profoundly moving combination of motifs, #40/#59a/#103. Hagen concludes from the hero’s strength that he can only be the dragon slayer Siegfried, as the musical motif combination transitions to #13/#103, and then to #15/#103/#14, culminating in an orchestral explosion of a #19 variant just after Hagen recognizes the hero as Siegfried.
This music is immensely moving and manic in itself, but the motif combination evokes a pathos stemming from the motifs’ various outside references, which at this point are quite extensive. #40 calls to mind the tragic destiny of love within Alberich’s loveless world, and #59a, #13, and #15 recall both the Rhinedaughters’ original singing and dancing in celebration of the pre-Fallen Rhinegold, and their lament for its loss after Alberich renounced love to win the power inhering in a ring made from it. We also recall that Siegfried’s muse of unconscious artistic inspiration, Bruennhilde, has up until now redeemed Siegfried from suffering the ill-effects of Alberich’s curse of consciousness, by safely protecting the Ring’s power as a sort of surrogate Rhine and substitute for the Rhinedaughters. #103, Siegfried’s Youthful Horncall, which normally moves us by virtue of its vitality, optimism, and youthful naivete, is here driving Siegfried’s ship towards the unsafe harbor of his own self-betrayal. And of course the #19 variant stands for Alberich’s Ring itself, the author of all the events of the Ring. This music reaches the utmost pitch of maniacal intensity, a premonition of Siegfried’s inevitable failure to restore the Rhinedaughters’ lost gold, and his fated doom at the hands of the agent of Alberich’s vengeance, the embodiment of the Ring curse (#51), Hagen. Siegfried is about to lose his innocence, i.e., his protective unconsciousness of his hidden guilt (his unwitting perpetuation of Wotan’s sin against all that was, is, and will be) permanently and irredeemably. And this is because the music-drama which Siegfried will create is the culmination of Alberich’s curse on the Ring.
