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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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Bruennhilde: (very inwardly: #140 Vari) O Siegfried! Yours was I aye [ever]!

 

Siegfried: (ardently: #Accompaniment from Siegfried Idyll) If you were once, then be so now!

 

Bruennhilde: (#140?) Yours shall I be for ever!

 

Siegfried: (#Accompaniment from Siegfried Idyll) What you will be, be today! (#141 Varis) As my arm enfolds you, I hold you fast; as my heart beats wildly against your own, as our glances ignite and breath feeds on breath, eye to eye and (#140 Vari) mouth to mouth, (#134) then, to me, you must be what, fearful, you were and will be! (#140 Fragments) Then gone were the burning doubt that Bruennhilde might not now be mine.”

 

[[#145ab]] Having learned the meaning of Wotan’s fear and forgotten it through loving union with his muse Bruennhilde, Siegfried's unconscious inspiration has temporarily redeemed him and Wagner's audience from Alberich's curse of consciousness

(Dunning believes #145 is in the Love Motif Family which includes #25, #39, #40ab, #64b, #80b, #133, and #140. However, I speculate that #145a may in fact be a variant form of the Motif of Siegfried’s Contempt for Mime, #104. If this is accurate, it would presumably illustrate the concept (which remains valid with or without motival support in this instance) that thanks to Bruennhilde’s loving protection Siegfried has now entirely suppressed all those aspects of his own character as the reincarnation of Wotan which Wotan loathed in himself, and which are incarnate in Mime)

“Siegfried: (in joyful terror: #92>>> - [almost as if #77 and #92 are in union?]) Ha! As the blood in our veins ignites, as our flashing glances consume one another, (#74b hint) our arms clasp each other in ardour –(#92) my courage returns (#74b hint?) and the fear, ah! the fear that I never learned - (#32b or #97 or #112?) the fear that you scarcely taught me: that fear – (#129b) I think, fool that I am, (#128b?) I have quite for-gotten it now!

 

(At these last words he has involuntarily released Bruennhilde.)

Bruennhilde: (laughing wildly and joyfully: #77/#78>>) O childish hero! O glorious boy! You foolish Hoard of loftiest deeds! (#141>>) Laughing I must love you; laughing I must grow blind! Laughing let us perish, laughing go to our doom! [[ #145 ]] Be gone, Valhalla’s light-bringing world! May your proud-standing stronghold moulder to dust! [[ #145 ]]; #140) Fare well, resplendent [[ #145 ]] pomp of the gods! (#140) End in rapture, you endless race! [[ #145 ]]; #140) Rend, O Norns, the rope of runes! Dusk of the gods, let your darkness arise! Night of