Introduction

Most likely anyone reading this book has already been captivated by the music and drama of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring Des Nibelungen.  Some of Wagner’s letters about the Ring expressed his belief that his audience would have an intuitive grasp of the work and that the music would clarify the drama.  On the whole and at a certain level this is probably true, but if one reads only two commentaries or analyses of the Ring it usually becomes readily apparent that any understanding of a work of this length and complexity will be greatly influenced by how the numerous musical themes, typically labeled leitmotivs, and their relationship to the drama are interpreted.  Although there are some authors whose criticism of the identification and analysis of Wagner’s motives is almost derisive, and although it is equally true that one can enjoy the Ring without ever naming or categorizing one single motive, the position taken in this book is that understanding, appreciation, and even the enjoyment of the Ring can be greatly increased by the effort made to analyze the way that the numerous musical themes relate to the drama.

Most books on the Ring have only one chapter in which the music is discussed and some of the themes are identified .  In many, the motives are usually given an identifying label and the musical notation of their melody is presented in an example such as this.

Many of these books do not say more about the theme than that it represents the dwelling place of the gods or that it can also represent the god Wotan.  Very few of them discuss the motive’s musical and dramatic relationship to the theme of Alberich’s ring.  There are a few books that note the symbolic relationship of these motives to power and dominion.  Yet both the theme and its relationships are more complex than this.  For example, the following musical notation is closer to what Wagner actually wrote in the score and the music that one actually hears when the theme is played by the orchestra’s brass section.

This Valhalla theme is one of a few of Wagner’s motives, out of the hundreds contained within the Ring, that has a uniformly applied name.  So if commentators can not even agree on the identifying name of a musical theme, it will not be a surprise that there is no universal agreement to its dramatic interpretation or associations.  However, this lack of consensus does not diminish the value of the effort to identify the hundreds of themes and their associations in the drama.  This book attempts to be a comprehensive guide to the music of the Ring, and even if the reader doesn’t agree with its author on a label, a dramatic interpretation, or a musical grouping of a theme it is hoped that this work will provide a firm foundation from which the reader is encouraged to make their own explorations of Wagner’s massive tetrology.

A word is necessary here about the many musical examples in the book.  Because single staff examples or  even piano scores do not fully render the multiple musical lines that actually create the music, or worse contain inaccuracies of omission, most of the examples are taken directly from the Dover editions of the orchestral scores.  Although many are not an exact reproduction of the score as it appears in the Dover editions they are nearly so.  The principal difference being that sometimes individual parts for a particular instrument (or instruments) are combined into one staff, or a percussion staff is not shown.  These more extensive notations can facilitate a fuller appreciation of this sometimes very complex music and its role in the drama.  For those that are interested the author highly recommends obtaining their own copies of the scores and for this reason the Dover page and measure notations are included.  It is hoped that this book can still be of assistance to those who find reading orchestral scores difficult or those who don’t read musical notation at all but never the less have a good “musical ear”.  To this end excerpts of recorded music from the Ring are included on accompanying compact disks and they follow the order of the examples in the book.  Additionally, the label applied to a musical example is not necessarily that of a particular leitmotiv.  These somewhat descriptive titles are meant to assist the reader in understanding the association of the music under discussion.  Finally there is a brief appendix that explains some of the musical terminology used in the book.

It has been stated by many authors that Wagner’s motives are not identification tags, nor do they have any single dramatic association.  Never the less as an aid to remembering the numerous themes and their dramatic associations they have been grouped into chapters based on common elements which are usually musical, but can also be dramatic.  Wherever possible the musical derivation of a definitive leitmotiv and any subsequent variations on it are given with the main theme.