Notes full of images (3/5): The power of the Leitmotiv
In the previous article on descriptive music used in film, we learned that a small musical motif alone can tell or suggest a character, an idea, a memory, a feeling, a destiny. But how?
Thanks to a process inherited from lyrical romanticism: the Leitmotiv, the “driving motif”. This motif, a musical phrase that recurs several times, transformed according to context, becomes a musical code charged with meaning.
Carl Maria von Weber was one of the first composers to make extensive use of the Leitmotiv. But the composer most often associated with this technique is Richard Wagner. In his operas, he turned it into a veritable art form, taking the principle to its apogee. In his cycle
These leitmotifs evolve, twist, enrich and transform over the course of the story. The hero’s theme, for example, may darken if he doubts, the theme of love may be tinged with pain after a loss. Music tells what words cannot always say, what lies behind appearances. And the use of different leitmotifs linked, for example, to different characters, helps to amalgamate a work into a coherent whole. This helps the composer to tell a story without using words.
The leitmotiv is much more than a sound cue: it’s a narrative tool, an emotional code, a musical memory. Music becomes an inner voice, an echo of the unconscious.
Opéra Nationale de Paris: Leitmotifs from Wagner’s Ring : Ride of the Valkyries
The use of the Leitmotiv, even if not in the strict Wagnerian sense, can also be found in musical genres other than classical music. Users include Frank Zappa in the double album Uncle Meat, The Who in the “rock operas” Tommy and Quadrophenia, Pink Floyd in several albums including The Wall, The Dark Side of the Moon and The Final Cut, and Billie Eilish on her latest album Hit Me Hard and Soft. Recurring sonic and musical motifs and thematic references can be found within the same album or between different tracks, and are akin to a modern, flexible use of the Leitmotiv.
Pink Floyd, The Wall, the ” Another Brick in the Wall ” motif appears several times (Parts 1, 2 and 3), each time adapted to a different stage of the story: childhood, school, adult despair.
But what happens when it’s no longer a single motif that tells the story, that evokes, but an entire work? When an entire orchestra unfolds a landscape, a legend, an inner drama? Find out in the next article, on November 10, 2025: Notes full of images (4/5): The orchestra as narrative.
Watch and listen: on the Medici.tv platform : Wagner’s leitmotiv
