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1 results

  • 8 - Wagner’s Late Counterpoint

  • from Part III - Time, Texture and Tonality
  • Edited by Steven Vande Moortele, University of Toronto
  • Book:
    Wagner Studies
    Published online:
    17 April 2025
    Print publication:
    24 April 2025, pp 160-180

  • Summary

    Revisiting selected passages from Siegfried and Parsifal, this chapter argues that the archaic surface of Wagner’s late counterpoint – the result of contrary motion, constructed symmetries, stepwise motion and rhythmic uniformity – relies less on historical styles than on a musical ‘laboratory situation’. Through a combination of nineteenth-century counterpoint pedagogy and historical and contemporary models (including some of Wagner’s own earlier works) with aspects of memory studies and Adorno’s ideas on late style, the chapter shows how a composed image of ‘counterpoint’ creates acoustic and analytical conditions that draw attention to the constructive elements of Wagner’s late style.