The representation of nature is central to Wagner’s Ring cycle on a number of levels.  The Nordic-mythic sources and setting, the role of original or partially re-invented nature deities (Erda, Donner, and Froh, and the three Rhinemaidens) or semi-divine beings linked to the natural world (Valkyries, Norns) inspired a range of sophisticated Romantic musical nature “painting” throughout the score, including some of the best-known passages. Classical-Romantic traditions of pastoral or other imitative nature topics in music of the Classical and Romantic eras play an important role in the development of the network of leitmotifs in the Ring cycle. Readings of the Ring as an allegorical critique of modern industrial capitalism connect the traditional mythography of a lost golden age with a potential parable of environmental degradation driven by the loveless, reckless profit motive of modern capitalism. Alberich’s forging of the Ring from the Rhinegold and Wotan’s violation of the World Ash Tree to create the symbol of his divine legal authority (his spear) project parallel symbols of the transgression of a natural order. Mythographic vs. modern environmental readings of the apocalyptic conclusion of the cycle are also discussed.

The only “dose of theoretical study” swallowed by the young Richard Wagner was “about half-a-year’s formal training in harmony and counterpoint in the ‘strict style,’” administered in 1831–2 by Theodor Weinlig of Leipzig’s Thomaskirche. Earlier, “instruction in the fundamentals of harmony from a member of the Leipzig theatre orchestra. Gottfried Müller, achieved little, as the pupil was too much immersed in the fantastic musical realm of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Kapellmeister Kreisler and the Fantasiestücke to submit to the sober rigors of conventional theory.”

The men and women we meet in the Ring, via words, music, and stage gesture, span two generations, various rungs in the cosmic hierarchy (god to human, or vice versa), and four dramas. Every character appearing onstage – and most mentioned in the text – receives attention in this chapter. Opening with roots in the natural world, from which each character in one way or another emerges, context, personality, relationships, motivations, and acts are examined, always bearing in mind that, in the Ring, such issues are explored musically as much as verbally, one sometimes in contradiction with the other, and that Wagner’s broader intellectual framework – philosophical, literary, musical, political, religious – also has much to tell us. We must start and end somewhere, of course, but what becomes quickly apparent is that it is the connections between characters – how their deeds, their words, their music shape and affect one another – that propel Wagner’s drama. As we progress, in Wagner’s conception, from Wotan to Brünnhilde; from male patriarch to female rebel; from power politics, through revolution, to renunciation; from Das Rheingold to Götterdämmerung, none of those categories, none of those characters, remains unchanged.

Comprehensive and quite lengthy introduction to Wagner and the Ring. Covers concept of the volume as well as basic biographical details and intellectual and cultural influences for Wagner. Explains the significance of the Ring in musical, literary, and cultural terms. Sections include mythological sources, musical structure, compositional process, discussion of overall “meaning,” approaches to interpretation, performance history and impact.

Introduction to Wagner’s use of leitmotifs in the Ring and the discourse that accompanied and shaped the notion of this compositional technique from its beginnings. Special focus on the making of the concept (which Wagner neither initiated nor supported), on the idea of “foreboding and reminiscent melodic moments” he developed in Opera and Drama and on core motifs from the Ring that provide the material for four evenings of music drama and characterize the tetralogy as a whole (renunciation, woe, Rheingold, Ring, Valhalla, and redemption through love motifs). Aesthetic questions about Wagner’s trademark tool of composition are discussed from the listener’s perspective: Are we really supposed to learn leitmotifs like vocabulary and, if so, what did Wagner think about this? Did he anticipate that for the next 140 years nearly everyone who wanted to say something about his music would talk about leitmotifs? How can we dive into the magic web of the Ring’s leitmotifs without simply blindly memorizing dozens of melodies and their supposed meaning?