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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.

(#83 is a compound motif comprised of #53 plus #53’s Inversion – tantamount to #54, i.e. Erda's prophecy of the twilight of the gods - overlain by #81A, i.e., Wotan's awareness of the futility of hoping for a free hero who could redeem the gods from the fate Erda foresaw; please see #53, #54, and #81AB for the list of motival relationships)

 

 

(#@: A or C?)The inevitability of Alberich’s victory over the gods, that Alberich’s hoard of knowledge will rise from the silent depths to the light of day and overthrow the illusions which sustain Valhalla (religion)

This motif represents Wotan’s growing awareness, thanks to Erda’s (Mother Nature’s) prophecy, that the gods are foredoomed to destruction. This is Wagner’s metaphor for the fact that in the fullness of time, collective, historical Man (Alberich and Wotan – Light Alberich) will accumulate a hoard of objective knowledge of the world (Erda’s knowledge of all that was, is, or will be) which will overthrow the illusions which have sustained religious belief

((#@: A or C?) is a compound motif which seems to take a variety of forms, but it’s definitive form, heard here, is a special harmonic variant of the Valhalla Motif’s second segment, #20b, plus a #12 variant, seeming to suggest that the gods are poor guardians of the innocence of the Rhinegold, that in spite of Loge’s suggestion to the Rhinedaughters that the gold’s lost light - in which they can no longer bask since Alberich took it - they could find again in the gods’ splendor, this is not so: the gods are no more innocent or capable of restoring innocence than Alberich. Knowing that Alberich's victory is inevitable because he and his son Hagen are on the side of truth (while the gods and their heroes sustain themselves through self-deception), Wotan despairingly resigns himself to the eventual success of Alberich’s plan to storm Valhalla and bring about the twilight of the gods)

[[#84]] The first motif of “Wotan’s Anger” at Bruennhilde for fighting for an ideal he has renounced

Wotan’s anger at Bruennhilde for disobeying his injunction to insure that Hunding exacts vengeance on Siegmund, is actually the product of Wotan’s self-contempt. It expresses his rage against himself, for he finds always only his own craven, egoistic motives behind all his efforts to create a hero, freed from the gods’ law and