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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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Siegmund: (#88) Might I find my own father, Waelse, in Valhalla!

 

Bruennhilde: (#20a?) The Waelsung will find his own father there.

 

Siegmund: (#88) Will a woman greet me gladly in Valhalla?

 

Bruennhilde: (#24; #77) There Wish-Maidens hold sublime sway: Wotan’s daughter will lovingly hand you your drink.

 

Siegmund: Awesome you are, and Wotan’s child (#20a?) I behold with holy wonder: but tell me one thing, immortal! (#88) Will the sister-bride go with her brother? Will Siegmund embrace Sieglinde there?

 

Bruennhilde: Earthly air she must breathe awhile: Siegmund will not see Sieglinde there!

 

Siegmund: (#64?: Bending gently over Sieglinde, kissing her softly on the brow and turning calmly to Bruennhilde once more.) Then greet for me Valhalla (#20a?), greet for me Wotan (#20a?), greet for me Waelse, and all the heroes (#20a) – greet, too, Wotan’s (#24) gracious daughters: (very emphatically: #87) to them I follow you not. [[ #89 ]]

Bruennhilde: (#88) You saw the Valkyrie’s searing glance: with her you must now go! (#87)

Siegmund: (#64Voc) Where Sieglinde lives in delight and sorrow, there, too, shall Siegmund tarry: (#87?) your gaze has yet to make me blench: it will never force me from staying!”

 

[[#88]] Bruennhilde’s annunciation of fated doom to Siegmund

Bruennhilde and her Valkyrie sisters are muses of inspiration and angels of death, who inspire heroes on the battlefield to martyr themselves for the sake of Wotan’s futile quest to redeem the Valhallan gods from the shameful end which Erda foresaw, and which Alberich’s son Hagen will bring about as the instrument of Alberich’s curse on his Ring. This represents the martyrdom of cultural heroes of religion and art in service to man’s illusion that he has transcendent value, heroes whose legacy only becomes part of our religio-artistic heritage after their death.

(#88 based on the first three notes of #53, and thus related to #1 and #2; related to #57b through #1; one of the family of heroic motifs growing out of the last three notes of #53, including #71, #77, #92, #95, and perhaps #152)

[See #87 for #88’s for dramatic context]