standpoints. Alberich, or Dark-Alberich, would in this case nonetheless be logically prior to Wotan, since all of Wotan’s actions seem to be reactions to, or solutions to, the problems created by Alberich’s forging of his Ring, including what we construe as the earliest actions performed by Wotan within the Ring’s overall chronology, such as breaking off the most sacred branch of the World-Ash Tree, losing one of his eyes in payment for wisdom, and making his contract with the Giants, with the aid of Loge’s cunning, that they build Valhalla in exchange for Freia. Wotan’s whole world seems to presuppose Alberich’s forging of his Ring (witness the Ring Motif #19 giving birth to the initial segment of the Valhalla Motif, #20a). Of course, considered in isolation from the rest of the drama, it could be argued that #19’s transformation into #20a merely discloses to us the primal ground of #19 in Wotan’s Valhalla, but this would make nonsense of a great many other things which transpire in the Ring.
However, with respect to Abbate’s point about the lack of motival accompaniment for Wotan’s first musings on his history, it is worth noting that though the Norns in T.P. narrate some events, such as Wotan’s breaking off a branch of the World-Ash to make his Spear, which Abbate presumes occurred prior to the first events dramatized on stage in the Ring, nonetheless Wagner illustrates their narrative with musical motifs drawn from the Ring drama. These include not only the new motif #146 representing the World-Ash, but other motifs which are first associated with things and events which only come to being, or come to pass, in the course of the drama we see enacted on the stage. These include #20abcd (all the Valhalla Motif’s segments, including especially #20d, associated specifically with the sacred time before Wotan cut a branch from the World-Ash), #97 (associated in V.3.3 with Wotan punishing Bruennhilde with sleep and taking her godhead away), heard while the Norns describe how the wound Wotan made by breaking off a branch caused the World-Ash to wither, and the death of the World-Ash, illustrated by the motifs #53 and #54 (associated later with Erda’s prophecy of the twilight of the Gods). This illustrates how difficult it is to make definitive statements about the chronology of Wotan’s life relative to Alberich’s based primarily on the presence or absence of motifs. Again, I think the numerous parallels between Alberich’s history and Wotan’s history, first pointed out in some detail by Cooke, suggest that they represent different aspects of one being, man himself.
It seems more probable to me that Wotan’s opening remarks are expressed with stark recitative void of any motival accompaniment to illustrate Wagner’s concept that bald history is so terrible that music sometimes must remain silent in the face of it. I think frankly that the motival silence of Wotan’s opening remarks is more a tribute to the terrible solemnity of the moment when Wotan first launches his confession, than to the argument offered by Abbate. Wagner provides us with some striking evidence in favor of this construction:
[P. 152] “… seeing how fond people are of ascribing to Music … a particularly pathologic character, it may surprise them to discover … [P. 153] how delicate and purely ideal is her actual sphere, since the material terror of reality can find no place therein, albeit the soul of all things real in it alone finds pure expression. – Manifestly then, there is a side of the world, and a side that concerns us most seriously, whose terrible lessons can be brought home to our minds on none but a field of observation where Music has to hold her tongue … . And that field might be best defined … as the phenomena of History. To portray its material features for the benefit of human knowledge, must always remain the Poet’s task.” [800W-{3-6/71} The Destiny of Opera: PW Vol. V, p. 152-153]
