An introduction to Wagner's Der Ring Des Nibelungen by Deryck Cooke
1. Of all great musical compositions Der Ring des Nibelungen is by far the largest: a consecutive performance of its four separate parts would last for some fifteen hours. To confer unity on this vast scheme Wagner built his score out of a number of recurrent themes, each one associated with some element in the drama and developed in con-junction with that element throughout the work.
The motives are associated with four different types of dramatic symbol: characters, objects, events, and emotions. An example of a motive representing a character is the stern fanfare which introduces Hunding in Act One of Die Walküre.
An example of a motive representing an object is the genial theme associated with Freia’s Golden Apples. This is introduced in Scene Two of Das Rhinegold; it is sung by Fafner as he explains the value of the apples to Fasolt.
An example of a motive representing an event is the brief, agitated figure on the woodwind which follows Alberich’s Threat of violence against the Rhinemaidens in Scene One of Rhinegold.
An example of a motive representing an emotion is the furious repeated figure on the orchestra which portrays Siegfried’s anger during Act One of Siegfried.
These examples are only four of the almost innumerable motives in The Ring. But at the heart of this diversity there is a simple unity: practically all the motives arise from a few basic motives. Each of these basic motives represents one of the central symbols of the drama; and it generates a number of other motives, by a process of transformation, to represent various aspects of the central symbol concerned. And so we can thread our way through the jungle of motives in The Ring by grouping them into their different families. We can start from each basic motive in turn, and trace the family of motives it generates throughout The Ring, before continuing with the next basic motive.
This World-Ash Motive, which has a close kinship with Erda’s Motive, recurs in The Twilight of the Gods in conjunction with Wotan’s cutting down of the tree of life to provide fuel to burn Valhalla. It permeates the scene of the Norns- Erda’s daughters - who are bewildered by this fatal act of Wotan’s.
After the introduction of this World-Ash Motive in Act One of Siegfried, the next transformation of the Nature Motive occurs in the Second Act where Siegfried is in the forest. Wagner takes a very slow, dark, minor version of it, akin to Erda’s Motive, and superimposes on this a slowly oscillating string figuration. The result is what may be called the embryonic version of the motive of the Forest Murmurs.
This embryonic version of the Forest Murmurs Motive soon begins developing the oscillating figure freely, without regard to the original Nature Motive basis.
Out of this development, by a process of increasing the speed of the oscillation in 9/8 time Wagner eventually evolves the definitive, shimmering major form of the Forest Murmurs Motive – the one that is to be used entirely from here onwards.
But prior to all these is the Gold, from which Alberich makes the Ring that sets the whole drama in motion. In itself it is merely a symbol of mysterious potentialities lying dormant in nature: and as we have heard, its motive belongs to the family of the Nature Motive. But the various effects of the realisation of the potentialities of the Gold are represented by a different family of motives. And the basic motive here, which generates the rest, is the salient musical idea of the joyful major-key trio sung by the Rhinemaidens in Scene One of Rhinegold – the song in which they celebrate the glory of the Gold in its natural setting. This is their cry of ‘Rhinegold, Rhinegold – Heiajaheia, Heiajaheia’.
Before we trace the many transformations of this motive of the Rhinemaidens’ Joy in the Gold, we should notice that it recurs several times in something like this original form. Near the end of Rhinegold it is harmonically modified, and melodically developed, to form the Rhinemaidens’ Lament for the Gold after it has been stolen from them.
In this version the motive recurs again several times. In Act Two of Siegfried, for example, it enters on the horns when Siegfried comes out of Fafner’s cave holding the ring and staring at it wondering what use it can be to him. The horns remind us that it belongs ultimately to the Rhinemaidens. We will pick up the music at Alberich’s final remark and exit.
These are simply recurrences of the basic motive of the Rhinemaidens’ Joy in the Gold. But the two main segments of the motive are continually transformed into new motives, representing the unhappy results of the realisation of the gold’s potentialities. We may start with the second of these segments — the cry of ‘Heiajaheia’.
In Scene Two of Rhinegold, Loge sings a dark minor version of this when he describes how the Rhinemaidens complained to him of Alberich’s theft of the gold.
This already begins to sound a little like the Nibelungs’ Motive in the next scene, and Loge takes the transformation a step further when he repeats the music we have just heard to describe how the Nibelungs are already working on the gold.
Loge’s embryonic version of the Nibelung Motive becomes reality in the orchestral interlude leading to the next scene. Here the actual motive of the Nibelungs emerges in its definitive form, in conjunction with the sound of their hammering.
So the Rhinemaidens’ joy in the potentiality of the gold has been transformed into the Nibelungs’ misery in working on the gold, musically as well as dramatically. And the complete basic motive of the Rhinemaidens’ Joy in the Gold is transformed in a similar way, to produce another new motive. Again Loge is the agent of this transformation in Scene Two of Rhinegold. His dark minor version of the ‘Heiajaheia’ segment, in his account of the Rhinemaidens’ complaint, is actually accompanied by the complete motive of the Rhinemaidens’ Joy in the Gold. Here is a reminder of that motive.
And here, played by the orchestra alone, is the accompaniment to Loge’s account of the complaint of the Rhinemaidens.
This minor version of the Rhinemaidens’ Joy in the Gold is further slowed down and transformed harmonically to produce the baleful motive of the Power of the Ring. This enters in Scene Three and Four of Rhinegold when Alberich uses the ring to compel the Nibelungs to do his will.
Here, the Rhinemaidens’ Joy in the Gold has become Alberich’s sadistic pleasure in wielding the all-powerful ring he has made from the gold. One further motive is generated by the basic motive of the Rhinemaidens’ Joy in the Gold, and this too is associated with the unhappy results of the exploitation of the gold. Here, the starting point is the first segment of the motive – the cry of ‘Rhinegold’ – which we will hear again as a reminder.
A dark minor-key version of this repeated phrase is associated with the Servitude of the Nibelungs in Scene Three of Rhinegold.
This time the Rhinemaidens’ joy in the potentiality of the gold has become the Nibelung’s enslavement to the ring that has been made from the gold. Later, this Servitude Motive settles down to a more limping form, particularly associated with Mime in Act One of Siegfried.
In Götterdämmerung this Servitude Motive attaches itself to Hagen, who is himself enslaved to the power of the ring through his desire to get possession of it. Here the motive takes the form of his fierce rallying-call to the Vassals in Act Two of Götterdämmerung.
Here we come to the end of the dark family of motives generated by the bright basic motive of the Rhinemaidens’ Joy in the Gold.
Alberich’s ring is a central symbol of the drama – one of the two central symbols of power; and so it has its own basic motive, which enters in Scene One of Rhinegold and later generates a whole family of motives. The first, embryonic form of the Ring Motive is the undulating vocal line of the Rhinemaiden Wellgunde, in the major key, when she tells Alberich that anyone who can make a ring from the gold will be able to dominate the world.
When Alberich reflects on Wellgunde’s words the orchestra repeats her vocal line; and then he sings a tauter version of it, in the minor key, as he soliloquizes on the possibility of absolute power.
This is almost the definitive form of the sinister Ring Motive, and it soon emerges clearly on clarinets and horns, near the end of the orchestral interlude leading to the next scene.
The Ring Motive is a melodic form of a chord, just as the Original Nature Motive is: but whereas the notes of the Nature Motive make up a major chord, those of the Ring Motive make up a complex chromatic dissonance in the minor key, composed of superimposed thirds. We can hear this sinister harmonic basis of the Ring Motive by means of a special illustration - the motive played by woodwind, with all its notes sustained and kept sounding as a chord.
This special illustration helps us to follow the evolution of two important motives belonging to the Ring family. First the motive of Scheming, which is mainly associated with the efforts of the Nibelungs to get possession of the ring; this is a kind of groping outline of the Ring’s harmony. This can be heard from another special illustration. Here is the Ring Motive played by the cellos-pizzicato-with two bassoons holding the upper third and then falling to the lower third.
The bassoons’ outline of the Ring Motive’s harmony in this special illustration is the motive of Scheming, as it appears definitively at the beginning of Siegfried in association with the plotting of Mime.
8. The other transformation of the Ring Motive’s sinister harmony is the motive of Resentment, which is introduced in Scene Four of Rhinegold, to accompany Alberich’s first bitter remarks when he is set free after having been robbed of the ring by Wotan. One further special illustration will make this clear. Here is the Ring Motive played by the clarinets with the central three notes of its harmonic basis left sounding at the end as a chord.
This diminished triad, which lies at the heart of the Ring Motive’s sinister harmonic basis, is the starting-point for the syncopated motive of Resentment.
There is one further important effect of the harmonic basis of the Ring Motive which should be mentioned. This is a case, not of generating a new motive, but of generating a new form of an already existing one. The already existing one is that of the Power of the Ring, associated with Alberich in Rhinegold and later. We will hear it again as a reminder.
When this motive attaches itself to Hagen in Götterdämmerung it takes on a slightly different harmonic form: it now begins with a pungent dissonance.
9. Several other motives, representing various aspects of the symbol of the ring, are generated by the melody of the Ring Motive. Three of these stem from its first segment of four descending notes. The most important is the motive associated with the Curse which Alberich puts on the ring in Scene Four of Rhinegold, after having been robbed of it by Wotan. Here are the first four descending notes of the Ring Motive.
These four notes are turned upside down to form the menacing motive of the Curse. This is introduced vocally by Alberich, but its definitive form is established by the trombones a little later in Scene Four of Rhinegold, immediately after the first effect of the curse – the murder of Fasolt by Fafner.
The other two motives generated from the first four notes of the Ring Motive are those of Hunding’s Rights in Walküre and the Vow of Atonement in Götterdämmerung. Hunding, if he is ignorant of the existence of the actual ring, is nevertheless a wielder of the kind of ruthless power it symbolises: and as for the Vow of Atonement, which forms part of the oath of blood-brotherhood sworn by Siegfried and Gunther, the significance of the ring-shaped motive here is one of tragic irony.
The second is that of the Dragon, which enters when Alberich transforms himself into a huge serpent, ostensibly to demonstrate the powers of the Tarnhelm, but really to warn Wotan and Loge of his power to guard the ring and the hoard. Both motives are built out of repetitions of the rising third which ends the Ring Motive, a note higher each time; and both are given to the tubas to suggest some monstrous evil rising from the depths to engulf the world. Here is the Ring Motive again as a reminder.
The last three notes of the Ring Motive repeated over and over by the tubas, generate the motive of the Hoard. Here it is as it occurs definitively in the Prelude to Siegfried with the Servitude Motive repeated above it.
The motive of the Dragon is a rather freer development of the last three notes of the Ring Motive: but again it consists of repetitions by the tubas of a phrase revolving round a third, each repetition a note higher than the one before.
This Dragon Motive later takes on a slightly different form, on solo tuba, to represent Fafner in Act Two of Siegfried, when he has turned himself into a Dragon to guard the ring and the hoard.
This is the last of the dark family of motives generated by the basic power-motive of The Ring. But there is one separate, bright transformation of the Ring Motive — the first and simplest of all: this emerges soon after the motive has found its definitive form in the orchestral interlude leading from Scene One of Rhinegold to Scene Two. Eventually the newly established Ring Motive begins to take on a less inimical form; its sinister harmonic basic becomes much more genial on the horns.
Immediately after this, at the very beginning of Scene Two, the Ring Motive changes its harmonic basis a little further to simple major harmonies; and in so doing it transforms itself into the majestic brass motive to be associated with Wotan’s castle – Valhalla.
The melodic similarity between the Valhalla Motive and the Ring Motive establishes the near-identity of the ultimate aims of Alberich and Wotan - absolute power in each case; and the harmonic contrast between them expresses the much nobler character of Wotan’s conception of absolute power compared with Alberich’s.
11. The basic motive associated with the spear has always been labelled the ‘Treaty’ or ‘Bargain’ motive, because Wotan’s power resides in the treaties sworn on the spear and engraved on it. But these treaties, which are actually the laws whereby Wotan governs the world, are only maintained by his will, and this is what the power of the spear represents.
The Spear Motive, which is a stern descending minor scale, first appears in Scene Two of Rhinegold. It enters quietly in the bass when Fricka reminds Wotan that he will have to fulfil his contract with the Giants and give them the promised payment for building Valhalla – the goddess Freia.
A more important transformation of the Spear Motive follows immediately. This is the embryonic form of the majestic motive of the Power of the Gods, which should perhaps be called the Power of Wotan.
In each of these motives the descending scale-motion of the complete Spear Motive is checked and opposed; after the first descending six-note segment a rising motion contradicts it. Indeed, throughout Walküre the repressive authority of Wotan’s will is to be continually challenged by the other characters, and eventually neutralised.
His sense of frustration, which disappears in the opera Siegfried, returns in Götterdämmerung and grows more acute, as we learn from Waltraute; and this is expressed by a new leaping and falling form of the motive of his frustration. We hear it in the orchestra after Waltraute has told Brünnhilde of Wotan’s indifference to everything except the idea of restoring the gold to the Rhinemaidens.
In Act Three of Walküre the twisted motive of Wotan’s Frustration evolves gradually into the motive associated with Brünnhilde’s rebellion against him — the motive of the Reproach she addresses to him. At the beginning of this scene we hear the transformation take place; the motive of Wotan’s Frustration on the bass strings is answered by a free transformation of it on the bass clarinet, in which the descending motion of the original Spear Motive is now opposed by a wide leap to the upper octave.
This bass clarinet phrase is taken up by Brünnhilde as she reproaches Wotan for condemning her disobedience-her attempt to carry out his original plan, which she knew he had countermanded in spite of his deepest wishes. Her Reproach motive presents the full descending scale of the Spear Motive, continually opposed by leaps to the upper octave.
15. Love is another of the central symbols of the drama, standing in direct opposition to the two central symbols of power – the Ring and the Spear. In the first place it naturally stands in opposition to the ring because the crucial condition attached to the making of the ring is the renunciation of love.
Wotan himself, in his own way, has renounced love as decisively as Alberich, by offering Freia, the goddess of love, as a wage to the Giants for building Valhalla. And so the Renunciation Motive is also associated with him, though in a different form.
18. The label ‘Flight’ might at times seem to be justified, since the segment does recur in something like its original form when various characters are in flight. For example, it portrays Siegmund and Sieglinde fleeing from Hunding in the Prelude to Act Two of Walküre.
When Siegmund drinks the mead which Sieglinde has brought him, and they stare into one another’s eyes and fall in love, this second segment of Freia’s Motive enters in its definitive, slow major form as their basic love-motive.
This basic love-motive represents the compassionate aspect of love as opposed to its sensuous aspect, which is expressed by the first segment of Freia’s Motive. It recurs in many different forms: two main ones are slow and in the major, as here, and swift and in the minor, as at first, to represent love being driven out and pursued - hence the mistaken label of ‘Flight’.
When Alberich is finally rejected by the third Rhinemaiden – Flosshilde – he introduces this embryonic form of the basic love-motive, rather slowly and in the minor, to express his grief over the frustration of his wooing.
It is this short embryonic version of the basic love-motive which is developed in the Descent to Nibelheim. To make this absolutely clear let us hear Alberich’s lament in Scene One again, picking up the music a little earlier, beginning with his cries of ‘Woe is me’ which lead to his embryonic version of the basic love-motive.
The Descent to Nibelheim takes this passage as its starting-point. It re-states Alberich’s cries of ‘Woe is me’ more quickly, and then it develops his short embryonic version of the love-motive furiously, in a way made possible by the definitive continuous form of it, now associated with Freia.
Alberich’s thwarted desire for love has turned bitter, and is being transformed into a fierce lust for power — a familiar psychological phenomenon which is the true underlying meaning of the dependence of absolute power on the renunciation of love.
The relationship between this new motive of Love’s Greeting and the basic love- motive becomes entirely clear in a later passage, when Brünnhilde tells Siegfried that she was destined for him before he was born. This new motive enters on the woodwind, but Brünnhilde immediately continues it in the shape of the basic love-motive.
1. The other new motive generated by the basic love-motive is the bold one known as Love’s Resolution: it strikes in nearly at the end of Siegfried to sum up the supremely confident character of the love of Siegfried and Brünnhilde.
He is to replace Wotan in Brunnhilde’s affections: and this motive begins with the same three rising chromatic notes as the one we have just heard, associated with Wotan’s affection for her. It enters in Act One of Siegfried, while Siegfried describes to Mime how he has watched the wooing and mating of the birds in the forest. It is worth noting that this motive goes straight over into the basic love-motive.
There are four independent love-motives associated with Siegfried and Brünnhilde. The first is a jubilant leaping one, which enters when Brünnhilde is fully awake, and is generally known as the motive of Love’s Ecstasy.
Two of the other independent love-motives attached to Siegfried and Brünnhilde are simply two of the themes that belong to the Siegfried Idyll. The first, which is not a motive in the strict sense, in that it never recurs, is the opening theme of that work, which is introduced to represent Brünnhilde as the ‘immortal beloved’.
The other motive is the second theme of the Siegfried Idyll, which is sung by Brünnhilde to the words ‘0 Siegfried, treasure of the world’, and has become known in consequence as the motive of the World’s Treasure.
3. The characters in whose lives love plays such an important part – Siegmund and Sieglinde, Siegfried and Brünnhilde – are heroic figures, fighting to establish the claims of love in the loveless world of the ring and the spear. And these figures, taken together, form another of the central symbols of the drama-the symbol of heroic humanity. They are all offspring of Erda by Wotan, in one way or another: Brünnhilde is literally so, and the Volsungs, though born to Wotan by a mortal woman, are begotten by him out of the inspiration of his first encounter with Erda in Scene Four of Rhinegold.
These motives all begin where Erda’s climbing motive leaves off, as it were; they take the last three notes of it as a starting point. We will hear first another special illustration – Erda’s Motive played by the cellos with a solo horn emphasising the last three notes.
The leaping motive of the Valkyries, associated particularly with Brünnhilde, springs boldly out of the last three notes of Erda’s Motive.
The second heroic motive generated by the final segment of Erda’s Motive is the one associated with the Volsung Race, and more particularly with Siegmund. It enters in Act One of Walküre when Siegmund has finished describing his unhappy fate. Here is the special illustration of Erda’s Motive again.
And here is the motive of the Volsung Race which rises slowly out of the last segment of Erda’s motive.
Incidentally, it should be noticed that this motive of the Volsung Race has another segment, expressing a sense of infinite sorrow rather than dark tragedy. It is sung by Siegmund to introduce the main part of the motive which we have just heard.
Yet he too is a hero, who in his own way tries to establish the claims of love – an attempt which takes a warped form only because of his weakness, which makes him a pawn in the evil plot of his half- brother Hagen. His motive belongs unmistakably, if less than magnificently, to the same heroic family as those associated with the Valkyries and the Volsungs.
So much for the heroic characters of the drama. The two central male ones are Siegmund and Siegfried, and the dynamic symbol of their heroism is the Sword created by Wotan, which each of them makes his own. And just as the motives associated with the heroes themselves stem from the motive of Erda – which is a form of the Nature Motive – so the motive representing the Sword springs from the Nature Motive itself. Indeed we heard earlier that it is a member of the Nature family, being almost identical with the original arpeggio form of the Nature Motive.
Siegmund sings it in Act One of Walküre when he remembers that his father – Wälse – who is of course Wotan – had promised him a sword in his hour of need. Here first is the second segment of the Sword Motive, with its downward-leaping octave, as sung by Wotan in Scene Four of Rhinegold to indicate the Purpose of the Sword.
And here is the same segment of the Sword Motive as sung more quickly by Siegmund in Act One of Walküre
When Siegmund goes on to apostrophise his father, asking him where the sword is, his voice isolates the downward-leaping octave, common to both segments of the Sword Motive, and it becomes a motive in its own right.
Near the end of Act One of the Walküre, when Siegmund draws the sword from the tree and names it Nothung – or Need – the new motive of the simple downward- leaping octave attaches itself to the name.
This Nothung Motive, associated with the her’s need for the sword, recurs in another form in Act One of Siegfried. Siegfried sings it when he re-forges the sword and re-names it Nothung.
This downward-leaping octave, stemming from the Sword Motive, is used to generate, another heroic motive in Act One of Götterdämmerung. This is the terse motive of Honour which enters on the orchestra when Siegfried draws the sword to lay it between himself and Brünnhilde, to keep faith with Gunther.
Another important phrase of the Sword Motive is the latter half of its second segment, referring to the preservation of Valhalla through the sword. The important interval here is a downward leap of a fifth followed by two steps upward. Let Wotan remind us of this phrase.
This phrase is also taken Up by Siegmund in Act One of Walküre. He sings it twice over as he grasps the sword to draw it from the tree, still remembering his father’s promise.
6. Ironically, this phrase, with its downward leap of a 5th followed by two steps upwards, generates a number of motives associated with the various characters and events which stand in the way of Wotan’s plans to ensure the safety of Valhalla. In the first place it forms the basis of the orchestral motive attached to Fricka in Act Two of Walküre, when she argues Wotan into abandoning Siegmund and the sword, and also the purpose for which both were conceived.
In Act One of Götterdämmerung the same phrase, with its downward leap of a 5th, generates further new motives associated with the Gibichungs — who stand in the way of the new possessor of the sword, Siegfried. The first is the motive of Friendship – the illusory friendship between Siegfried and Gunther.
Behind the illusory friendship between Siegfried and Gunther stands Hagen: and his own personal motive isolates the downward leap of a 5th in its sinister diminished form. It usually enters in the bass, as here, in Hagen’s Watch-Song.
Hagen’s plan is to use the friendship between Siegfried and Gunther to seduce Siegfried away from Brünnhilde into a marriage with Gutrune: and the motive associated with this seduction is a freer transformation of the original phrase, with the downward leap altered from a 5th to a 7th, but with the two steps upward restored. Hagen introduces It vocally when he refers to the magic potion which is to be the agent of seduction.
The half-unwitting instrument of the seduction, Gutrune, has her own personal motive; and this practically returns to the original form of the phrase with its downward leap of a 5th, followed by two steps upward, but now with much sweeter harmonies.
7. Closely associated with Gutrune’s Motive is the horn-call of the Gibichungs, which punctuates Hagen’s rallying-call to the Vassals in ActTwo of Götterdämmerung.
A further motive belonging to this family is that of Siegfried’s Horn. This is a direct antithesis of the Gibichung horn-call which we have just heard-it begins with an upward leap of a 5th instead of a downward one.
In the Prelude to Götterdämmerung this original fast version of the horn motive takes on a more majestic form, representing Siegfried’s new stature as the active hero inspired by the love of Brünnhilde.
During the great scene in Act Two of Götterdämmerung, in which Siegfried and Brünnhilde both swear on Hagen’s spear, there is a tremendous conflict between the upward and downward-leaping 5ths. The result is the motive known as The Swearing of the Oath.
One other motive belonging to this family should be mentioned – that of the World’s Inheritance, which enters in Act Three of Siegfried. This motive, in which the salient interval is a downward-leaping 6th, followed by several steps upwards, bursts in on the orchestra to round off Wotan’s statement to Erda that he intends to let Siegfried and Brünnhilde inherit the world.
8. Here we come to the end of the family of heroic motives generated by the motive of The Sword, with its downward leaping octave and 5th. But the symbol of heroism, like the symbol of love, has other independent motives attached to it.
This completes the large number of motives associated with the symbol of heroism in connection with Wotan, Siegmund and Siegfried.
The basic motive is the one introduced by Fricka in Scene Two: she sings it when she holds out to Wotan the lure of a comfortable life of Domestic Bliss in Valhalla as a satisfying ideal in itself, without any need of further striving. The basis of the motive is two falling intervals — a 7th and a 5th.
Little more is heard of this motive; but in Act Three of Walküre, where the struggle between love and power reaches its height, it is suddenly transformed and lifted on the heroic plane. Sieglinde, when she learns that she is to bear Siegfried, the hero of the future, sings the ecstatic motive of Redemption. This is also characterised by two falling intervals, both being falling 7ths.
The third motive associated with the inspiring power of woman is Brunnhilde’s personal motive in Götterdämmerung, when she has been transformed from a Valkyrie into a mortal woman and Siegfried’s wife. Again we notice the falling 7ths.
This ends the family of motives associated with the inspiring power of woman; although few they are extremely powerful.
Loge’s Motive consists of several segments: the most important one is that associated with the Magic Fire, which we can hear clearly from a special illustration – the segment played by the orchestra alone.
The other important segment of Loge’s Motive is a series of first-inversion chords running up or down the chromatic scale. The version that generates other motives is the descending one.
This segment also slows down and loses its flickering figurations, to produce the motive of the Magic Sleep which descends on Brünnhilde in the final scene of Walküre.
This same segment of Loge’s Motive is more freely transformed to generate the mysterious motive associated with Wotan in his role as the Wanderer in Siegfried. It first appears on the orchestra when he enters Mime’s hut in Act One.
11. One further motive connected with magic and mystery is not directly derived from Loge’s Motive, but is related to its general chromatic character. It is one of the shortest, yet one of the most important in The Ring – a chromatic progression of two chords only, which is associated with the inscrutable workings of fate. It first enters on the tubas when Brünnhilde comes to Siegmund in Act Two of Walküre to warn him that he is to die.
This motive of two chords suggests the workings of fate by moving mysteriously from one key to another with each repetition. But at the very end of Walküre fate is suspended, as it were, while Brünnhilde sleeps; and so the Fate Motive, in spite of its repetitions, is held fixed in the key in which the opera ends.
When Brünnhilde is awoken in Act Three of Siegfried, almost her first words are ‘Long was my sleep’ – and she sings this suspended version of the Fate Motive which we have just heard. Then, as she sings ‘I am awake’, the Fate Motive returns to its original form, moving into a new key to suggest that from this point onwards fate is at work again.
This passage makes clear that the bright motive of two chords to which Brünnhilde actually awakes is itself generated by the Fate Motive, suggesting the working of fate towards a more happy end, at least for the time being.
This brings to an end the family of motives associated with the symbol of magic and mystery.
This motive of the Giants takes on a more sinister form on the timpani in Act Two of Siegfried to represent Fafner, the giant who has survived and turned himself into a Dragon.
It might be wondered, perhaps, why some characters seem to have no personal motive at all. There is a Siegfried motive, for example, and a Brünnhilde motive, but the commentators list no Alberich motive. Alberich is of course sufficiently represented by the symbolic motives attached to him – those of the Ring, the Power of the Ring, Resentment, Murder, and so on. But in fact he does have a personal motive of his own.
Mime too has his personal motive-even several of them. The most important is a whining one, a kind of insidious transformation of the furious descending one of Alberich. He introduces this vocally when he sings what Siegfried calls his ‘starling- song’, about how he brought the boy up as a baby.
Incidentally, this whining motive of Mime and the furious motive of Alberich, of which it is a transformation, are both distorted minor versions of the bold descending major motive of Siegfried’s Mission, which is of course directly opposed to the machinations of the two dwarfs.
13. These motives of Alberich and Mime are only two of the many subsidiary motives in The Ring. These are too numerous for every single one to be enumerated, but some of them claim our attention. Sometimes, and especially In Götterdämmerung, subsidiary motives are introduced and then developed in such a subtle way that they have no simple primary meaning, but gather meaning as they proceed.
A notable case is its swift minor-key transformation as the motive of the Storm which opens Walküre. The actual notes of the motive, as we heard earlier, are derived from the Spear Motive, but the melodic and rhythmic pattern in which they are deployed is that of the wave-motion motive, surging swiftly upwards on the cellos and basses and less swiftly down again.
The final transformation of the motive of Nature in Motion occurs in the last Act of Götterdämmerung. Here it changes back into something like its original watery form on the violins, to portray the Rhine rippling around the Rhinemaidens again.
15. Besides this family of motives representing Nature in Motion there are a considerable “number portraying various physical activities; but it will be obvious by now that to account for every last subsidiary motive in The Ring, and to indicate its position in the general scheme of things, would be an almost endless task. And so we may end by examining one or two instances of the way in which Wagner builds up his motives into larger wholes. And we may consider first three examples of what might be called ‘Composite Motives’.
Tormented both by Erda’s warning about the end of the Gods and by the thwarting of his will by his wife Fricka, he wonders how he can find a free hero who will achieve what he is prevented from achieving by his responsibility to the law. As he reflects on this problem we hear the composite motive of The Need of the Gods, which is a speeded-up combination of the single motives of Erda.
And now here is the combination of those two ideas, speeded up-the composite motive of The Need of the Gods as it enters in the bass, and is developed at length.
These are three of the several composite motives which continue as motives in their own right, but there are many cases where single motives are brought into conjunction once or twice for a special purpose, and we may consider the most masterly of these.
But now these are followed by a slowed-down reference to the motive of The Need of the Gods (itself, as we know, a combination of the motives of Erda, The Twilight of the Gods, and Wotan’s Frustration). And lastly, the final cadence of the Valhalla Motive, setting its seal of nobility on the whole. Here is the entire passage.
And so Wagner compresses the essence of six different motives into a single brief passage, to look back over Wotan’s whole stormy existence, and to indicate that it has now, at last, been brought to a peaceful and noble conclusion.
The first of these is one that we have not yet heard — a subsidiary one portraying the activity of riding, originally attached to the Valkyries but by this time associated with Wotan in his role of the Wanderer. Here it is as it first enters to introduce The Ride of the Valkyries.
This Riding Motive, in more continuous form, is the whole textural and rhythmic basis of the Prelude to Act Three of Siegfried. Now let us recall the dark motive of Erda.
The Prelude to Act Three of Siegfried begins with two speeded-up statements of Erda’s Motive in the bass, against the pulsating rhythm of the Riding Motive.
Earlier, as we know, Erda’s Motive has been combined with the motives of The Twilight of the Gods and Wotan’s Frustration to form the composite motive of The Need of the Gods: and so in the Prelude to Act Three of Siegfried, which represents Wotan riding to meet Erda in need of counsel, the statements of Erda’s Motive with which it opens naturally merge into a statement of the motive of The Need of the Gods.
At this point the music goes on to remind us of Wotan’s dominating will with fierce development of the Spear Motive by the brass.
This slow and quiet combination of motives is developed swiftly and loudly in the Prelude to Act Three of Siegfried.
What is fascinating here is that this fast development of the combination of two motives is built on the slow-moving harmonic basis of another motive-that of the Wanderer, which is the role played by Wotan in Siegfried. Let us remind ourselves of the Wanderer Motive.
19. Now if we return to the passage in the Prelude to Act Three of Siegfried which we have just heard, we find that behind the swift development of the combined motives of Erda and The Twilight of the Gods the brass are playing, very broadly, the chord-progression which is the motive of the Wanderer.
For the climax of this far-reaching development, and of the whole Prelude, Wagner uses a motive which overshadows all the others, in a sense, since the symbol it represents threatens everything else with destruction. This is the motive of The Power of the Ring, which we will recall now.
That is only the first half of the motive, and that is all Wagner uses of it for the climax of the Prelude to Act Three of Siegfried: it is quite sufficient.
Next, the brass weave in the majestic main segment of the motive of Valhalla, as the great castle begins to glow in the distance, preparatory to going up in flames. Then, when the motives of the Rhinemaidens and the Rhine return, they are surmounted by the soaring motive of Redemption, high up on the flutes and violins.
This is the motive of Redemption, which remains alone at the end, to set upon the whole vast stormy world of the drama its final seal of benediction.