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The Tristan chord is a chord made up of the notes F, B, D# and G#. More generally, it can be any chord that consists of these same intervals (from the bottom up, an augmented fourth, a major third, and a perfect fourth).
The chord is named after the very first chord that is heard in Richard Wagner's Tristan and Isolde:
Sound sample of these bars (MIDI file)
The chord is often taken to be of great significance in the move away from traditional tonal harmony. Much has been written about its possible harmonic function.
Although at the same time enharmonically sounding like the half-diminished chord F - Ab - Cb - Eb, it can also be interpreted as the suspended altered subdominant II: B - D# - F - A (the G# being the suspension in the key of a-minor). With this chord, Wagner actually provoked the sound of musical harmony to become more predominant than its function, a notion which was soon after to be explored by Debussy and others.
The chord and the figure surrounding it is well enough known to have been parodied and quoted by a number of later musicians. Debussy himself parodies it in "Golliwog's Cakewalk", the last movement of his solo piano suite Children's Corner. More recently, American composer and humorist Peter Schickele crafted a tango around this same figure, a chamber work entitled Last Tango in Bayreuth.
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