Fear
This short chapter discusses an interesting theme that is typically identified as a leitmotiv. However, its musical usage in the Ring seems to be more as an accompanying counter melody. It does have dramatic associations like other well known motives do, and therefore it is consistent to try and give it a label. Another interesting feature of this motive is that several commentators not only give the theme their own label, but usually each place it a different musical grouping from the other. The motive is often identified as representing the “Sleeping Brunhilde”, presumably because of the prominence of the theme at the close of Die Walküre. However, when the motive is first introduced there is little that suggests tranquil sleep. In its first appearance, when Brunnhilde insists that she wants Wotan to destroy her rather than leave her at the mercy of any man that may comes along and claim her as his wife, the cellos play a melody that delineates the template of this five note theme. The music here is in C minor and its key feature is the falling half step from the diminished 6th Ab to the 5th G.
Wotan’s heart is softened by Brunnhilde’s pleas, and with
expressions of pride in his
daughter he relents. The motive is transported to a major key and now it has an
emphasis on a major 6th. The
statement of the motive in the first measure of the example given is answered by
the horns with a variation of the motive that falls to the 6th
instead of skiping up that interval. When
the theme appears here in a major key, the five notes of the motive can be seen
to be related to a descending pentatonic scale.
It is this musical relationship that led Cooke to group the motive with
those of the Rhine Daughters and the Woodbird, which are similarly pentatonic.
When Wotan sings a final farewell to his beloved daughter his vocal line parallels the melody of the motive under discussion, as in the first three notes of the second measure of the example below. Again the theme has returned to the minor and expresses his sorrow. Note that the clarinets and the horns are playing all five notes of the motive.
In the next example from the same scene, when he becomes rhapsodic about Brunnhilde’s eyes, the violas and cellos play the accompanying theme with the major 6th . This is the form of the motive that will be the counter melody to Wotan’s final proclamation at the of Die Walküre that no man who fears the point of Wotan’s spear will ever brave the fire that he has set around Brunnhilde’s rock. His words, of course, are sung to the motive that is associated with the fearless hero Siegfried.
A common dramatic thread should start to become apparent with the examples. Initially it is Brunnhilde who fears her punishment enough that she would rather die. Her fear is abated when Wotan grants her request for the protecting fire that none but the bravest of heroes would venture. Now in the next drama an example is taken from Siegfried Act I – Scene 3. As Mime tries to explain to the youth what “fear” is the orchestra plays a harsh and somewhat chromatic version of the motive under discussion. Siegfried ironically responds that the feeling Mime describes is something that he would really like to experience, and the motive changes its harmony with his response back to the major. Interestingly the theme at this point in the Ring simultaneously makes reference back to the end of Die Walküre and forward to the final act of Siegfried.
It should be evident that this motive is
closely associated with a concept of fear.
The motive has a diminished 6th when Brunnhilde expresses
anxiety over her fate and Wotan’s punishment., but it changes to a reassuring
major 6th when he relents. This
transformation from the minor to the major, along with the dramatic idea of the
fear inspiring guardian fire and the fearless hero who will win through to the
sleeping maid makes a strong case for Stone’s labeling of these two forms of
the motive as “Fear” and “Assurance” respectively.
In the final scene of the opera Siegfried, the motive takes on another accompanying role. Here it is a counter melody to one of the themes that Wagner used in his birthday present for his wife - the Siegfried Idyll. When these two motives occur together in the Ring, Brunnhilde tries to reassure Siegfried that she was ever and for always his, after she had just rejected his advances. It is not unreasonable to speculate about her emotions and conclude that her fear must be overcome before Siegfried and Brunnhilde can experience love. In one of his letters to a friend Wagner asserted that it was fear, of the end of existence, that prevented people from truly experiencing love. These musical themes give some insight into how Wagner incorporated his beliefs into the drama of the Ring.
There is a different brief theme that is also associated with the concept of fear, and it is introduced near the end of Siegfried Act I – Scene 2 by Wotan in his vocal line when he informs Mime that the answer to his question of who will forge Nothung anew is the one who has never learned fear. This theme is repeated in Scene 3 when Mime ponders the Wanderer’s pronouncement and then again when Mime when explains to Siegfried that Fafner is the one who will teach the feeling of fear to him.
Music-Fearless
Music-Fearing Fafner