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#WednesdayWagner "Hoiho, Hagen! Müder Mann! Sieh'st du mich kommen?" In your weekly dose of wagnerian clues, let's face the overlaps between Hagen, Siegfried and Tarnhelm. Pardon??? Yes!!! Keep reading to know further details
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#WednesdayWagner Hagen's evil is represented by a descendent tritone (diminished 5th). One of the clearest presentation of this evil character is the wonderful "Hagen's Watch" scene. This diminished 5th appears in the bass part
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#WednesdayWagner Note that the presentation is done by linking this descendent interval with a slightly modified Siegfried leitmotiv. They fit together into a ... half-diminished chord! (oh man, again this chord!)
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#WednesdayWagner Let's see how this chord evolves: The upper voices, with form a minor chord, move as the "Tarnhelm" motive: keeping the middle pitch and moving the other twoby half-step in opposite directions
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#WednesdayWagner The sound is a bit different than the original "Tarnhelm" leitmotif since the first chord now has an additional 3rd below, becoming half-diminished. The core of the sequence (transposed 1/2 tone to simplify reading) is:
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#WednesdayWagner Now, let's move to the moment when Siegfried forgets everything about Brünnhilde. What we hear then is the following:

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#WednesdayWagner Does it sounds familiar to you? Of course it does! These are the same first 2 chords in this new "Tarnhelm" motif, the one at the beginning of "Hagen's Watch", but in reverse order: minor chord + half-diminished 1/2 tone above
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#WednesdayWagner In addition, these two chords are the only ones that appear in the fff instrumental part of the Hagen's Watch scene, without resolving into the major chord (3rd chord of the Tarnhelm motive)
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#WednesdayWagner So, in summary, there is a clear relation between the magic of the Tarnhelm, the evil in Hagen and Siegfried forgetting Brünnhilde. Musically speaking, everything is obtained by the same place. Amazing!
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