The Chords That Bind

Superconductor explores a connection between Tristan und Isolde and Siegfried. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Left: Ludwig and Maria Schnorr von Carolsfeld as Tristan and Isolde.
Interrupting them: Jean de Rezke as Siegfried. Most rude of him. Equally rude photoshop by the author.

In the operas of Richard Wagner, there is a sort of musical interconnectivity that exists: not just between the leitmotifs of the four operas of Der Ring des Nibelungen but between the other operas too. Certain themes recur in operas with similar ideas. (A famous example is the "Dresden Amen") which appears in both Tannhäuser and Parsifal.) This morning, while having a listen to the 2012 Decca remaster of the Georg Solti/Vienna recording of the Ring, I discovered another such musical connection. In the first act of Siegfried I found the Tristan chord.