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Updated: July 9, 2025
Sieglinda feels that the appointed man has come; Siegmund grasps the weapon and triumphantly pulls it out. Then they reveal their names, and recognise one another as brother and sister, and the Act ends. This is the first step towards Wotan's discomfiture. The significance of the Sword theme in the Rhinegold at the moment when he has the Master-idea will now be apparent.
The atmosphere, sweet, clear, redolent of the old world, and seeming to sparkle with excitement about the coming joys of the morrow, is first created by a prelude scarce thirty bars long. Like the opening of the Rhinegold, this brief prelude is an exemplification of Wagner's advice to young composers never travel out of the key you are in if you can say in it what you have to say.
Between the end of 1848 and the end of 1854 he wrote at least a dozen long pamphlets, and as many more that are not so long; he wrote the words of the Ring and composed and scored the Rhinegold, and began the music of the Valkyrie. Further, he revised the overture to Gluck's Iphigenia in Aulis, and reconstructed his own Faust overture.
Well, not much can be said about it; the noblest expressions might easily seem a little trivial in such a connection. Enough, you will soon be here, and bring me my Dante. This is a beautiful, glorious lookout; I thank you. I sent you yesterday a parcel containing the original scores of "Rhinegold" and the "Valkyrie." Their fate will probably be a peculiar one. Let me explain briefly:
It is a wonderful picture of nature, closing with an ecstatic, vision of love. After the death of Siegmund, Sieglinde takes refuge in the depths of the forest, where she gives birth to Siegfried. In her dying moments she intrusts him to Mime, who forged the ring for Alberich when he obtained possession of the Rhinegold.
Dorothea stuck her head in the door and sang: “Rhinegold, Rhinegold, pu-re gold.” He was enraged; he got up, slammed the lid of the piano, took his hat and top coat, left the house, and went out to see his friend in the suburbs. When he returned that night, he saw Dorothea standing in the door with a man. It was the actor, Edmund Hahn. They were carrying on a heated conversation in whispers.
Then the Rhinegold begins to glow; Alberich is attracted; he inquires as to its meaning; the girls tell him that they use it as a bright plaything, and that its splendour lights up the depth of the waves with blissful glow, but that he might work many wonders, might gain power and strength, wealth and dominion, through means of the gold, who could weld it to a ring.
This is true of the Valkyrie; but the Rhinegold, like the Dutchman, is all of a piece, and is, moreover, the prelude to a huge drama. When we come to Siegfried we see at once how he was planning his music on a still vaster scale: the atmosphere of Siegfried is in contrast, almost violent contrast, with that of the Valkyrie.
The first scene of the Rhinegold is purely symphonic: even if Alberich's spasmodic, jerky exclamations seem to be written in to fit the nature of this being, his whole mode of speech harsh, unmusical renders the fact less glaring; and the tide of music flows steadily on, reaching climax upon climax, until the final crash when he disappears with the gold.
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.
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