Originally Posted by: PRSplayaI remember PonyOne talking about it a while back. How is it played? (or can it be played :confused: )

It can be played, it's only a four note chord. The first Tristan Chord ever written was G#-B-D#-F It looks like a G#7 of some kind, but there's no name for that series of intervals (even though it sounds like a half diminished seventh, but that's because technically it's an E# half-diminished seventh). Wagner uses it in the prelude of Tristan und Isolde (hence the name "Tristan Chord") to create a chromatic movement to a G# fully diminished 7th chord which serves as a leading tone to the I chord (Am) which the audience is never given. After all, that's what Tristan and Isolde is all about: offers being made and then taken away. This whole "you're gonna get sooome! oh wait, no you're not!" mentality. So Wagner screws with the audience from the very beginning. The first 17 measures outline a progression of "A,C,E,A," which would of course be a I, III, V, I, but Wagner does not actually deliver these chords. Instead he brings the chromatic leading tone chords of each diatonic and simply refuses to resolve them, leading into each V7/whatever chord with another Tristan Chord. Finally V7/V appears and moves into a V7, after 16 measures of flirting of course a tonic must be coming, but NO! Wagner uses a deceptive cadence and moves to VI. He's such a clever bastard.