wagner siegfried's rhine journey imslp

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Götterdämmerung : Rhine Journey

Richard WAGNER

At-A-Glance

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Composed: 1874

Length: c. 10 minutes

Orchestration: piccolo, 3 flutes, 3 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, 8 horns (2 = Wagner tubas), 3 trumpets, bass trumpet, 3 trombones, bass trombone (= contrabass trombone), tuba, timpani, triangle, cymbals, side drum, glockenspiel, 4 harps, and strings

First Los Angeles Philharmonic performance: April 16, 1922, Walter Henry Rothwell conducting

About this Piece

“Siegfried’s Rhine Journey” functions as an orchestral interlude between the Prologue and Act I of Götterdämmerung , as Brünnhilde sends Siegfried off to seek new adventures, riding her horse and carrying her shield toward the Rhine and his fate. The music progresses from the near silence of the dawn (in the brass) to moments of intense string writing that gives way to the “Hero” motive as Siegfried sets out on his river journey.

ABOUT GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG

In the beginning was Siegfried: that is, the poem Siegfrieds Tod (Siegfried’s Death). This long, lyrical poem that Wagner completed in November of 1848 eventually became the fourth and last “music drama” of his monumental tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen. Little did Wagner know at the time that Siegfrieds Tod was the substantial seed from which the other three operas would spring and that this poem/libretto was itself the first draft of what would be renamed Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods). For upon completion of Siegfrieds Tod , Wagner realized that the poem he’d penned assumed too great a knowledge of the Nibelungen myth on the part of his audience. As a consequence, and to fill in the gaps, he wrote the poem/libretto Der junge Siegfried , (The Young Siegfried, later to become simply Siegfried), to which he then appended Die Walküre (The Valkyrie) and Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold) in that order, extending backward through time. As Thomas Mann would write in the opening line of his own tetralogy, Joseph and His Brothers , “Very deep is the well of the past.”

Wagner completed the massive poem Der Ring des Nibelungen on December 15, 1852, as an exile in Switzerland, resulting from his anarchist activities and participation in the Dresden rebellion of May 1849. Importantly, and prior to completing the three opera librettos following Siegfrieds Tod , Wagner interrupted that work to produce three theoretical essays on the nature of opera that shaped his aesthetic/compositional approach to the genre and the articulation of his concept of “music drama” for the rest of his career: Art and Revolution (1849), The Art Work of the Future (1850), and Opera and Drama (1852). These essays encompassed drama, music, politics, myth, religion, et al. Wagner wrote them while under the spell of the greatly influential German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872). Here is Feuerbach’s philosophy, stated very briefly and simplified to the nth degree: humans are the creators of gods, thus religion is a construct of the human mind that reveals fundamental truths about ourselves; the very essence of human life is love; since there are no gods in reality, humans are responsible for their own actions; god-like characteristics that human beings have regarded as divine for millennia are in fact human – we are divine.

Feuerbach’s was not the only philosophy that informed Wagner’s thoughts at this time; he was deeply influenced by philosophical anarchism as well. Aspects of this philosophy in The Ring were that the original state of nature is idyllic and harmless; an imposition of law-governed orders such as marriage, property, and money are evil; and that property is theft, etc. On the flip side, however, it is by means of love that human beings can live harmoniously with each other, and nature without property, money, laws, or government – love will hold it all together.

These are several non-musical themes [artistically] transformed by Wagner in The Ring : the rejection of love and the pursuit of power as embodied in the possession of the ring (Alberich and Wotan); the violation of the natural order through imposed contractual law (Wotan’s spear). Possession of power and gold usurps love at every level of The Ring. This is true even for Siegfried and Brünnhilde in Götterdämmerung , until the very end, when Brünnhilde, in the ultimate act of self-sacrifice [for love of Siegfried], rides horseback onto his funeral pyre with the ring, thereby cleansing it of its curse and destroying the old order of the gods.

-Steven Lacoste

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Gary D. Lloyd – Piano Lessons

Online piano lessons for beginners to advanced players, 1874: wagner: siegfried’s rhine journey.

SUNDAY, August 2, 2020

Siegfried’s Rhine Journey: 1874

This is yet another miracle recording from the late 50s and early 60s. For the most part I’m only posting about music that is loved or at least appreciated by people who have no interest in opera – which includes me. Strangely, this is not from Siegfried, the 3rd opera in the Ring Cycle. It is from the last one.

From Twilight of the Gods…

Siegfried is actually a main character in the last two operas from The Ring. I won’t bother with the story here except to say that “Dudley Do Right” from The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends was a genius compared to Siegfried.

It’s all about Siegfried…

It really is, to a large extent, since Siegfried eventually brings down all of Valhalla. But in another sense it’s also all about him, because he has an ego the size of Jupiter to go along with his pea-sized brain. His story crosses over from Siegfried – which literally is all about him – and into Twilight of the Gods.

Did Wagner write it his way?

Apparently not, but I’m still checking. This popular selection is actually two parts spliced together from the Prologue of Twilight of the Gods.

I just found that out a couple days by listening to the whole thing. For those of you who don’t want to be tortured by more than four hours of very bad German written by Wagner for singers who mostly can’t hold a steady pitch to save their lives, please thank me. You have to be very patient to find the great music in the middle of so much nonsense.

What we know is from two sections he wrote in the opera…

In the opera there are two parts: one is Day Break and the other is Siegfried’s Rhine Journey. They are separated by about 11 minutes of very loud, pointless singing in German that you can’t understand if you are German. It’s all one long “vowel movement”.

The two parts blended together…

Someone finally had a good idea: let’s take these two really great instrumental sections and combine them. This is the famous music I’ve known all my life. The question remains: did Wagner come up with this idea of putting them together? Or someone else? I’m still trying to answer that question. But I love this music.

It really is, to a large extent, since Siegfried eventually brings down all of Valhalla. But in another sense it’s also all about him because he has an ego the size of Jupiter to go along with his pea-sized brain. His story crosses over from Siegfried – which in this case literally is all about him – and into Twilight of the Gods.

Did Wagner write it his way, as a splice?

Apparently not, but I’m still checking. This popular selection is actually two parts of spliced together from the Prologue of Twilight of the Gods.

What we know he wrote in the opera…

In the opera there are two parts: one is Day Break and the other is Siegfried’s Rhine Journey. They are separated by about 10 minutes of very loud, pointless singing in German that you can’t understand if you are German. It’s all one long “vowel movement”.

Someone finally had a good idea: let’s take these two really great instrumental sections and combine them. This is the great music I’ve known all my life. The question remains: did Wagner come up with this idea, or someone else? I’m still trying to answer that question. But I love this music.

Read on if you are interested in how it sounds in the original opera…

This is for people who just have to know how things happened. I’m a teacher, and I’m supposed to know about music. So I did the research. Here’s the complete story:

Twilight of the Gods, Prologue, Orchestral interlude – Daybreak (Tagesanbruch): stop at 18:59

At 18:59 there is around 10-11 minutes of heavy duty German opera. For now skip that, although the singer is Kirsten Flagstad, and she had an unbelievable voice. This is actually a small part of the whole opera that interests me, but wait later to try it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_TKIStwoQI&feature=youtu.be&t=946s

Twilight of the Gods, Prologue, Orchestral interlude – Siegfried’s Rhine Journey (Siegfrieds Rheinfahrt): stop at 35:25

This is the second part of the orchestral music most serious musicians know. Around  11 minutes of singing get cut. It’s spliced together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_TKIStwoQI&feature=youtu.be&t=1729s

Now, the rest, for brave souls who are not allergic to very loud German!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_TKIStwoQI&feature=youtu.be&t=952s

Here is the whole section, starting with Daybreak and ending with Siegfried’s Rhine Journey. It includes over 11 minutes of singing and ends at 35:25…

The whole section is around 20 minutes long. I don’t like anything that comes earlier, and I don’t like too much that comes later, but I do like all of this. It is in all ways larger than life, and none of us will ever hear anyone sing like Kirsten Flagstad.

The fat lady sings..

Actually, Flagstad was not heavy. She looked stunning on stage, so with her good looks and gigantic voice she was enormously popular all over the world. She was known as “the” Brünnhilde:

A character in Norse mythology, also known by the name Brynhild. Brünnhilde, a Valkyrie, or woman servant of Odin, loved the hero Siegfried.

Flagstad was born in 1895…

So by the time of this recording she was nearly 60. I don’t have the exact date of this recording, but many people think she was the greatest opera singer of all time. Hype? I would say no this time. Her voice was miraculous.

I can’t understand any of her words, but I also don’t care. Anyone who ever heard he live said that in these recordings we only get a very dim idea of what she sounded like. I love her voice, and for the most part I loathe opera, so that’s a pretty amazing thing for me.

I like this in spite of the length:

Try to imagine that if you went to this opera you would at this point be through around 36 minutes of music in an opera that takes over four hours. If you understand this, you’ll also understand why sitting through these operas is a profile in patience.

The words don’t really matter…

I will mention again that Germans can’t understand the words. It’s all about the big sound, the vocal experience, so every vowel is modified for maximum power and effect, and that makes the vowels utterly impossible to understand. In other words, if you don’t have the words in front of you, or if you have not memorized them, you can’t understand anything they are singing about.

But that’s really a very minor problem…

The story is so simplistic that a  child could easily understand it, and Wagner’s German writing is utterly awful. (Yes he WROTE all the words.) It’s old German, so it’s as difficult for Germans to understand as Shakespeare is for us. The difference is that Shakespearean English is utterly brilliant, and Wagner’s German is moronic. It’s so awful that I can’t understand the English translations, and I read German fluently.

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Category:Rachmaninoff, Sergei

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