols, we label diatonic progressions that feature root-motion by minor third
as R (for relative), and by major third as L (for Leittonwechsel [leading-tone
exchange]). Thus the succession consists of an initial R, an L, and a final R that
triggers the concluding Dresden Amen.
The instrument that deforms the Grail is an operation that we will call H, which
takes a triad to its hexatonic pole. At various points in the opera, Wagner substitutes
H for one or more of the diatonic operationsinitial R, L, and final R. We can
understand mm. 148384 from Example 2 as the product of two H-substitutions:
first for the initial R, taking D major to A minor rather than B minor; then for L,
taking A minor to D major rather than to F major. Accordingly, the transformational sequence of the diatonic Grail, R, L, R, is converted to a new transformational sequence: H, H, R. This same music recurs when Kundry dies, and as
such it contains the final chromatic event of the entire music drama.
The deformation that we have been discussing is one node in a system of
Grail deformations which, in the aggregate, come close to exhausting the combinatorial potential of H-substitutions for the three operations of the diatonic Grail.
Given three occurent operations, R, L, R, there are seven possible transformations

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by substitution: H can substitute singly for each operation, doubly for each pair
of operations, and comprehensively for all three operations at once. Wagner uses
five of these seven possibilities, avoiding only two that substitute H for L without
also substituting H for initial R. A catalogue of the remaining substitutions
follows:
(H, L, R) At the moment when Parsifal recognizes Gurnemanz in act 3, a
version of the Grail theme substitutes a hexatonic pole for the initial R. See
act 3: mm. 275 77. The same music occurs, transposed up a semitone, when
Parsifal heals Amfortass wound, a particularly climactic moment in the
action of the opera. Act 3: mm. 102931.

(H, L, H) In the act 3 orchestral music that accompanies the uncovering and
shimmering of the Grail, a version of the Grail theme substitutes a hexatonic
pole both for the initial R and for the final R.10 Act 3: mm. 10981100.
(H, H, H) When Parsifal envisions the Grail in act 2, a version of the Grail
theme substitutes a hexatonic pole for each of the three diatonic thirds that
precedes the Dresden amen. Act 2: mm. 105052.
The network of grail substitutions is collated in Figure 1. Versions of the Grail
theme are adjacent on the graph if they are identical except for a single hexatonicpolar substitution.

The Hexatonic Transformation of the Liebesmahl

The final chromatic event of the act 3 postlude, a hexatonic deformation of
the Grail theme, abstractly balances the first deeply chromatic event of the
act 1 prelude, a hexatonic transformation of the theme associated with Holy

Figure 1 Grail Deformation Space.

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(R, L, H) When Gurnemanz admonishes Parsifal for wearing military garb, a

version of the Grail theme substitutes a hexatonic pole for the final R. Act 3:
mm. 2079.

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Example 4 Act 1, mm. 20 25.

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Communion, or Liebesmahl. Parsifal begins with an unaccompanied presentation

of this theme (Example 4a), which is immediately repeated with full harmonization. Both presentations are entirely in A major but for a single chromatic event,
the D that composes out the C minor triad at the center of the theme, which is
associated with the pain of Amfortas and is referred to as the Schmerzensfigur.
A more chromatic version of the same theme immediately follows, again presenting an unharmonized version (Example 4b) followed by its full harmonization.
This version is also diatonic up to the point of the Schmerzensfigur, at which
moment the introduction of chromatic pitches suggests an E minor triad. It is standard to hear this triad as intruding into a diatonic environment centered on C
minor, which is heard to both begin and end this version of the theme.11 This
hearing is certainly appropriate for the second, harmonized presentation that begins
at m. 28, which rides the crest of a perfectly cadenced and lavishly prolonged C
minor tonic. But the first presentation, at m. 20, follows an A major triad that is
just as extravagantly extended. As there is nothing in the fermata-held rest at the
end of m. 19 that would motivate a listener to relinquish that tonic, there is no
motivation to hear the C that intrudes on the silence as anything but a third scale
degree of A . This interpretation is confirmed by the subsequent rise to a repercussed A , where the strings terminate a phrasing slur that originates with the
C. The incipit of the unharmonized chromatic presentation, then, is heard in A
major, not C minor, and it is against this background that E minor is first heard as
its hexatonic pole.
Some may feel that this hearing attends insufficiently to the parallelism
between the two versions of the Liebesmahl. If we hear the opening phrase as
beginning on a tonic, and we hear the phrase at m. 20 as parallel to that opening
phrase in terms of both gesture and interval, does that not suggest that we have
motivation to hear the C at m. 20 as a tonic? We can respond to this objection by
noting that parallel phrases frequently pair a tonic-generated antecedent with a
mediant-generated consequent. Two examples are the opening of the Allegro of
Beethovens Leonore Overture, and the opening of the Brahms Piano Trio in
B Major. Had Wagner composed the second Liebesmahl phrase as he did, but
removed all of the accidentals, there would be no question of its tonal affiliation

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to A major. As we aurally follow the incipit, from C up to A , we have no indication that we are not going to hear my hypothetical A major version, and hence
no reason to hear its incipit in C minor.12
Although the interpretation that I am suggesting is immediately overturned as
soon as the harmonized version of the theme begins at m. 28, it is explicitly confirmed in the act 1 Communion service when the two Liebesmahl themes are presented intact, as a complete pair, for the only time in the opera proper (mm.
145960). Here the A timpani roll that accompanies the cadence of the antecedent phrase is sustained through the opening of the consequent at the singing of
Nehmet hin mein Blut, against which the E minor setting of Nehmet hin
meinen Leib is a hexatonic pole. It is with these two settings of the Liebesmahl
that Wagner began to compose the opera. In the initial sketch, reproduced as
Example 5 in William Kindermans diplomatic transcription, the diatonic and
chromatic statements, accompanied by a bass line, are elided without pause.13
Cosima related in her diary that Richard considered this sketch to represent the
seed of the whole. The phrase pair is in A until the E minor of the second
Schmerzensfigur. C minor is not summoned as a potential tonal center until the
cadence of the consequent phrase. Even here that center remains unrealized
through a deceptive cadence that plausibly (if weakly) marks a return to the
opening tonic. The A major!E minor hexatonic pole in the second, chromatically deformed version of the Liebesmahl, then, is generative from the standpoint
of the composer as well as the listener.
The hexatonic deformation of the Communion theme does not participate in
the same sort of extended transformational network as the analogous deformation of the Grail theme. Unlike its compact, metrically square counterpart, the
Liebesmahl is long-winded, loosely knit, and metrically floating. Consequently, it
is rarely brought back as an entire unit. Wagner mostly treats it as a library of
modular components that can be individually extracted for use. The network in
which the chromatically deformed Communion theme participates is only
abstractly musical, operating at the level of harmonic progression rather than the
surface gesture of the Grail deformations. A more salient network consists of the
semantic or hermeneutic referents with which the hexatonic deformation of the
Liebesmahl is associated: the pain of Amfortas, referenced at the moment of
chromatic deformation (the Schmerzensfigur), and the holy blood of the savior,
referenced by the textual incipit of the chromatic version of the Liebesmahl when
it is sung in the act 1 Communion service: Nehmet hin mein Blut. These are
treated separately in the two sections that follow.
Several considerations complicate this last point. In the incipit of the antecedent phrase, the chorus sings of taking the body; at the Schmerzensfigur it sings
of the blood. In the consequent phrase, these assignments are exactly reversed.
One consequence is that the hexatonic version is (appropriately) associated with

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237

the blood to the extent that the incipit metonymically represents the entire
phrase. But another consequence is that the hexatonic Schmerzensfigur makes
reference (inappropriately) to the body rather than the blood. In this connection,
it is of considerable interest that in Wagners initial sketch (Ex. 5) all of these
textual assignments are reversed. Here, it is the diatonic incipit that cites the
blood and the chromatic one that (inappropriately) cites the body with the result
that the blood is (appropriately) mentioned at the hexatonic Schmerzensfigur.
Wagners commitment to a chiastic text, it seems, was incompatible with the

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Example 5 Initial Sketch of the Communion Themes, transcribed by William

Kinderman.

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desideratum of making the textual references bloodier as the music drove more
deeply into the hexatonic thicket.

Hexatonic Poles and the Pain of Amfortas

Example 6 Act 1, mm. 169 172.

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Example 6 presents the setting of the first textual reference to the pain of
Amfortas, just after the recently roused knights await his initial entrance. At the
inception of the text (The pain soon returned, but more intensely), a V42 in D
minor over a tonic pedal is displaced by a ii7 in C minor. Although both chords
are dissonant, each embeds a unique consonant triad as a subset. The two triads
are hexatonic poles, A major to F minor, whose three semitonal displacements
are emphasized by the voice leading and the triads registral placement in the
octave above middle C. Such embeddings are characteristic of hexatonic poles
when they are used to portray either the pain of Amfortas, the holy blood, or
several other phenomena that I shall discuss at the end of this essay. In all such
cases, the consonant triad is uniquely embedded into the dissonant chord, so that
one is never in conflict about which triad is being represented.14 The particular
progression, from the V7 of a minor tonic to the ii7 of a minor tonic a whole
step below, is developed in the music of the Heilandsklage, which depicts
Amfortas at the height of his suffering.15
The next textual reference to Amfortass pain occurs at mm. 24950, just
before his initial entrance, when Gurnemanz laments seines Siechtums Knecht
[his enslavement to his disease]. The E minor triad that sets Siechtums is the
hexatonic pole of the A major triad sounded at the downbeat of the previous
measure, forming an untransposed version of the initial Liebesmahl transformation. The same progression recurs at the same transposition when Gurnemanz
tells of Amfortass wounding (eine Wunde brannt ihm in der Seite, m. 541),
and then again a semitone lower when Kundry elliptically notes Parsifals
empathy for the pain of Amfortas (andrer Schmerzen, act 2: m. 1131).
The suffering of Amfortas dominates the act 1 Communion, and through
much of this scene, hexatonic poles run amok. Amfortas is carted out on an A
minor triad after five and a half very slow measures of C major bell music (beginning at m. 1203). After the knights sing the hexatonically saturated music of the

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Heilandsklage (to be discussed below), there follows some Faith music in A

major, setting Der Glaube lebt at m. 1231ff., in tonal anticipation of the A major
Communion service two hundred measures later. These two soundings of the
global tonic flank the psychological climax of the first act, the Amfortasklage,
which begins in the key of the global hexatonic pole, E minor. The juxtaposition
of the same two keys is also internal to Amfortass aria, whose introductory
phrase moves from E minor to a dominant seventh on G (mm. 1297301) that
immediately discharges back to E minor as Amfortas begins to sing. The same
tonal motion is replicated in Amfortass opening phrase, and also in the relationship between the opening of the arias first two strophes (both Lorenzian bars),
the second of which begins at m. 1326 with an A 7 chord.
Concealed hexatonic poles receive their apotheosis in the Heilandsklage music
that serves as the Abgesang of the first verse of the Amfortasklage, and as the two
Stollen of the climactic fifth verse. This music, sometimes referred to as
Sundenqual [the torment of sin], is adumbrated at mm. 99100 of the prelude,
blossoms during the orchestral interlude that accompanies the transformation
(beginning at m. 1123), and receives its first explicit verbal association just after
ndigen Welten, mit tausend
Amfortass entrance to choral singing of Den su
Schmerzen, wie einst sein Blut geflossen [As once the blood of the redeeming
hero flowed, for the sinful world of a thousand pains] (m. 1205). Each of these
settings conceals its hexatonic poles behind a persistent descending-fifth motion
in the bass that persistently feigns at a red-herring tonality. Example 7 presents
the beginning of the fifth strophe of Amfortass aria as a particularly concentrated
sample of the Heilandsklage music (mm. 136975). The bass line runs through
fourteen stations of the cycle of descending fifths. Just as characteristic a feature
of this music is the chromatic descent of parallel major thirds in the upper register, which Wolzogen labeled the sound of woe [Wehelaute].
Example 8a schematically models the combination of the descending fifths in
the bass and Wehelaute thirds in the treble as they appear in the first three
measures of Example 6. The fourth voice, in the tenor, models Amfortass vocal
line. The harmonies alternate half-diminished and dominant sevenths. Grouping
these entities from strong beat to weak beat, as in Example 8b, we perceive a frustrated diatonic logic: the motion from subdominant to dominant summons a
minor tonic, which appears in the bass but supports a half-diminished seventh
chord rather than a consonant triad.16 This diatonic logic, however, cuts against
the grain of the anacrustic melodic rhythm, whose iambs suggest a chromatic
logic: the major triads embedded in the dominant seventh chord combine with
the minor triads embedded in the half-diminished seventh chords to produce a
hexatonic polar relation, as shown in Example 8c (compare Example 6).
In the music based on this model, some of the dominant seventh chords actually do discharge onto their signified minor tonics, as with the A minor triad

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Example 7 Act 1, mm. 1369 1375.

that transiently sounds at the downbeat of m. 1370. Such discharges are signaled
by the upward resolution of a leading tone, bringing relief from the relentless
downward pressure of the Wehelaute thirds. With the exception of the E minor
cadence at m. 1372, marking the halfway point of the passage, this relief is fleeting. The Wehelaute thirds immediately regenerate, undermining the normative
tonic and reconstituting the progression of seventh chords, and with them, the
polar triadic pairings.

hexatonic poles and the uncanny in parsifal

Hexatonic Poles and Holy Blood

Example 9 presents the first explicit mention of holy blood in the opera, at the
moment when Gurnemanz reveals the connection between the crucifixion and

Example 9 Act 1, mm. 593 595.

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Example 8 Three models of act I, mm. 1369 71.

a. Schematic model.
b. Diatonic interpretation.
c. Hexatonic interpretation.

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Herzeleide and Kundry

It is not difficult to understand why Wagner would use a single musical symbol
to knot the Communion, the Grail, the blood, and the pain of Amfortas together
into an abstract motivic network. The blood is contained (and its uncanny powers
sustained) by the Grail, released by the Communion service, and collaterally
intensifies Amfortass pain. My analysis suggests why Wagner would choose this
particular musical gesture as an icon for this complex of circumstances: hexatonic
poles efface the boundary between consonance (tonal life) and dissonance (tonal
death), and thus inhabit the same liminal space that is straddled by the nourishing blood of the long-dead savior, by Klingsors garden-in-a-wasteland, by the
necroproximate Amfortas and Titurel and the grossly superannuated Kundry. But
some hexatonic poles in Parsifal stand in a more problematic relation to the
semantic network that has been my focus so far.
Example 10 presents the Herzeleide 2 motive, which frequently sounds
during the hundred measures before the act 2 kiss. Its initial presentation of the
motive features a half-diminished seventh chord whose embedded C minor triad
discharges onto the F major triad that is its hexatonic pole. Its immediate transposition down by whole step summons a feature of the Heilandsklage music. The

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the contents of the Grail (act 1: m. 593). On the cross his holy blood also flowed
prolongs an A major triad that, at the discharge of the Schmerzensfigur at m. 594,
is joined by a sub-posed bass F, anticipating the D7 chord that arises at the
culmination of the figure at the downbeat of m. 595. A major to F minor is
the same hexatonic pole embedded at Example 5, the first reference to Amfortass
pain.
The same music recurs twice in act 3: transposed up a minor third when
Gurnemanz tells Parsifal to disarm because it is the day when the Lord shed his
blood (m. 223), and at the initial transposition when Amfortas pleads to drown in
the holy blood (m. 966). These constitute two of the three references to the holy
blood in the final act. The final reference occurs after Amfortass wound has
been healed, when Parsifal sings of ihm seh ich heilges Blut entflieen in
Sehnsucht nach dem verwandten Quelle [holy blood flowing out of the spear,
yearning for the kindred source]. This instance, appropriately, lacks a
Schmerzensfigur. It also lacks the characteristic dissonances of the earlier references: it is presented as the triadic progression of B major to G minor (act 3:
m. 1077). This music also bears the Wehelaute thirds that signal, for one final
time, the Heilandsklage music associated with the pain of Amfortas. This time,
however, the Wehelaute thirds gain some traction on their slippery slope, and are
reconciled to the diatonic framework of D minor at the moment that the blood is
restored to the Grail.

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Example 10 Act 2, mm. 947 950.

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motive participates in a broader network of hexatonic-polar pairings that are

associated with Parsifals mother and her death. This network includes Parsifals
s? Wer ist gut? where bo
s is set to a B7 chord
paired questions, Waren sie bo
embedding a D minor triad, and gut to the dominant seventh that embeds its F
major hexatonic pole. Gurnemanz responds to Parsifals second question by offering his mother as a pillar of goodness (act 1: mm. 99294). Also related are the
two parallel moments when Parsifal learns of his mothers death, both of which
feature a dominant seventh chord on A that Kundry resolves vocally to a lone D4.
In the first act, Kundrys brutal seine Mutter ist tod triggers an orchestral
pounce onto a mirror-inverted minor ninth chord fB, D, F, A , Cg whose sole
triadic subset is F minor (m. 1002). In the second act, her languorous and whispered Herzeleide starb precipitates an unaccompanied D4 tremor in the first
violin (m. 915), which is soon joined by an F minor triad to form a D7.
So far, the sub-network of referents is internally coherent. What is murkier is
why Herzeleide starb is set to the same music as Kundrys des Weges sollst du
geleitet sein [you will be shown the path] (act 2: m. 1439). Nor is it clear how the
Herzeleide sub-network is related to the larger one developed in this paper.
Unlike that of Kundry, who tries to simulate Herzeleide in Parsifals psyche, there
is no indication that Herzeleides death has uncanny elements. She simply wastes
away with grief. Perhaps more relevant is the parallel between Herzeleides
psychic suffering and Amfortass physical wound. As Patrick McCreless has
noted, it is the knowledge of his mothers suffering and death that unlocks in
Parsifal the capacity for compassion that motivates his healing of Amfortas.17
A second sub-network of hexatonic poles is associated with Kundry. Many of
these are indirect, in the sense that their triadic components are affiliated not by
direct juxtaposition but by gestural or textual parallels. In act 1, Gurnemanzs
nschte) is flanked
speculation about Kundrys multiple lives (Kundry als verwu
by two soundings of the Communion incipit on D major (m. 436) and A minor
(m. 443), respectively; these are the same two triads that are directly juxtaposed at

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Some Open Questions

I conclude this paper by marking out four areas for further study.18 First are questions of the ordering of components. In a vast majority of cases, the major triad
precedes its minor pole. This statistical asymmetry is consistent with the repertory as a whole, if the instances cited in Uncanny Resemblances are representative. Nonetheless, one would like to know what hermeneutic considerations drive
the minor-to-major orderings when they do arise, as they do in the opening of
the Amfortasklage, Kundrys double naming of Parsifal, her double curse,
Klingsors spear chuck, and the Herzeleide 2 motive.
Second are questions of clarity. Many hexatonic poles in Parsifal are occluded
by superimpositions (added dissonances) or juxtapositions (interpolated harmonies or phrases). What considerations, either syntactic or semantic, motivate these
accretions? At a first approximation, we can observe the progressions assuming
positions along a continuum. Clearest are the Grail deformations, consisting of
block triads connected by explicit and direct semitonal voice leading. Slightly cloudier is the hexatonic Communion theme, featuring composed-out triads whose
semitonal voice leading is more implicit. At a second order of remove are those
triadic progressions with added dissonance, on the one hand, and with interpolated events on the other. Added dissonances can embed one of the polar-related
triads, as in Herzeleide 2, or both, as in the Heilandsklage and the references to
the holy blood and the dead mother. Interpolated events can take the form of

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Kundrys death. Kundrys encounter with Parsifal in act 2 begins when she twice
calls his name, arpeggiating C minor (act 2: m. 739), and then E major (m. 751).
Hexatonic poles sound when Kundry sings of having awaited Parsifal for eternity
(act 2: mm. 115153); throughout the scene when she recounts her mockery of the
savior on the cross (act 2: mm. 117797); when she refers to Parsifal as her savior
(act 2: mm. 1383 85, D minor to G major); and at the moment of her seductions last gasp (act 2: mm. 143439). Kundrys final coherent utterance in the
opera occurs at the end of act 2, when she condemns Parsifal to eternal wandering: Irre, she first commands over a D minor triad, and then over G major,
echoing her double iteration of Parsifals name at the start of their encounter (act
2: mm. 147678). Ten measures later, Klingsor sings his own exit line. Den
Thoren stelle mir seines Meisters Speer [The fool falls to me by his masters
spear] prolongs B minor until the spear throw, which is punctuated by a magnificently efflorescent D major (act 2: mm. 149093). Some of these stage events are
uncanny on their own terms, but only in the weak sense of implicating magic,
not in the stronger Freudian sense of effacing boundaries. Nor can they be easily
affiliated with the network of phenonema that surrounds the Grail, the blood and
so forth, without seriously diluting that networks tight focus.

hexatonic poles and the uncanny in parsifal

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single chords, as at Kundrys doubly uttered curse, or entire phrases, as at

nschte or her double utterance of Parsifals name.
Kundry als Verwu
Third are questions of pitch-specificity. Given that there are twelve hexatonic
poles, what logic informs the choice of a particular transposition at a specific
moment of the drama or of the musical unfolding? Key-specific cross-references,
a well-documented aspect of Wagners art,19 are apparent, for example, in the A
major/E minor pairing of the Communion deformation, the act 1 references to
Amfortass wound, and the opening of the Amfortasklage. But these will only get
us so far, since each of the twelve hexatonic poles is used at some point in the
opera. Evidently more promising is a grouping of the poles into harmonic
regions on the basis of the natural affinities created by shared pitch classes.20
Each hexatonic pole is affiliated with its transposition up and down a major third.
For example, the pitch-class pool upon which the A major/E minor pair draws
fA , B, C, E , E, Gg also serves as the source of the C major/A minor and
E major/C minor poles. For the study of Parsifal, we can consider these three
hexatonic poles to inhabit a tonic region. This leads easily to the assignment of
three poles to the subdominant and dominant regions, respectively. The remaining triads, then, can be considered to be in the region of the double dominant
(V of V) or double subdominant (IV of IV). This region is more remote, as
the union of its hexatonic poles forms a collection that is pitch-class complementary to the region of the tonic.
Figure 2 summarizes these four regions, which inhabit a cyclic space based
on the pitch-class content of the underlying hexatonic collection. In passages that
are locally saturated with hexatonic poles, it is possible in principle to identify
coherent regional prolongations, cyclic regional modulations, and complementary
regional exchanges. Preliminary detailed work with the Amfortasklage, Parsifals
Grail vision, and Kundrys mockery of the savior has suggested particularly coherent regional paths.
Fourth, and finally, are questions of large-scale tonal planning. Not everyone
agrees that these questions are worth posing, much less pursuing. Hypotheses
along these lines are often opposed on a priori grounds of salience, long-term
limitations on tonal memory, and the difficulty of segmentation and hierarchization across the vast undivided spans characteristic of Wagners music dramas.
But those willing to entertain the possibility will find suggestive evidence here.
The first act begins in A major and returns to that key for the Communion
service near the end of the act. Its hexatonic pole, E minor, is clearly articulated
in Gurnemanzs tonally closed Lied (Lorenz: Kundry als Gralsbotin, mm. 396
420), and again at the psychological climax of the act, the opening of the
Amfortasklage. The second act is tonally closed in B minor; its pole, E major, is
the principal key of the flower maidens music (from m. 485).21 And both halves
of the final act individually depict a progression from disorientation and loss to a

245

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richard cohn

magically achieved order via modulation from a minor key to its major hexatonic
pole: the B minor that opens act 3 proceeds to the D major of the Good Friday
meadows (beginning at m. 676) that precedes the transformation, while the E
minor that opens the transformationand closes the knights chorus that follows
ffnet den Schrein (m. 1088) and the final
itproceeds to the A major of O
orchestral music. The hexatonic pole that frames the pre-transformation music is
pitch-class complementary to the one that frames the final scene. Together, the
four framing tonic triads of act 3 saturate the pitch-class aggregate, and retrograde
the local harmonic progression that accompanies the shining of the Grail (act 1:
mm. 148183, c.f. Example 2), Parsifals Grail Vision (act 2: mm. 105052), the
failure of Kundrys seduction (act 2: mm. 143437), and Gurnemanzs Good
Friday admonition (act 3: mm. 208 209).
To the extent that one believes such concepts appropriate, then, what is
suggested is that hexatonic poles are at the core of the dramas music, just as the
uncanny blood, its container, the ritual that delivers it, the agony that it inflicts,
and the resolution of that agony are at the core of the music drama.

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Figure 2 The Four Hexatonic Regions of Parsifal.

hexatonic poles and the uncanny in parsifal

247

notes
no. 3 (1984): pp. 336 49; Lewin, Some Notes
on Analyzing Wagner: The Ring and Parsifal,
19th-Century Music 16, no. 1 (1992): pp. 49 58.
9. One can speculate that the progression has
been overlooked because, like the title character
of the opera, it has lived for decades without
knowing its own name. Karg-Elert called it
Mediantleittonwechsel oder primarer
Kolletivwechsel, but these names were ushered
offstage as quickly as the dualistic theory in
which they were embedded. For an account of
Karg-Elerts hyper-dualist theory of harmony, see
Daniel Harrison, Harmonic Function in Chromatic
Music (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press,
1994), pp. 313 20. Naming and categorizing are
often considered low bureaucratic arts, but the
unnamed are the homeless citizens of
conceptual society; one is inclined to gaze
straight past them.
10. This passage is discussed in David Lewin,
Amfortass Prayer. See also David Clampitt,
Alternative Interpretations of Some Measures
from Parsifal, Journal of Music Theory 42, no. 2
(1998): pp. 321 32; and Fred Lerdahl, Tonal Pitch
Space (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001),
pp. 298 301.
11. See, for example, Lendvai, Workshop, p. 377,
and Lewin, Some Notes, p. 57.
12. William Kindermans claim that the first
two Communion incipits are based on the first
two segments of the prelude to Liszts cantata,
The Bells of Strasbourg, supports my hearing, if
equivocally. In reference to that preludes E
tonic, its second segment connects 3 to 1, the
same tonal hearing that I am claiming for the
second incipit. A virgin listener, though, would
to 4
in B . See
likely hear it as connecting 6
Introduction: The Challenge of Parsifal, in
William Kinderman and Katherine R. Syer, ed.,
A Companion to Wagners Parsifal (Rochester,
NY: Camden House, 2005), pp. 21 22. Thanks
to Steven Rings for pointing this out to me.
13. William Kinderman, Die Enstehung der
Parsifal-Musik, Archiv fur Musikwissenschaft 52,
no. 1 (1995): pp. 96 97; Kinderman, The
Genesis of the Music, in Kinderman and Syer,
Companion, p. 152.
14. Some readers will resist the notion that
D acts as the supplementary dissonance of the
chord at m. 170, rather than its root. Members of
our musical culture have been indoctrinated, if
only implicitly via the standard names for chords,
to believe in root generation by stacked thirds.
But there is another worthy tradition, stemming
from Rameau, which considers non-dominant

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Two ideas developed in this article were first

explored by Robert Cook in Alternative
Transformational Aspects of the Grail in
Wagners Parsifal, an unpublished paper
presented at the 1994 meeting of Music Theory
Midwest: the systematic nature of H-substitution,
and the pairing of hexatonic poles with the blood
of Christ.
1. Sigfrid Karg-Elert, Polaristische Klang-und
Tonalitatslehere (Harmonologik) (Leipzig,
Germany: F. E. C. Leuckart, 1930), p. 282.
2. Richard Cohn, Uncanny Resemblances:
Musical Signification in the Freudian Age,
Journal of the American Musicological Society 57,
no. 2 (2004): pp. 285 323.
3. Alfred Lorenz, Der Musikalische Aufbau von
Richard Wagners Parsifal (Tutzing, Germany:
Hans Schneider, 1966 [1933]), p. 89.
4. Ibid., p. 89. Die psychologische Wirkung
hrend
dieses Vorgangs ist zauberhaft; denn wa
des Verweilens auf den zuerst dissonant
nen reinigt
verstandenen, aber temperierten To
sich der Klang ohne jede Bewegung zu
nheit. . . . Kaum sind die
strahlender Scho
ne aber erreicht, so legt sich
Nebento
uber den
Klang der Schein einer Konsonanz, was wie ein
Lichtstrahl wirkt.
5. Ibid., pp. 89 90. Auf G-dur folgt die
Dissonanz es/ais/fis . . . klingend wie es-Moll,
welches dann scheinkonsonant festgehalten wird
hrt.
und als II. Stufe nach Des-Dur fu
6. Ibid., p. 90. Auch der umgekehrte Weg
nglich reiner
kann vorkommen: Ein urspru
Dreiklang wird durch seinen Fortgang zu einem
eigentlich fremden Akkord in ein bloss
scheinkonsonantes also dissonantes Gebilde
umgewandelt.
7. See Brian Hyers article, Parsifal
hysterique, in this volume of the Opera
Quarterly; for Sigmund Freuds famous
discussion of The Uncanny, see The Standard
Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of
Sigmund Freud, ed. and trans. James Strachey
(London: Hogarth, 1953), 17: pp. 219 52.
8. Karg-Elerts parenthetical mention is in
passing. Other discussions of isolated instances
of this progression in Parsifal may be found in
Lendvai, The Workshop of Bartok and Kodaly
Erno
(Budapest, Hungary: Editio Musica, 1983),
p. 377; Lendvai, Verdi and Wagner, trans. Monika
Palos and Judit Pokoly (Budapest, Hungary:
International House, 1988), pp. 140 43; David
Lewin, Amfortass Prayer to Titurel and the Role
of D in Parsifal: The Tonal Spaces of the Drama
and the Enharmonic C /B, 19th-Century Music 7,

248

richard cohn
Schubert example is analyzed in David Lewin,
Music Theory, Phenomenology, and Modes of
Perception, in Music Perception 3, no. 4 (1986):
pp. 327 92.
17. Patrick McCreless, Motive and Magic:
A Referential Dyad in Parsifal, Music Analysis 9,
no. 3 (1990): p. 229.
18. This final section owes a debt to Steven
Rings splendid formal response to the
conference presentation of this paper, and to
subsequent private communications between us.
19. Robert Bailey, The Structure of the Ring
and its Evolution, 19th-Century Music 1, no. 1
(1977), pp. 48 61.
20. The following exposition recapitulates
material introduced in Richard Cohn,
Maximally Smooth Cycles, Hexatonic Systems,
and the Analysis of Late-Romantic Triadic
Progressions, Music Analysis, 15, no. 1 (1996):
pp. 9 40.
21. See Warren Darcy, Die Zeit ist da:
Rotational Form and Hexatonic Magic in Act 2,
Scene 1 of Parsifal, in Kinderman and Syer,
Companion.

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tetrachords in terms of added sixths. Some will

sense the whiff of Riemannian undertones at
work, where none is intended or necessary. My
proposal to focus on the largest consonant
subset of a chord simply privileges consonance
over root-generation. This proposal is consistent
with psychoacoustic evidence; the research of
Ernst Terhardt suggests that F, not D, is the
virtual root of the harmony at m. 170. See
Richard Parncutt, Harmony: A Psychoacoustical
Approach (Berlin, Germany: Springer-Verlag,
1989), p. 149.
15. The modulation down a whole-step, which
is thematic of Amfortass pain, problematizes
Fred Lerdahls assertion that modulations by
descending whole-step have no place in Parsifal,
and, hence, the hermeneutic reading on which
that assertion relies. Lerdahl, Tonal Pitch Space,
p. 128.
16. Wagner does not invent this progression;
he would have found sources for it in the Mozart
C-minor Fantasia, K. 475, mm. 11 14; Schuberts
Morgengru, mm. 13 14; and Chopins F#
minor Mazurka, Opus 6, no. 1, mm. 5 8. The