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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.

through #53's last three notes to the set of heroic motifs which include #71, #77, #88, #92, #95, and perhaps #152)

 

“Wotan: (#20a modulation or #20b?) In the evening light the sun’s eye gleams; in its glittering glow (#20a?) the stronghold shines resplendent: (#20b?) glinting bravely in the morning light, (#20c) it still lay lordless and (#20d) nobly alluring before me. (#19) From morn until evening in toil and anguish [“Angst”] it wasn’t happily won! (#57 Embryo?) Night draws on: from its envious [“Neid”] sway may it offer shelter now. ([[ #57ab ]] Very resolutely, as though seized by a grandiose idea: [[ #58a ]] Thus I salute the stronghold, [[ #58b ]] safe from dread and dismay. ([[ #57ab ]]: He turns solemnly to Fricka) (#20d) Follow me, wife: in Valhalla [Walhall] dwell with me! (#20a)

 

Fricka: (#20a) What meaning lies in the name? Never, I think, have I heard it before.

 

Wotan: (#20a?) What, mastering fear, my mind conceived, shall reveal its sense if it lives victorious [“Was, maechtig der Furcht mein Muth mir erfand, wenn siegend es lebt – leg’ es den Sinn dir dar!” – a possible alternative reading might be that Wotan’s fear inspired his courage, or his mind, or gave them the power, to conceive something?]! (He takes Fricka by the hand and moves slowly with her towards the bridge; Froh, Freia, and Donner follow.)”

 

[[#58ab]] Valhalla as religious man’s refuge from dread and dismay in the face of truth

Wotan’s Waelsung heroes are Siegmund, Wagner’s idea of a moral hero, and Siegmund’s son Siegfried, Wagner’s metaphor for an artist-hero (such as Wagner himself). Wotan hopes that these heroes, wielding his sword (later christened by Siegmund: Nothung), will preserve Valhalla, man’s heritage of religious illusion, from the truth.

(#58a’s motival links, if any, not yet ascertained; #58b basis of #79)

[See #57 for #58’s dramatic context]

[[#59abc]] The Rhinedaughters’ first lament for the lost Rhinegold

 

Nature’s lament for the innocence that has been lost through man’s natural acquisition of the power of conscious thought, a basis for man’s longing to restore lost innocence in musical feeling