Info

Home Page / About Wagnerheim
Introduction by Roger Scruton
About the Author
Interactive Features
Wagner Lecture Videos
Wagner Lecture / Papers Transcript
Links
Contact Us
Discussion Forum

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

Donations Welcome

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.

façade of selflessness and friendship, thanks to Siegfried’s unique entre to the unconscious programme which inspires musical creation. As the heir to Alberich’s and Wotan’s hoard of knowledge (the first thing the Woodbird mentioned to Siegfried), Siegfried has access to Wotan’s repressed thoughts, which Wotan found so loathsome that he couldn’t bear to speak them aloud (i.e., to be conscious of them). Mime embodies those loathsome thoughts.

(#131’s motival links, if any, not yet ascertained: however, I speculate that some of the melody and rhythm of #131 and associated music during this scene influences the dramatically similar scene in T.1.2 when the Gibichungs Hagen, Gunther, and Gutrune give a falsely friendly welcome to Siegfried, and Gutrune, unlike Mime, successfully persuades Siegfried to drink a potion Hagen has prepared, whose purpose is to exploit Siegfried to do what the Gibichungs Gunther and Gutrune cannot do for themselves, and whose consequence will be Siegfried’s death.)

[[#132ab]] Siegfried’s loneliness and urgent need for a boon companion, Bruennhilde

(#132’s motival links, if any, not yet ascertained)

[[#133]] Wotan’s wooing of Erda to gain both objective knowledge of what he fears, and aesthetic intuition (represented by their daughter Bruennhilde), his means to forget the fear Erda taught

Wotan learned two things from Erda: (1) the cause for his existential fear, that the gods (man’s religious beliefs) are predestined to destruction by man’s advancement in knowledge; and (2), that though religious faith as a concept, as a claim on the power of the truth (Alberich’s Ring) is foredoomed, man’s religious longing for transcendent value will live on in the loving union of the artist-hero Siegfried and his muse of inspiration, Bruennhilde, i.e., in the Wagnerian music-drama to which they will give birth.

(#133 is in the family of love motifs stemming from an Embryo in Alberich’s vocal line: “(#25 & #39 Embryo) Has the third one, so true, betrayed me as well?”, which includes #25, #39, #40, #64b, #80b, #140, and perhaps #145)

[[#134]] Redemption of waning religious faith through unconsciously inspired Wagnerian Music-Drama, the new religion

Commonly known as “World’s Inheritance” – Siegfried the poet-dramatist, and his muse of unconscious artistic