What Is a Leitmotif? A Short Theme Standing for a Person or an Idea

A leitmotif is a short and recognisable musical figure associated by repeated coincidence with something specific, so that hearing it calls that thing to mind. The association is established by presenting the figure alongside its referent enough times for the connection to form, after which the figure can appear without the referent and the audience supplies it. That is the whole mechanism and it is a form of learned association rather than any property of the notes. What makes it powerful is what can then be done, since the figure can be transformed, combined with others, interrupted, inverted or fragmented, and each of those operations says something about the thing it stands for, so the orchestra can comment on the action, reveal a character's thoughts or foreshadow an event that nobody on stage yet knows about.

The technique's value lies in what happens to the figure after it is established:

• •Combining two, which asserts a relationship between what they stand for
• •Distorting one into a minor or dissonant version, which indicates corruption, loss or threat
• •Fragmenting one so only part appears, which suggests something diminished or remembered
• •Playing one before its referent appears, which foreshadows and creates expectation
• •Playing one when the character is absent, which reveals that someone is thinking about them
• •Developing one across a whole work so its final form differs from its first, which traces an arc

The technique is associated above all with Wagner, whose operatic cycle uses a large number of interrelated figures across many hours and develops them into a structure carrying much of the dramatic argument. He did not coin the term, which was applied by others, and he did not invent the practice, since earlier composers had used recurring themes for characters and ideas in more limited ways. What was new was the scale and the integration, with figures generating each other, transforming into one another and being combined in ways that make the orchestra a continuous commentary rather than an accompaniment. The approach was enormously influential, was extended by later composers, and attracted criticism for producing works that require a catalogue to follow, which is a fair complaint about some analyses and less fair about the listening experience.

Criticism of the device is as old as its prominence and worth taking seriously. Debussy mocked the operatic version as characters handing over visiting cards, which captures the objection that a figure announcing a character adds nothing the staging has not already supplied. A related complaint is that the technique invites a mechanical listening in which the audience identifies labels rather than following music, and that published catalogues of motifs encouraged exactly that. In film, the objection is that a theme used purely for recognition does work the image is already doing, and that the most effective scoring frequently withholds the expected figure rather than supplying it. Defenders answer that the criticism targets weak use, and that the strong version, where figures are transformed and combined to carry an argument the words do not, is doing something nothing else can.

The device found its most widespread modern use in film scoring, where it does the same work under different conditions. A character theme establishes itself quickly because film presents its referent unambiguously on screen, and the connection forms faster than in opera. Scores for long series exploit the technique heavily, with themes recurring across decades of films and their transformations carrying meaning that regular audiences follow without any technical knowledge. The differences from the operatic use are that film themes tend to be longer and more melodic, that they are frequently used simply to signal presence rather than to develop an argument, and that the scoring is fitted to a finished picture rather than shaping the work. Criticism of the modern practice focuses on themes that identify without doing anything else, which is the device reduced to labelling.

A short figure becomes associated with something by repeated coincidence, and once established it can appear without its referent and the audience supplies it. Combining, distorting, fragmenting and anticipating figures lets the orchestra comment, reveal thought and foreshadow. Wagner's scale and integration were the innovation rather than the idea, and film scoring is its most widespread modern use.