The Music of Hindostan c13.s3.160

c13.s3.160

But considered as forms of our rhythms gone mad they have a definite use, as, for instance, in Tristan’s delirium (Act III, sc. ii), where fragments of melodies, his whole past in fact, come thronging disjointedly into his mind. Only these are not Indian rhythms. They are European rhythms distorted to suit the state of his bodily pulse; it is precisely the pulsation of them that is insisted upon.