Wagner Talk #2: The music of the Ring Cycle

Pete Kellock
petekellock@gmail.co
m

“Wagner’s music is better
than it sounds”

Die Walküre Act 1 Sc 1
Siegmund
and
Sieglinde
Metropolitan Opera 2011
Washington
National Opera 2007

A brief intro to the history, drama & philosophy of the Ring
Then to the music…
• The opening of the work
• How do you construct a 15-hour “symphony”?
• W’s Answer: Leitmotifs
• Getting familiar with some of the Leitmotifs: examples & quiz
• Examples of how some evolve and cross-polinate
• Puzzles & problems of Leitmotif analysis…
• Wagner’s use of the orchestra
• A favorite moment (Leb’ Wohl)
• The End of the World

“It is a work to which we are all indebted
and from which none of us can escape“
TS Eliot about James Joyce's Ulysses (slightly paraphrased)

Composers: Mahler, Bruckner, Strauss, Franck, Massenet, Schoenberg, Debussy, etc
(many both influenced and rebelling against)
Writers/dramatists/poets: Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Verlaine, Proust, Mann, Eliot,
Shaw, Auden, D. H. Lawrence, Beardsley, Rilke…
Others: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Aubrey Beardsley, Arthur Rackham, Fritz Lang
Wagner is “the father of heavy metal” - Joey DeMaio of heavy metal band
Manowar
Georg Groddeck (pioneer in psychosomatic medicine) considered the Ring to be the
first manual of psychoanalysis
Seattle Opera 1975

Preliminary Evening
GER: Das Rheingold | ENG: The Rhinegold
First Day
GER: Die Walküre | ENG: The Valkyrie
(ie Brünnhilde)
Second Day
GER: Siegfried | ENG: Siegfried
Third Day
GER: Götterdämmerung | ENG: Twilight of the Gods

Scandinavian sources
• the Saga of the Volsungs <--- the principal one
• the Poetic (or Elder) Edda
• the Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson's
German sources
• Thidriks Saga of Bern
• the Nibelungenlied
...and a number of other minor sources.

• Characters: nymphs, dwarfs, gods & demi-gods, giants, a
dragon, humans...
• Forces: nature, water, air, earth, fire...
• Settings: the Rhine river, mountaintops (~heaven), Nibelheim
(~hell), forests and huts in forests, castles...
• “Game Assets”: gold, ring, sword, spear, Tarnhelm, a magic
potion...

Wagner, about reading the Oresteian trilogy in 1847

CONCEPTION AND LIBRETTO: 5 years
1848-1853 : 5 years
FIRST PHASE OF MUSIC COMPOSITION: 4 years
1853-54: Das Rheingold
1854-56: Die Walküre
1856-57 Siegfried Acts 1 & 2
HIATUS: 12 years
1857-59: Tristan and Isolde
1862-1867: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
FINAL PHASE OF MUSIC COMPOSITION: 5 years
1869-1871: Siegfried Act 3
1869-1874: Götterdämmerung
TOTAL TIME FROM START TO FINISH: 26 years. Wagner aged 35 to 61

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgzZ_nLOJJE

Dresden, 1849
Burnt-out remains of the Dresden
opera house, where Wagner’s
Rienzi was premiered in 1842

…diary of Eduard Devrient, 31-Mar-1849
…from the diary of Wagner’s friend Eduard Devrient,1-Jun-1848
Eduard
Devrient

Wagner in a letter to his composer/conductor friend,
August Röckel, 23-Aug-1856

..from another letter to August Röckel, 1854

Wagner essay On the Term “Music-Drama”, 1872

Das Rheingold Prelude - Opening

Das Rheingold Prelude – next bit
Frequency ratios in horn part: (1) : 2 : 3 : 4 : 5 : 6 : 8 : 10

Wagner’s answer: thematic development ---> Leitmotifs)

Transposition (diatonic):
one note lowerMain motif
Strong Variant
Inversion of Variant
New motif Main motif, different instrumentation
Transposition / minor
variation

• Transposition (exact or diatonic)
• Inversion
• Alteration of some of the pitches
• Change in instrumentation
And others (not in above example)…
• Augmentation / Diminution (ie slow down / speed up)
• Alteration of rhythm or meter
• Re-harmonization
• Re-voicing
• Retrograde (mostly in Baroque and 20th Century)
… and combinations of all the above

Source of the score excerpts on following pages:
John Weinstock, University of Texas
http://www.utexas.edu/courses/wagner/home.html
Many of the images:
Arthur Rackham, 1867-1939
…getting to know them
Arthur Rackham
John Weinstock

The Rhinemaidens
First Bayreuth production
of the Ring, 1876
Note dotted rhythm
Arthur Rackham

Alberich
By the way…
Dmitri ShostakoviCH
Notes: Eb D (Db) C B
e.g. Shostakovich 10th Symphony – 4th movement
Metropolitan Opera
2012
Alberich trying to grasp hold of
the slippery Rhinemaidens

The harmony of the Ring uses many chords, but it’s dominated by 5 main types
• Major
• Minor
• Dominant 7th / Augmented 6th
• Diminished 7th
• “Tristan Chord” : almost as important in the Ring as it is in Tristan & Isolde
Diminished 7th
• Dark, dramatic chord
• Pivot chord: allows sudden swings to remote keys (eg Beethoven)
• Why? Because of its symmetry – a “mode of limited transposition”
• Most chords are made up of unequal intervals, eg Maj3rd+Min3rd+Perfect4th
• The Dim7th has 4 equal intervals: 4 x Min3rd
• This means there are only 3 of them:
If we take one of these and drop one of its notes by a semitone we get a Dominant 7th
• Which lets us go immediately to any of 4 keys – because the Dom7th leads strongly to the tonic
• (Or actually 8 keys because we can go to the tonic in major minor)
• For example, taking the first of the above…
Dim7th > B7 > E maj Dim7th > Ab7 > Db maj
e.g. drop bottom note a semitone: …or drop top note a semitone:
Note: 4 possibilities for each of 3 Dim7ths, so can go to 3x4 = 12 keys (24 including minor)

But what if we start from a Dim7th and raise one of the notes a semitone?
---> “Tristan Chord”
A highly enigmatic chamelion chord. From intensely dramatic to ethereal
…depending on previous chords, orchestration, dynamics etc
Note: Wagner didn’t invent this chord – you can even find it in Bach (as VII7)
But he reinvented its use and made it a central chord of his musical language.
Eg raise bottom note a semitone:
…or raise 2nd note a semitone:
Dim7th > Tristan A
Dim7th > Tristan B
…or raise 3rd note a semitone:
Dim7th > Tristan C
…or raise top note a semitone:
Dim7th > Tristan C
Again 4 possibilities for each of 3 Dim7ths, so there are 3x4 = 12 Tristan chords

It’s a combination of Tristan and Dim 7th:
Tristan
Diminished 7th
Tristan
Diminished 7th
Tr
dim
7
The Ring

“Renunciation of Love”
/ “Love-Curse”*
Woglinde: “Only he who forswears love's power,
only he who forfeits love's delight”
[etc …can forge the Ring]
* Beware the names! This is the most
enigmatic Leitmotif of them all!

Rhinemaidens’ Joy in the Gold
(Two Leitmotifs)
A
Melbourne Ring, 2013
B
Note that dotted rhythm again

Power of the Ring
Seattle Opera 2009
A B
Wotan mesmerized
by the ring

Freia / Love
Kirov Opera, 2007
Freia-A
Freia-B
Bangkok Opera, 2006

The Giants – Fasolt and Fafner
Seattle Opera, 2013
San Francisco Opera, 2009
Arthur Rackham

The Spear
Wotan (to Donner):
“Hold, hothead!
Violence avails naught!”
Metropolitan
Opera, 2010Andre Kosslick

Loge / Fire
Metropolitan
Opera, 2013
Loge – rising chromatic
Magic Fire
Loge – descending chromatic

The Nibelungs Forging
Wotan descending
to Nibelheim
That dotted rhythm
again
Alberich
tyranninzing the
Nibelungs as they
work the gold.

The Tarnhelm
Alberich puts on the Tarnhelm
and becomes invisible, to
Mime’s horror.

The Curse
Alberich curses
the ring
The Ring - inverted ???
SF Opera 2011

The Sword - Nothung
Metropolitan
Opera, 2011 Print: Stephen-de-Hospodar
Wood Engraving:
Simon Brett
Caricature: C. v.
Grimm
Siegmund: “Wälse!”
Siegmund: “Nothung!”

Fate
Triplet pattern on timpani
3-note Fate motif
Siegfried’s Trauermarsch by
LivingHorus

Siegfried
In Mime’s hut - original
sketch for Bayreuth
scenery
Siegfried Jerusalem as Siegfried
Metropolitan Opera, 1990
Siegfried & Gutrune
Fritz Lang, 1924
Siegfried and Brunnhilde
Metropolitan Opera,
2012

Siegfried’s Horn Call
Ernst Kraus as Siegfried
circa 1900
Kevin Rivard
SF Opera 2011
Florence Akin,
1915

Immortal Beloved
Bayreuth 1980

Brünnhilde as Mortal Woman
Bayreuth 1980

San Francisco Opera 2011
Hagen
Hagen tells Brunnhilde
he will avenge her
betrayal by Siegfried
COMPARE:
Siegfried’s horn call

Murder (Conspiracy)
Hagen and Alberich plotting
to kill Siegfried for the Ring
Wermland Opera
(Sweden), 2011
Fritz Lang, 1924

Siegfried’s Funeral March
Howard Pile

Redemption
Bayreuth 1980
Sieglinde: “Sublimest wonder…”
Hildegard Behrens & Jessye Norman,

Embryonic form:
Nature arpeggio
[Das Rheingold prelude]
Nature – definitive
The Rhine
Erda (earth goddess)
[Das Rheingold Sc 4]
Source: John Weinstock, University of Texas
Scale
Arpeggio
Scale
Arpeggio
Rhythm : long short long short long short long

Erda / Twilight of the Gods
Erda: “All that is, shall end.
A dark day dawns for the gods”
Twilight of the Gods
[ Götterdämmerung Act 3]
Scale Arpeggio
Scale
Arpeggio

Forest Murmurs - embryonic
[Siegfried Act 2]
Forest Murmurs - intermediate
[Siegfried Act 2]
Forest Murmurs - definitive
[Siegfried Act 2]
Look how far we’ve come from this!
Nature Arpeggio again
Scale
Arpeggio
Scale & Arpeggio are gone – only
the undulating pattern left

The Gold
The Sword
Donner (god of thunder)
Donner: “Heda! Heda! Hedo!
Come to me, mists!
Vapours, to me!
Donner, your master,
summons you to his host.”
The Rainbow Bridge

The Ring - definitive
The Ring - embryonic
Wellgunde: “The world’s wealth and
limitless power would be won by he who
forged the ring from the Rhinegold”
The Ring
The Ring – first glimpse
Flosshilde to the other Rhinemaidens:
“Badly you guard the sleeping gold”. Pay better
heed or “you’ll both repent your sport”.

Scheming (by Mime)
[Siegfried Act 1]
The Ring as a chord
[Special illustration]
Alberich’s Curse
on the ring*
*Note: this is unrelated to Alberich’s curse on Love, at least musically.

REMINDER:
The Ring (definitive)
Valhalla (1st Segment)
From The Ring to Valhalla
[Das Rheingold Sc 1 into Sc 2]

Spear - definitive
Wotan: “Hold, you hothead!
Violence avails naught!”
Brünnhilde’s Reproach
[Die Walküre Act 3]
Brünnhilde:
“Was it so shameful, what I did
that you punish my misdeed so
shamefully?
Brünnhilde’s Compassionate Love
Brünnhilde: “One man's love breathed
this into my heart”
Horn & Clar.

Freia (Goddess of Love)
- theme isolated
Freia theme first appearance
- In context
Fricka: “Then protect her [Freia] now;
defenseless and frightened,
she is hurrying here for help!”
Freia - definitive
Fasolt: “…to win a woman who, fair
and meek, would dwell with us poor
creatures”
Freia representing the love of
Siegmund and Sieglinde
A
B
Freia-A Freia-B
A A B
B
B

Freia-B variant
…from the Descent to Nibelheim
Love’s Greeting
[Siegfried Act 3]
Siegfried: “Hail to my mother that bore me!
Hail to the earth that nourished me,
that I can see those eyes whose light now delights me!”
Brünnhilde: “Hail to the mother
that bore you!” etc...
More excerpts from the “Freia-B” segment…
Love’s Resolution
[Siegfried: near end of Act 3]
Brünnhilde: “…laughing let us perish!“
…which is derived from this variant
as Siegmund and Sieglinde rush off madly in love
[Die Walküre: end of Act 1]

Power of the Ring
(Hagen version)
[Götterdämmerung Act 1]
Joy in Gold
Reminder:
The Ring motif
Power of the Ring
Alberich’s Lament (aka “Woe”)
Alberich: “Woe! Grief!
Has the third, so beloved, betrayed me too?”
…and played as a chord

Annunciation of Death
[Die Walküre Act 2, Sc 4]
? ?

Erda [Das Rheingold Sc 4]
?
Bayreuth, 1992

?
Fate3-note Fate motif

The Valkyries
Fate3-note Fate motif

Deryck Cooke 1919-1976
Musicologist and BBC Broadcaster.
Expert on Mahler and Wagner.
Track from the double CD album:
An Introduction to Der Ring des Nibelungen

First (and definitive?) appearance
Woglinde: “Only he who forswears love's power,
only he who forfeits love's delight” …can forge the Ring
Fricka chiding Wotan
Fricka: Would you, with ungodly contempt, gamble
away… “love and a woman's worth?”
Siegmund about to pull sword from tree
Siegmund: “Holiest love's deepest distress, yearning
love's scorching desire …burn bright in my breast, urge
me to deeds and to death.”
Loge’s fruitless search
Loge: In the whole world nothing will substitute for…
“woman’s delights and worth”
V. close to definitive version above: complete, untransposed & almost unaltered

Wotan’s despair
Wotan: “My anger will never end.
My misery is everlasting.
I am the saddest of all men.”
Hagen
[Gotterdämmerung Act 1, Sc2]
Hagen: “To me he [Siegfried] will bring the ring”
etc
Btw: Hagen’s motif:

Alberich’s curse on Love
Alberich: “Thus I curse love!”
Wagner actually mentions a Love-Curse motif in some notes:
'liebesfluch–dann: welterb : endlich Wallhal'
“love-curse–then: world's wealth [ie Ring motif] : finally Valhalla”
He was referring to Alberich’s curse on love… but are we sure this is the same motif as RoL?
OK – so it is similar in several ways.
But it’s also made from the cluster of notes “DSCH”, associated with Alberich…
Alberich
Notes: Eb D C B
Alberich’s Fury
RoL?
Notes: Eb D (Db) C B Notes: Eb D C B
So is RoL fundamentally Alberich’s Curse on love?
…is it’s purpose to remind everywhere it appears that Love is cursed?
Or is this a red herring?
THE RIDDLE REMAINS UNSOLVED!

Siegfried's motif
Alberich’s Curse
on the ring

• Problems of “chunking”
• What size should LMs be?
• Where does one stop and another start?
• Problems of labeling : language labels don’t capture the subtleties of
emotion and semi-conscious meaning in music
• Problems of “pattern recognition”. At least 3 levels of certainty in
identifying Leitmotifs:
1. No doubt
Large chunk of music (lots of notes)
…and/or close matching of multiple characteristics: pitch-set, key, melodic shape,
rhythm, beat-position, orchestration, etc
…and/or explicit evolution (no “gaps in the fossil record”) – eg Ring to Valhalla
…and/or dramatic congruence: mood of music matches drama / motif recurs at similar
dramatic moments
2. Maybe just part of Wagner’s musical language
A recurring pattern is clearly visible , but it’s not clear Wagner intended it as a Leitmotif
3. Seeing patterns where none exist
Don’t discount coincidence!

Huge Orchestra
e.g. in Das Rheingold:
• Strings: 16 1st / 16 2nd / 12 violas / 12 cellos / 8 double basses
• Woodwind: triple/quadruple, incl. piccolo, cor anglais, bass clarinet & double
bassoon
• Brass: 8 horns (4 doubling on Wagner tubas) / 4 trumpets (incl. bass tpt) / 4
trombones (incl. contrabass) / contrabass tuba
• Percussion: Timpani / cymbals / bass drum / gong / etc
• Harps: 6 (plus a 7th on stage!)

Radical new ways to create sound.
Tone-painting instead of tunes.
There are some “good tunes” - eg Ride of the Valkyries
…and Winterstürme from Die Walküre Act 1, Scene 3
Siegmund:
“Winter’s storms have waned…
Springtime shines…” etc
But these are the exceptions...
Seattle Opera, 1987

Far more typical is the creation of unique sounds and textures…
Eg the horn arpeggios at the opening:
- 8 horns looping the same phrase, but phase-staggered

Or the divisi string arpeggios
as Donner calls the clouds up
into a thunderstorm
Same technique as the horn
arpeggios at the opening
1st Violins, desks 3 - 8
2nd Violins, desks 3 - 8
Violas, desks 1 -6
Donner
Donner:
“Heda! Heda! Hedo!
Come to me, mists!
...
Donner, your master
Summons his hordes”
etc

Or a couple of minutes later in Das
Rheingold:
the Rainbow bridge
1st Violins,
divisi a 4
Woodwind + horn
6 harps
2nd Violins,
divisi a 4
Cellos &
Basses
Harp parts accompanying the Valhalla motif in
Rainbow Bridge sequence
Placed in Appendix of full score – can’t fit into place.

Donner’s
Thunderclap
1½
1
1½
1½
2
3
1½
2
1¾
1½
1¾
with buildup
just thunderclap

Elements:
Main horn call [Siegfried Act 2]
Siegfried's motif (reminder)
The Sword (reminder)
The Dragon (reminder)
Siegfried & Dragon Speaking
Trumpet
Siegfried after the dragon appears:
“Haha! So my song has produced
something pretty!”

Brünnhilde's “Awakening”
Sequence
A 4-min mainly orchestral sequence as Brünnhilde wakes from
her long (at least 16 year!) sleep and calls then calls out “Hail
sun! Hail light!” etc.
Listen out for…
• The ominous opening Emin chord returns 6 times, often in
slightly different orchestration.
Pattern: #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6
• Each of these is followed by another chord, mostly
detached and with complementary orchestration.
• The harp parts: shimmering arpeggios and high plink-plink
patterns
• The high shimmering string trills
• The exuberant horn arpeggio after chord #3
• The way the intensity suddenly drops after the climaxes
on #3 and #6
• The Leitmotif used on Brünnhilde's words at the end of
this “Lang war mein Schlaf”
Think about…
• What’s scene is Wagner painting in the music?
• What set of emotions is expressed?
• What’s happening with the forward momentum?

Awakening Chord #1
Awakening Chord #2
Awakening Chord #3
Awakening Chord #4
Awakening Chord #5
Awakening Chord #6
Whole sequence

Royal Liverpool
Philharmonic Orchestra
Written ActualRanges:
1 tone lower
Perfect 5th lower
As written
Valhalla
Fate
[Die Walküre Act 2 Sc 4]

Halle Orchestra
18 tuned anvils in the
“Descent to Nibelung” sequence
[Das Rheingold, end of Sc 2]

Stierhorn (Ger., ‘Bull horn’). Giant medieval bugle horn used in war. Straight tubes
with exact conical bore and no bell flare. Wagner requires them off-stage in Die
Walküre, Act 2, and in Götterdämmerung, Acts 2 and 3. Three special instrs. were
made, in C, D♭, and D, played by trombonists.
Hagen’s Stierhorn
[Gotterdämmerung Act 2, Sc 3]
First entry: Stierhorn in C
3 Stierhorns: on C, Db & D

Wotan:
“One man alone shall woo the bride.
One freer than I, the god!”

The last 20 minutes of the whole cycle (external video).
Listen out for some of the Leitmotifs…
• Fate (many times) : The 3-note shape
• Power of the Gods : Rising scale, dotted rhythm
• Siegfried
• Annunciation of Death
• Valhalla
• Power of the Ring: Descending semitone (dark form of “Joy in the Gold)
• Curse : Inverted Ring with a major chord figure at end
• Twilight of the Gods: Descending version of Nature in thirds
• Ring (in the harmony)
• Gold
The final 9 minutes
• Loge/Fire
• Valkyries
• Redemption
• Siegfried
• Joy in the Gold
• Curse? (as Hagen plunges in after the ring)
• Rhinemaidens
• Valhalla
And ending with…
• Siegfried
• Redemption

Wagner Talk #2: The music of the Ring Cycle

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