Leitmotif

(from Ger. Leitmotiv: ‘leading motif’).

In its primary sense, a theme, or other coherent musical idea, clearly defined so as to retain its identity if modified on subsequent appearances, whose purpose is to represent or symbolize a person, object, place, idea, state of mind, supernatural force or any other ingredient in a dramatic work. A leitmotif may be musically unaltered on its return, or altered in rhythm, intervallic structure, harmony, orchestration or accompaniment, and may also be combined with other leitmotifs in order to suggest a new dramatic situation. A leitmotif is to be distinguished from a reminiscence motif (Erinnerungsmotiv), which, in earlier operas and in Wagner’s works up to and including Lohengrin, tends to punctuate the musical design rather than provide the principal, ‘leading’ thematic premisses for that design. The term was adopted by early commentators on Wagner’s music dramas to highlight what they believed to be the most important feature contributing to comprehensibility and expressive intensity in those works. It is often used more loosely to refer to recurrent thematic elements in other musical forms and even in examples of non-musical genres, such as the novels of Thomas Mann, who acknowledged Wagner’s influence.

The earliest known use of the term ‘leitmotif’ (see Grey, 1988) is by the music historian A.W. Ambros, who wrote, in or before 1865, that both Wagner in his operas and Liszt in his symphonic poems ‘seek to establish a higher unity across the whole by means of consistent leitmotifs’ (durchgehende Leitmotive). From Ambros the term gravitated, via F.W. Jähns’s study of Weber (1871), to Hans von Wolzogen’s thematic guide to the Ring, published in 1876 – the year of the cycle’s first complete performance. Wagner used it in print in his essay Über die Anwendung der Musik auf das Drama (1879), in the course of a complaint that ‘one of my younger friends [presumably Wolzogen] … has devoted some attention to the characteristics of “leitmotifs”, as he calls them, but has treated them more from the point of view of their dramatic import and effect than as elements of the musical structure’.

The use of the term ‘motif’ in writing about music goes back at least as far as the Encyclopédie (1765), and before 1879 Wagner had employed a variety of expressions when discussing thematic elements in his works: ‘melodisches Moment’, ‘thematisches Motiv’, ‘Ahnungsmotiv’, ‘Grundthema’, ‘Hauptmotiv’. As Wagner’s comments in 1879 indicate, he sensed that Wolzogen, whose ‘guide’ was little more than a pamphlet, was in danger of oversimplifying and trivializing his achievements in his desire to make the music dramas more accessible; Wolzogen’s remarks reinforce the fact that ‘leitmotif’, and its subsequent usage, tells us as much (if not more) about the reception of his works as about his working methods or creative intentions.

Wagner, with his wide experience as a conductor, was undoubtedly aware of the extensive use of reminiscence motifs in earlier opera from Méhul and Cherubini to Marschner and Spohr, and his close friend, Theodor Uhlig, in writings on Tannhäuser and Lohengrin, had drawn attention to the role of recurrent thematic elements in Wagner’s own work as early as 1850. Indeed, although Wagner was particularly concerned in Oper und Drama (written in 1851, before he had begun any extensive compositional work on the Ring cycle) to underline the importance of formal units (periods) constructed to ensure that all aspects of the music responded as vividly as possible to the promptings of the text, in practice he still recognized the necessity for a small number of easily identifiable and malleable motifs, along the lines of Beethoven’s most pithy and memorable thematic cells. These would, however, originate in a melody quite different from the foursquare and often florid vocal phrases of traditional opera, and embody such a power and directness of expression that the emotion concerned would be recalled when the motif itself returned, even if action or text no longer alluded directly to its original associations.

A major problem for motif-labellers has been that this original association is almost always multivalent – the music depicting the grandeur of Valhalla also portrays the nobility of Wotan, for example – and might well be ambiguous. It is now generally accepted that Wolzogen mislabelled the principal love motif of the Ring as ‘Flight’, taking over this designation from an earlier commentary by Gottlieb Federlein (1872). And the motif which, after Wolzogen, is invariably designated ‘Redemption through Love’ was seen by Wagner himself – at least in a letter of 1875 – as representing the ‘glorification of Brünnhilde’. Such factors indicate why most commentators on Wagner express reservations about motif-labelling while finding it difficult to discard the activity altogether. After all, despite his own reservations about Wolzogen’s efforts, Wagner’s presentation and manipulation of his thematic material lay at the heart of his musico-dramatic technique, as he made clear in Über die Anwendung der Musik auf das Drama.

Discussing the ‘simple nature-motif’ (ex.1) and the ‘equally simple motif’ heard ‘at the first appearance of the gods’ castle Valhalla in the morning sunlight’ in Das Rheingold (ex.2: Wagner transposed the motif from D to C for ease of comparison), Wagner observed that ‘having developed both these motifs in close correspondence with the mounting passions of the action, I was now able [in Die Walküre, Act 2] to link them – with the aid of a strangely distant harmonization – to paint a far clearer picture of Wotan’s sombre and desperate suffering than his own words ever could’ (ex.3). Later in the essay, seeking to emphasize the structural rather than the semantic role of his motivic techniques, Wagner described how the ‘remarkably simple’ motif of the Rhinemaidens’ innocent jubilation (ex.4) recurs in varied guises throughout the drama until, in Hagen’s ‘Watch’ (Götterdämmerung, Act 1), ‘it is heard in a form which, to my mind at least, would be unthinkable in a symphonic movement’ (ex.5). Wagner’s point is that the malevolent, distorted versions of the gold motif that pervade the music at this point would sound like ‘empty sensationalism’ in a symphony, but the dramatic context justifies the nature of the musical transformation and the structural emphasis which requires its protracted employment in this ‘distorted’ form.

Wagner himself understandably sought to underline such larger-scale structural concerns. But the concentration of Wolzogen and others on the identification of local motivic associations is no less understandable, since their principal purpose was not to provide the most far-reaching analysis but to defend the composer against charges of illogicality and incomprehensibility. Just as commentaries on symphonies and sonatas can be valuable on all levels, from simple, non-technical programme notes to elaborate analyses (provided the simple and the elaborate are not confused), so there is room, and need, for such variety in commentaries on opera. There is no evidence that the activities of Wolzogen and his followers seriously inhibited attempts at more sophisticated analytical studies of Wagner’s harmonic and formal procedures, though these were slower to emerge. And while the more sophisticated anti-Wagnerians were able to use such naive motif-spotting as Wolzogen’s to support arguments about the essential crudity of Wagner’s compositional principles (Hanslick, for example, wrote in praise of Verdi’s Falstaff that ‘nowhere is the memory spoonfed by leitmotifs’), many Wagner scholars have built on the foundations laid by Wolzogen, and Wagner himself, to refine and elaborate the study of musical meaning in the music dramas, and the role that leitmotifs play in establishing that meaning. It is motivic evolution and development, in the context of large-scale tonal structuring and formal organization, that has become the focus of attention in the attempt to understand the ways in which Wagner’s musical language, and his attitude to drama, changed over the years between Das Rheingold and Parsifal.

From the very beginning of scene 1 of Das Rheingold, motifs ‘lead’ in the sense that they do not merely pervade the musical fabric but establish its expressive atmosphere and formal processes. They do not invariably originate in the vocal line as Oper und Drama had prescribed, and Wagner soon begins to move beyond their exact or varied repetition at textually appropriate moments into the kind of transformation that creates deeper dramatic resonances and larger-scale musical continuities, suggesting that musical thinking itself is beginning to promote dramatic associations. At the end of scene 1 of Das Rheingold, the motif associated with the ring, and with the world’s wealth (Wagner’s own interpretation of the idea, according to his sketches), is transformed orchestrally into the Valhalla motif at the start of scene 2, a process leading the listener to connect Alberich’s precious acquisition with Wotan’s no less highly valued possession, and the power they both embody. As the cycle proceeds, a clear contrast emerges between, on the one hand, the immediate connection of word – or visual image – and tone that first fixes important motivic elements and, on the other hand, the consequent power of music to reinforce a connection that text and action may leave implicit: for example, the use of Alberich’s curse when Fafner kills Fasolt (Das Rheingold, scene 4), and the references to the Siegfried motif when Brünnhilde and Wotan proclaim the need for a fearless hero (Die Walküre, Act 3).

The interruption of work on the Ring in 1857 brought a significant change of direction. Up to that point, Wagner’s aesthetic had centred on the belief that the most profound art work was a theatrical event to which words and music made significant contributions. But it now began to evolve, under the impact of Schopenhauer, and the sheer force of his own musical inspiration, to the point where music became the central feature – however important the initial conception of theatrical event and text remained in relation to the music he eventually composed. The result, in simple terms, is that leitmotifs become even less specific in meaning and even more subject to musical elaboration; in all the later dramas there is a sense in which the motifs ‘lead’ the music beyond literal and immediate signification while still, inevitably, remaining linked to, and helping to determine, the progress of the drama. Scholars have wrestled with the inherent complexity of this interaction between the ‘symphonic’ and the ‘dramatic’. In particular, Ernst Kurth (1920) proposed a distinction between leitmotifs, which reflect the dramatic situation directly, and ‘developmental motifs’ (Entwicklungsmotive), which achieve independence not only of such representational functions but also of the kind of clearcut shaping that makes a leitmotif easily identifiable. ‘Developmental motifs’ are figures that promote the ongoing evolution of the music – a process quite distinct from the actual development (by sequential transposition or any other variation procedure) of the leitmotifs themselves.

Kurth recognized that leitmotivic analysis on its own cannot possibly do justice to the significatory power of Wagner’s music. More recently, Carolyn Abbate (1989) declared that his music ‘actually projects poetry and stage action in ways far beyond motivic signs’; she also asserted that ‘Wagner’s motifs have no referential meaning; they may, and of course do, absorb meaning at exceptional and solemn moments, by being used with elaborate calculation as signs, but unless purposely maintained in this artificial state, they shed their specific poetic meaning and revert to their natural state as musical thoughts’. No doubt an analysis of Tristan that doggedly attempted to confine the meaning of every occurrence of the opening cello phrase to ‘Tristan’s suffering’, or any other of the various tags that have been attached to it, would be absurdly naive and literal. But variation and diversity of meaning are not to be confused with meaninglessness; it seems undeniable that the listener ‘comprehends’ the intense, elaborate developments and derivations in Tristan subliminally, sensing meaning through the sheer force and insistence of its evolving musical logic.

One result of the increasing flexibility of motivic signification in the later Wagner is that the motifs themselves seem to invite reduction to a few unifying archetypes. Robert Donington, Deryck Cooke, Carl Dahlhaus and many others have shown how a few ‘primal motifs’ in the Ring – Donington (1963) has four, featuring Broken Chords, Conjunct Motion, Chromatic Intervals and Changing Notes – may be regarded as generating a great number of offshoots. Robin Holloway (1986) argued that in Parsifal, even more pervasively than in the Ring or Tristan, the leitmotifs grow from ‘a sonorous image-cluster … the nucleus that gives life to the work’s expressive substance’. Holloway’s interpretation illustrates the tendency of leitmotivic analysis to seek out ever more intricate and all-embracing unifying factors. The role of leitmotif in Wagner’s compositional design also remains a central topic in discussion of the extent to which his structures are ‘tightly’ or ‘loosely’ knit (see Abbate, 1989, 1991). No less valuable has been the concern of scholars working in the field of German studies to re-examine the significance of Wagner’s motivic theory and practice in the light of evolving concepts of drama (see Brown, 1991).

One example of Wagner’s importance in the history of music is the difficulty of avoiding the concept of leitmotif in studies of so many of his contemporaries and successors. Roger Parker has found it useful to discuss Verdi’s Aida in the light of the observation that ‘particularly in its treatment of “motive” and “recurring theme”, it is the most nearly Wagnerian of Verdi’s operas’ (1989). Direct influence or attempted imitation are not implied in this case, but with slightly later composers the probability of literal influence is much stronger, whether the composer is relatively close in style to Wagner, as Richard Strauss was in Salome and Elektra, or strikingly distant, as with Debussy in Pelléas et Mélisande. There are in fact very few composers of significance on whom Wagner’s stylistic influence was direct and extensive: Humperdinck is one such.

These composers’ operas show that, whatever the musical style, through-composition renders some degree of leitmotivic working a useful means of achieving continuity and directedness. Yet discussion of the topic is bedevilled by the problems facing motivic analysis in general: that is, of recognizing the point at which ‘connection’ and ‘derivation’ cease to be more convincing than ‘contrast’ and ‘difference’. John Tyrrell (1982) commented on K.H. Wörner’s attempt to demonstrate all-embracing thematic connections in Janáček’s Kát’a Kabanová that ‘too wide an interpretation of permissible manipulations allows almost anything to creep in’. By contrast, Peter Evans (1979) has shown how the presence of pervasive motivic working can be plausibly demonstrated in Britten’s operas, despite a style that owes more to Verdi than to Wagner.

George Perle (1980) has attempted to argue that Alban Berg, in Wozzeck, used the leitmotif principle more effectively – that is, less predictably and mechanically – than Wagner himself had done. In his discussions of Wozzeck and Lulu Perle also distinguished between leitmotif and ‘Leitsektion’: ‘a total musical complex’ that serves a referential function. The notion of referential musical function may be further elaborated if not only exact or near-exact recurrences but also the equivalences that are revealed by reduction to the unordered collections known as pitch-class sets are admitted: Allen Forte’s work on Wozzeck (1985) and Tristan (1988) represents the most extensive demonstration of that procedure. Such manipulations might appear to have little to do with the leitmotif principle as it relates to Wagner, moving away as they do from the particular profile of the theme on the musical surface. So, too, Schoenberg’s Erwartung, in its atonal athematicism, might be felt to be more a reaction against Wagner’s influence than a celebration of it. Yet Carl Dahlhaus contended that the brief structural segments of Erwartung, ‘not unlike Wagnerian periods, are not infrequently defined by means of a characteristic musical idea, which constitutes the predominant motif, albeit not the only one’ (1978; Eng. trans., 1987). If motivic elaboration of any kind is seen in terms of the leitmotif principle, then it becomes possible to extend the range of Wagner’s ‘influence’ still further. The most ambitious operatic enterprise of the late 20th century, Stockhausen’s Licht, could scarcely be less Wagnerian in style, yet the material of the entire seven-opera cycle derives from a ‘super-formula’, in which melodies representing the three central characters, Michael, Eva and Luzifer, are superimposed. The virtually constant presence, in the background, of these melodies may represent an approach to motivic composition very different from that of Wagner (see Kohl, 1990). We might nevertheless sense a genuine bond with those ‘plastic nature motifs, which, by becoming increasingly individualized, were to serve as the bearers of the emotional subcurrents within the broad-based plot and the moods expressed therein’, to which Wagner referred in 1871, in the Epilogischer Bericht on the Ring, when he attempted to describe what he believed his first task had been when embarking on the work almost 20 years before.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ARNOLD WHITTALL

Leitmotif

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A.W. Ambros: Culturhistorische Bilder aus dem Musikleben der Gegenwart (Leipzig, 1860, 2/1865)

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F.W. Jähns: Carl Maria von Weber in seinen Werken (Berlin, 1871)

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G. Federlein: ‘“Die Walküre” von Richard Wagner: Versuch einer musikalischen Interpretation’, Musikalisches Wochenblatt, iii (1872), 211–503

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