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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

Donations Welcome

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.

was – I wanted to call out his name – is Woeful [“Wehwalt”] really what you are called?

 

Siegmund: Do not call me so now that you love me: (#75?) I'm lord of sublimest delights!

 

Sieglinde: And happy, you cannot call yourself Friedmund [“Peaceful”?]

 

Siegmund: Name me yourself as you’d like me called: (#75) I’ll take my name from you.

Sieglinde: But Wolfe, you said, was your father?

Siegmund: A wolf to fearful foxes! (#20a?) But he whose eyes once flashed as proudly as yours, fair woman, flashes now – Waelse was his name.

Sieglinde: (beside herself) If Waelse’s your father and if you’re a Waelsung; if he thrust the sword in the tree for you – then let me name you as I love you: Siegmund - thus do I call you!”

 

[[#77]] The “Valkyries” as muses of inspiration and angels of death

Erda’s daughters, the Valkyries (including Bruennhilde), inspire heroes to martyrdom in unwitting service to the illusory, religious belief in man’s transcendent value. After death their cultural legacy lives on to protect Valhalla and its illusions from the truth.

(#77 part of a family of heroic motifs derived from the last 3 notes of #53, which include #71, #88, #92, #95, and perhaps #152; through #53 related to #1 – and thus to #57b – and to #2 and #3)

“Prelude: (#57; #40; [[ #77 ]]: A wild and rocky mountain landscape. At the back of the stage a gorge runs from below to a high ridge of rocks, from which the ground slopes down again towards the front of the stage. Wotan, armed for battle, with his spear; before him Bruennhilde, as a Valkyrie [“Walkuere”], likewise fully armed. (…)

 

Wotan: A furious fight (#21 or #60 fragment) will soon flare up: (#21 or #60?) Let Bruennhilde fly to the fray; (#21 or #60?) for the Waelsung let her choose victory! (#21 or #60?) Hunding may choose to whom he belongs: he’s no use to me in Valhalla. (#21 or #60?) (…)