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On this point, therefore, the German preserves the older tradition: the Norse Andvari, the river-dwarf, is the German Alberich the Nibelung. In the Nibelungen Lied the winning of the treasure forms no part of the action: it is merely narrated by Hagen.
I had thus two new subjects stamped on my imagination, Tristan and Die Sieger; with these I was constantly occupied from this time onwards, together with my great work, the Nibelungen, the unfinished portion of which was still of gigantic dimensions.
"Tristan and Isolde" was produced in 1856, and his comic opera, "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg," three years later. In 1864 he received the patronage of King Louis of Bavaria, which enabled him to complete and perform his great work, "Der Ring der Nibelungen."
Schiller's characters, from the Robbers to Wallenstein and Tell, do indeed pursue an ennobling course, and likewise reveal something of their author's development; but in Wagner the standard is higher and the distance covered is much greater. In the Nibelungen Ring, for instance, where Brunhilda is awakened by Siegfried, I perceive the most moral music I have ever heard.
My wife has even written to me that he wished to come to me. Otherwise I have nothing rational to tell you today. I feel miserable; you will soon hear more. A thousand cordial thanks for your letter. Your My excellent friend, Felix Draseke, is on his way to you. Receive him kindly as one of "ours," and reveal to him your "Nibelungen" treasure, on which he is worthy of gazing with heart and soul.
Then, in the "Younger Edda," the story is repeated in the myth of the Niflungs and the Gjukungs. It is told again in the "Volsunga Saga" of Iceland. It is repeated and re-repeated in various forms and different languages, and finally appears in the "Nibelungen Lied," a grand old German poem, which may well be compared with the Iliad of the Greeks.
It has already been related how Wagner broke off, when midway through 'Der Ring des Nibelungen, and devoted himself to the composition of a work of more conventional dimensions. The latter was 'Tristan und Isolde. Produced as it was in 1865, four years before 'Das Rheingold, it was the first of Wagner's later works actually to see the light.
She had a really fine voice and a warm tone, and had been the only soloist at the big performances in 1853; only she was thoroughly unmusical, and I had hard work to make her keep in tune, and it was even more difficult to get the time right. Still, we achieved something, and my friends had an occasional foretaste of my Nibelungen music.
The letter to the King of Saxony I shall leave alone; I should not know how to utter any truth in it that he would comprehend, and to tell lies I do not care; it is the only sin I know. I shall finish my "Nibelungen;" after that there will be time to take a look round the world. For "Lohengrin" I am sorry; it will probably go to the d in the meanwhile.
"He stands among musicians in his faultless vesture, a noble from head to foot." Violins and Violinists Fact and Fable That fine old bard who shaped the character of Volker the Fiddler in the Nibelungen Lay, had a glowing vision of the power of music and of the violin.
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