Wagner R., Boldyrev A. Tristan-Fantasia to the leitmotives from the opera “Tristan and Isolde”

The composition “Tristan-Fantasia” is constructed rather freely on the base of the most sticking and striking fragments of Richard Wagner's opera “Tristan and Isolde”. While the opera lasts for four hours, the piano version's duration does not exceed 25 minutes. This large-scaled concert piece may serve as the digest of Wagner's canvas. Actually all the main opera lietmotives are presented here, beside the theme “Liebestod” (“Death of the Love”) having been elaborated by Franz Liszt independently in his transcription “Isolde's Death”. 

The succession of the leitmotives in the Fantasia differs from their sequence in the opera itself. Thus the fantasia begins and finishes by the orchestral introductory theme to the third act, while the overture fragment appears only at the culmination. 

This exact work is the author's experience to preserve the orchestral palette by means of different piano devices.