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Title Page
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Allen Dunning's numbered Guide to the Ring's Musical Motifs
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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.

[[#54]] Erda's prophecy of the fore-ordained “Twilight of the Gods”

It is fore-ordained by the laws of evolution and history that Alberich’s son Hagen (metaphor for our modern, secular, scientific world-view) will ultimately supplant the mytho-poetic, religious phase of human history, bringing about a figurative twilight of the gods

(#54 approximately based on inversion of #53; related through #53 to #1 and #2, #57b, #71, #77, #88, #92, #95, and perhaps #152)

[See #53 for #54’s dramatic context]

 

[[#55]] Donner's cry: “Heda! Heda, hedo!”

Donner sweeps the gods’ heavens clear, in order to purify the air of the taint of Wotan’s corrupt machinations and self-deceit in establishing the gods’ self-delusional refuge from truth, Valhalla

(#55 basis of #61, and possibly basis of #84 and #85)

[Fafner has just killed his brother Fasolt in a dispute over the right to possess Alberich’s Ring, shocking the gods, especially Wotan, who has acknowledged he now grasps the power of Alberich’s curse on the Ring:]

 

Fricka: (nestling up to him, cajolingly: #23) Your thoughts are elsewhere. Does the noble stronghold not beckon you gladly, (#20a modulation or #20b?) awaiting its lord with its welcoming shelter? (#20a>#19?)

 

Wotan: (#19: Sombrely) With evil wage I paid for the building! (#19)

 

Donner: A sultry haze hangs in the air; its lowering weight lies heavy upon me. The leaden clouds (#11) I’ll gather into a raging storm; it will sweep the heavens clear.

 

(Donner climbs on to a rocky promontory overlooking the valley and swings his hammer; during the following, the mists gather around him.)

 

Donner: [[ #55 ]] Heda! Heda, hedo! To me, you haze! You mists, to me! Donner, your lord, musters his hordes. At the swing of this hammer sweep to me here. [[ #55 ]] Heda! Heda, hedo!