Depends on whether I like it or not.

 

I call Wagner's leitmotifs a stroke of genius. Sure helps understand what is going on.

One man's brilliance is another man's gimmick, I guess.

 

Whoever made that comment was looking at Wagner's use of leitmotifs backward in time: from our own age where leitmotifs have become a standard device of popular film music, and therefore gimmicky. Back in Wagner's time his effective use of this musical device was pretty groundbreaking.

 

For me a gimmick is when the music does something which appears totally random, an example may be

that symphony by Haydn where they leave the stage one by one

Purcell's Fantasia on one note

the birdsong in Michael Finnissy's third quartet

using the big Fugue to end op 113 after that thanks to God movement

the vaudeville in Don Giovanni

Ping, Pang and Pong (or whatever they're called) in Turandot

 

For me a gimmick is when the music does something which appears totally random, an example may be

that symphony by Haydn where they leave the stage one by one

Purcell's Fantasia on one note

the birdsong in Michael Finnissy's third quartet

using the big Fugue to end op 113 after that thanks to God movement

the vaudeville in Don Giovanni

Ping, Pang and Pong (or whatever they're called) in Turandot

The Grosse Fuge, Op. 133, was originally the finale to Op. 130. The "Heilige Dankgesang" is part of Op. 132.

 

The "leitmotif" has been misunderstood. Debussy, making fun of the composer whose influence on his own work he couldn't resist and therefore resented, caricatured leitmotifs as "calling cards" presented whenever characters appeared. That's not what they are. Tchaikovsky, who didn't appear to like the music of many of his contemporaries, complained that Wagner had subordinated his genius to a mechanical system. That's not what he did.

Wagner didn't like the term "leitmotif," was annoyed with the attempts to give them simplistic names, and referred to his themes as Grundthema, or "basic ideas." Far from gimmickry, the motifs associated with certain characters and situations are not simple identifiers - which would be redundant and unnecessary - but tools of expression, association, and recollection which explain and integrate the dramatic development of the story being told. Through the mutation of the motifs and the musical relationships they bear to one another, Wagner can make the orchestra comment on the action with great subtlety, revealing to us the underlying, unverbalized state of mind of the characters and the meaning of their situations.

The fact that Wagner developed this way of composing to the extent that very nearly the entire score of an opera could be built on a set of striking and meaningful motifs has led people unsympathetic to his works, and fundamentally ignorant of them, to accuse him of mechanical procedures or gimmickry.

 

For anyone so inclined, there is also available on the Decca label the introduction prepared by Deryck Cooke for the Solti recordings of the cycle. On it he clearly and genially explains the relations between leitmotifs and their role in shaping the drama. As he points out, there is no one-to-one correspondence between a leitmotif and the concept, idea or emotion that is first attached to it. The leitmotif has a potential to develop -- but to develop musically. And it is by implanting the principal of musical development in the heart of the drama that Wagner is able to lift the action out of the events portrayed on the stage, and to endown it with a universal, cosmic and religious significance.

 

Ending the Op. 132 with a fugue would, indeed, be random. And possibly illegal.

 

What do you think yourself?

 

I make no conclusion either way. I don't think it would be fair for me to give my impression having not yet listened to Wagner's operas. I was merely gauging the TC community on their opinions on gimmicks in general not necessarily Wagner.

 

How about some of Haydn's symphonies. Silent passages followed by loud explosions of music (Surprise). Or players slowly departing before the piece is over (Farewell). Too gimmicky for me that detracts from the music, but they seemed to love it at the time.

 

What, no mention of Mahler's cow bells yet?

 

For the record, it's Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, in der lydischen Tonart. Even if only the first two words are used, spelling counts.

 

The leitmotifs serve as dramatic impetus throughout the story, they serve a purpose. It reminds the listener of earlier scenes.

 

I tend to think it gimmicky when a (mostly Romantic) composer repeats a dramatic seeming phrase verbatim in a false attempt to make a passage seem even more dramatic.

 

I agree, that kind of repetition might sound pretty cheesy! I actually can't think of any examples of this gimmick, although I'm sure that I've heard it (and probably groaned about it) before. Do you have any examples of pieces/composers that do this?

 

Indeed. I expect that shortly such a commentator will discover that Shakespeare's plays are stuffed full of cliches.
cheers,
Graeme