Richard Wagner: „Der fliegende Holländer“: Akt I, Ende der Arie „Die Frist ist um“ - Deutsche Oper Berlin
Dr Takt is our man behind the score. He is very familiar with the work and reveals to us its special moments. This time:
Richard Wagner: The Flying Dutchman: Act I, end of the aria “The Time Has Come”
This is the seventh episode in our series of videos with Dr Takt
When the Flying Dutchman enters the stage, he has given up hope of being delivered from earthly damnation. The only way out seems to him to be the end of the world: "When all the dead rise again, then shall I pass into the void." Wagner finds an impressive pattern of sounds for this summary. The piece, composed in the rather dark C minor, ends with a shining tutti chord in C major, switches to the subdominant F minor for four beats, and returns to C major via the dominant.
The Dutchman's motif, played by trumpets, cellos and the piccolo (as the only other wind instrument!), sounds out in the F minor beats. The piccolo can scarcely be heard in the din against the fortissimo of the trumpets, yet it adds a shrill sharpness, just as the instrumentation of the tutti chords has a somewhat overly garish nature – in accordance with the hope of deliverance with the final destruction of the world.
