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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.

Twilight of the Gods

(#@: C or D?)The Norns spin their rope of fate, Erda’s knowledge of all that was, is, and will be, and that all things that are, end

((#@: C or D?) is based on the diminished inversion of #3, the Rhine Motion Motif, and is often heard as a compound motif comprising #3 diminished inversion, and #19 (Alberich’s Ring)

[See #146 below for (#@: C or D?)’s dramatic context]

 

[[#146]] “World-Ash Tree” (The Tree of Life and Knowledge)

Wagner’s idiosyncratic variation on the Biblical Trees of Life and of Knowledge. Wotan’s primal act, the breaking off of the World-Ash Tree’s most sacred branch, to make his spear of divine authority engraved with the social contract, withers and kills the World-Ash. This is a concrete illustration of religious man’s sin of world-renunciation, Wotan’s sin against all that was, is, and shall be.

(#146 is generally regarded as a rhythmic variant of #53, but it may contain #20 harmony; if it is a variant of #53 then this links it with #1, #2, and #57b, and also with the family of heroic motifs stemming from the last three notes of #53, namely, #71, #77, #88, #92, #95, and perhaps #152.)

“First Norn: [[ (#@: C of D?) #3 Inversion = Norns’ Spinning Motif: ]] For good or ill, I wind the rope and Sing. – (#2; [[ #146 ]] At the World-Ash once I wove (#3 Inversion) when, tall and strong, a forest of sacred branches (#2) blossomed from its bole; (#2; #20d; #3 vari) in its cooling shade there plashed a spring, whispering wisdom, its ripples ran: I sang then of sacred (#2) things! (#20d) A dauntless god came to drink at the spring; (#20abc vari; #20d) one of his eyes he paid as toll for all time: from the World-Ash Wotan broke off a branch; (#21; #146?) the shaft of a spear (#21 sounding like #115?) the mighty god cut from its trunk. – (#97 vari) In the span of many seasons the wound consumed the wood; (#53; #54) fallow fell the leaves; (#3 Inversion) barren, the tree grew rotten: (#53) sadly the well-spring’s drink ran dry; the sense of my singing grew troubled. [[ #146 ]] (#3 Inversion) But if I no longer weave by the World-Ash today, the fir must serve (#147?) to fasten the rope: (#15 Vari = [[ #147 ]] sing, my sister, - I cast it to you – (#88) do you know what will become of it?”