Across the Fence: Leitmotif

For the first time, I came across the German term “Leitmotiv” (spelled with a “v”, pronounced ‘light-mo-teef, meaning leading theme) in music when I was in fifth grade, my very first year in grammar school. We had a music teacher who was simply amazing when it came to explaining the difference between rhythm and meter as well as talking to us about symphonic poems; he probably introduced some of us to classical music for their first time. I had grown up with listening to a lot of that genre but only knew that operas and operettas transport stories. It was an eye-opener when Mr. Glock had us listen to Smetana’s “Moldau”, the description of the river’s cold and warm springs intermingling and traveling through the countryside until reaching Prague, and then vanishing at the horizon.

What does the term leitmotif have to do with this? As we were listening to the unfolding of the different acoustic “scenes” of the piece, one motif was constantly recurring. Here is a harpist version of the springs’ and the river theme:

Just as another leitmotif did in Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”, which was one of the next pieces we listened to as a class. Later, when I was majoring in music (thanks to this teacher guiding me deeper and deeper into the magic of music and even helping find me a singing teacher), I found that Berlioz had used a leitmotif in his Symphony Fantastique even ad nauseam. But this so-called idée fixe (the French term for leitmotif) helped transport the story of an artist who encounters the woman of his dreams at a ball and then hallucinates under the influence of opium; the story is ending in the vision of a fulminant witches’ ride and funeral scene, the leitmotif undergoing changes from dreamy to boisterous. Here is a sample:

https://youtu.be/g6eeOIXIPjY

Or think of Richard Strauss’ “Till Eulenspiegel”. And there are so many more …

Leitmotif – that’s what also the movie industry is leaning on heavily. Probably everybody knows the one of “Jaws”, right? I remember that the TV series “Miami Vice” had specific melodies for its protagonists. “Lord of the Rings”, “Star Wars”, and numerous other movies, too, use the power of leitmotifs to subconsciously underscore the character of a specific person, landscape, or situation.

I want to take it even further. A recurring leading theme is also a characteristic for fine art work. I would like to claim that we even recognize some artists by their use of specific recurring themes. Think Dali and his drawers, poles, and melting objects. Or Giacometti’s overly slim and long sculptures, Calder’s or Miro’s combinations of colors and shapes, Feininger’s transparent, layered cityscapes …We know when we deal with different genres in fine art when we come across specific techniques that are the preferred one of one or the other century, one or the other painter. I dare say that van Gogh’s paint strokes are so unique that they have become his brand, his leitmotif. Am I taking it too far?

Leitmotifs also appear in literature and in films – the green light at the Great Gatsby’s landing in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, a symbol for the man’s hopes and dreams. The fiddle in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s stories underlining the atmosphere of a cozy home. The color of white in Melville’s “Moby Dick”, which stands for God, Nature, Fate, but also inscrutability.

I can only assume that the German term leitmotif made it into the English language because it was a German composer who became most renowned for its use, not a British or an Italian or a French one or one of any other linguistic heritage. We may or may not like his music – Richard Wagner’s operas are built on leitmotifs that introduce his characters. Berlioz is a close second with the idée fixe. Did I say, that Germans also use the term “fixe Idee” (pronounce ‘fixah ee-‘day, meaning fixed idea)? Now, that is a term from psychology and describes the phenomenon of an obsession. Pretty much what Berlioz describes in his symphony. Maybe that’s the reason why the way more neutral, grounded term leitmotif, motto theme, came through as the winner in the English language.