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Updated: June 9, 2025
ZURICH, July 9th, 1857. My DEAR FRANZ, I forgot to ask you something. At Zurich I told you that that poor devil Rockel was longing to see one of my new scores. Recently he has again reminded me of it, therefore I repeat my request to you to lend him your score of "Rhinegold" for six or eight weeks. His wife, who lives at Weimar, will, no doubt, gladly undertake to send him the score.
The fact is, I have once more over-taxed myself, and how am I to recover my strength? With "Rhinegold" I got on well enough, considering my circumstances, but the "Valkyrie" caused me much pain. At present my nervous system resembles a pianoforte very much out of tune, and on that instrument I am expected to produce "Siegfried."
But he tells of the Rhinegold, and the giants agree to accept it in lieu of Freia. Wotan and Loge go off and get it by a trick. But Alberick has shaped part of it into a magic ring, which gives its possessor absolute power over the whole world. When they come back to conclude the bargain with the giants, it is found necessary that Wotan should give up the ring also.
Pardon me, dearest Richard, if I pass this over in silence; you know that generally it is my way if I can say nothing good.... I should have liked much to send you a different answer from the Hartels; but, alas! it cannot be helped. Be of good courage, nevertheless, and work at your Rhinegold. Next summer I hope to visit you and to stay with you for some time. My best remembrances to your wife.
The instrumentation of the "Rhinegold" is going on apace. At present I am with the orchestra down in "Nibelheim." In May the whole will be ready, but not the clean copy, only single sheets with illegible pencil sketches on them. It will be some time before you can see anything of it. In June I have to begin the "Valkyrie." When are you coming?
With a warning that she shall be regarded as a hostage till evening, but that if when they return the Rhinegold is not on the spot as her ransom, they will keep her forever, the giants hurry her off. Her cry for help rings back. Her brothers, in the act of rushing to the rescue, look at Wotan for his sanction. No encouragement is to be gathered from his face.
Crozier is worth a real queen with the beauty of one of the Rhine maidens. How he used to tell that story of the Rhinegold do you remember? Wasn't it grand? Well, I am glad now that he's going yes, whatever trouble there may be, still he is going. I feel it in my heart." She paused, and her eyes took on a sombre tone.
In a word, the music is big: the breadth and sweep are enormous: the greatest Wagner has arrived, the Wagner who has gone far beyond the hesitations and littlenesses even of the Rhinegold.
Already the discrepancy of styles has been referred to. The Rhinegold, coming between Lohengrin and Tristan, suffers from an odd sort of pettiness of phrase a pettiness which in all probability we should not feel if we did not judge it by Tristan.
I have attempted nothing more than a broad and rough description of the Rhinegold. The opera was planned as a prelude, and suffers from the defects of the plan, as well as from the fact that it was written before Wagner's new method was ripe.
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