Robert Gauldin, Tragic Love and Musical Memory

Example 13. A comparison of the formal components and tonal schemes in Wagner's Final Version of Isolde's Transfiguration (= almost literal restatement of the B-major Love Duet in Act II) with his Preliminary Draft of the Transfiguration (late discarded). Following a slight expansion in the preliminary Ab section, the two Stollen in the Draft have exchanged positions, with the first transition deleted. The Abgesang remains intact, but the tonic resolution of its climax concludes with an apotheosis of the BLISS and POTION motifs.