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Table of Contents

Title Page
Dedication Page
General Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations for key references
Guide to abbreviations used in text
Allen Dunning's numbered Guide to the Ring's Musical Motifs
Detailed Table of Contents

The Ring

Introduction


References
Appendix I
Appendix I I

Key Colour Coding

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I would be grateful for donations of any size, small or large, to help defray the cost (1) of maintaining this website, (2) and to finance my past and present research which produced my book posted here, Volume One of "The Wound That Will Never Heal," and my forthcoming revision of Volume One (to be submitted for publication), and completion of Volume Two on Wagner's six other canonic operas and music-dramas. I sacrificed at least seven years of paid employment and incurred debts to complete this project, and am currently unemployed, so I thank you in advance for any financial help you can provide. Your friend, Paul Heise.

Alberich: Give me the trinket! (… in his terror, Mime drops a piece of metalwork that he had been clutching tightly in his hands. Alberich snatches it up and examines it closely: [[ #42 ]] … . (…) Everything forged and fitted together just as I asked! So the simpleton slyly wanted to trick me, keep for himself the costly jewel that my cunning alone taught him to craft? (#42: He places the metalwork on his head as a ‘Tarnhelm.’) The helm fits tightly over my head: will the magic also work? (very quietly: [[ #43 ]] ‘Night and mist, like to none!’ (He disappears and in his place can be seen a column of mist.)

 

[Alberich assures himself that he’s invisible and Mime can’t see him.] (…) Alberich: Take that for your thieving greed! [Alberich whips Mime] (…)

 

Mime: (#5) Ow! Ow! Ow! (…)

 

Alberich: (Laughing, invisible) (…) Your work has proved its worth. – (…) Nibelungs all, bow down to Alberich! (#Modulating chromatically and featuring a falling diminished fifth, a key ingredient of #19) Everywhere now he lies in wait in order to keep you under guard; rest and repose have melted away; for him you must toil where you cannot see him; where you don’t expect him, there you shall find him: you’re subject to him forever! (harshly) (…) Hear him, he nears, the Nibelungs’ lord!

[Alberich storms off after the Nibelungs venting his sadistic fury accompanied by #5 and #41]

 

[[#43]] “The Tarnhelm's Transformations” (Wagnerian Wonder)

The religio-artistic imagination as the basis for Wagner’s “Wonder,” through which primal man first collectively and involuntarily, as in a dream, invented the gods, and later, the individual, unconsciously inspired artist, the music-dramatist, substituted musical feeling (Wagner’s musical motifs) for religious faith.

(#43 based on #35 and #42; basis of #154; related to #48)

[See #42 for #43’s dramatic context. In R.3, Alberich makes himself invisible, and transforms himself into both a Serpent (Dragon) and Toad employing the Tarnhelm's magic; Fafner also employs it later to transform himself into a Serpent]