Example 10

Example 10. Tristan's reply to Marke (Act II, Scene 3) represents the first group of memory recollections. While the text chronicles his external response to the king and inquires to Isolde, the music reveals Tristan's true internal state of mind, which continues to dwell on memories evoked by immediately preceding Love Duets. This section features a quasi-strophic design, in which the Introduction later functions as a Refrain in Strophes 2 and 3. The three strophes are tonally closed in Ab, effecting a tritone shift from Marke's prior D-minor referential center.