The Leitmotifs of Wagner's Ring

https://www.pjb.com.au/mus/wagner

by thombles • 5 years ago

54 23 5 years ago

pjb.com.au

Freak_NL4• 5 years ago

A potentially interesting segue into modern music is the 2006 Ring inspired nerdcore 'remix' of the Ring-cycle: Rhyme of the Nibelung by Baddd Spellah featuring MC Frontalot:

https://soundcloud.com/badddspellah/rhyme-of-the-nibelung

A tongue-in-cheek adaptation of course, but I can't read about Leitmotifs in Wagner's Ring cycle without thinking of this song.

tomcam• 5 years ago

I paid something like $1100 per ticket to see a production at the last Seattle Opera cycle with no expectations (gift to the wife) and was blown away because the music is just plain incredibly well written and tuneful. It is straight up good 19th century pop music, albeit with a deeply weird plot replete with a heapin’ helpin’ of incest. Production itself was thankfully world class.

busterarm2• 5 years ago

Whether this is someone's thing or not, I strongly encourage everyone to see a complete Ring Cycle at least once.

There'll be 3 opportunities to do so in Berlin between November & January.

Freak_NL4• 5 years ago

I'll personally give it a few years until 'getting together in large groups indoors seated next to strangers' feels more natural, is less at risk of being cancelled because of corona, and won't be sold out the minute sales open due to over a year of missing such things.

user2994cb• 5 years ago

A nice run through of the recent Met production here: https://vimeo.com/39374902

jedimastert• 5 years ago

Sideways, who does a ton of incredible work about music in films and TV, did a video about the Ring cycle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6GA9Px6qkc

coolandsmartrr• 5 years ago

For those HNers wondering the significance of this page, a leitmotif is a "ringtone" for every character or event accompanied on a staged drama. Wagner's usage of leitmotifs in the Ring was very influential to the development of stage music, later film music.

The influence is especially present in the Star Wars score. You know how Darth Vader's theme plays when he enters the scene? John Williams took hint from Wagner to assign tunes to each character.

larusso3• 5 years ago

My other favorite example in Film is The Lord of the Rings. Especially in the first movie with the theme for the fellowship. It starts out as some single French horns and becomes this great theme when the complete fellowship walks the iconic scene over the mountains towards Moria. Then in Moria we hear it the last time played in full when it abruptly stopps. After Gandalf fell so does the theme. It’s beautiful done.

r22222• 5 years ago

Yeah it’s pretty much perfect. You hear it from the first seconds: Galadriel/Lothlorien theme as the the voiceover starts over black screen, turns into the ring theme as the title card appears, and changing into the lighter Shire theme when she talks about it, waving different themes into each other, after finally ending in Fellowship theme as the title ‘Fellowship of the Ring’ appears.

Even after Boromir’s death you hear a sad and dark hint of the Fellowship theme as it fades away into the moment the fellowship truly breaks and Frodo decides to leave on his own.

Imagine my disappointment when they used the Nazgul theme in the Hobbit, in the final warg/orc fight scene. Just threw it all away because it’s something that sounds ominous.

fredrikholm3• 5 years ago

To expand on this, Wagner's ability to combine variations of different motifs in different modes enabled him to construct sentences, if not entire chapters of plot and story by music alone.

It's in part one of the reasons why Wagner's music is sometimes seen as impenetrable, as it demands a lot from you as a listener. This line of thinking is exemplified in this (purported) quote by Stravinsky:

   To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.

Where this ability to listen is something that is developed gradually either via osmosis or study, which is one of the reasons why listeners of classical/jazz tend to be musicians and/or elderly people.

Freak_NL4• 5 years ago

[…] which is one of the reasons why listeners of classical/jazz tend to be musicians and/or elderly people.

That seems a stretch. Both classical music and jazz have a very wide appeal. Classical music sometimes carries the populistic stigma of being only for old folk or the elite, but that does not reflect its actual listenership. If anything, streaming music has made classical music more accessible — at least at an entry level of the more popular pieces.

Listeners of the Ring cycle may very well be a much more exclusive club (this goes for opera in general), but classical music is part of many people's lives (my two year old son digs Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf).

cafard• 5 years ago

Well, I now count as elderly (or anyway eligible for Social Security), but I first went to an opera at the age of about 12. It was Cosi Fan Tutte, and I wouldn't argue with those who consider that Mozart requires less effort than Wagner.

ArtWomb• 5 years ago

>> You know how Darth Vader's theme plays when he enters the scene?

Before Vader's theme, was Williams' Oscar-winning Jaws. Two notes. Unforgettable dread every time you venture into the ocean. Not to mention the birth of the Hollywood summer blockbuster phenomenon ;)

https://csosoundsandstories.org/two-notes-that-changed-the-f...

alamortsubite• 5 years ago

This is an amazing resource for anyone wanting to appreciate Wagner. When I was in college, I had to learn many of these leitmotifs by going to our library's listening room and following my professor's notes while playing compact disc recordings of performances he prescribed. It seemed high-tech at the time!

2bitencryption• 5 years ago

Wagner's Ring cycle was my go-to background music for studying for finals in college.

tannhauser23• 5 years ago

I highly recommend Deryick Cooke's introduction which uses clips from the acclaimed Solti recordings to help you understand the leitmotifs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI-ZYf8TO54&ab_channel=Rodde...

The Leitmotifs of Wagner's Ring

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