I Saw the World End: A Study of Wagner's Ring

372 Pages·1979·11.727 MB·English

by  Deryck Cooke

A study of Wagner's Ring
DERYCK COOKE
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I Saw the World End
If I now fare no more
to Valhalla's fortress,
do you know whither 1 go?
From the land of desire 1 depart,
the land of illusion I flee for ever;
the open gates
of eternal becoming
I close behind me:
to the desire-free, illusion-free
holiest chosen land,
the goal of world-wandering,
redeemed from rebirth,
she who understands now departs.
The blessed end
of all things eternal,
do you know how I reached it?
Deepest suffering
of grieving love
opened my eyes:
I saw the world end.
(Lines rejected from the closing scene of
The Twilight of the Gods
but printed in the definitive text of 1872.)
I Saw the World End
A study of Wagner's Ring
Deryck Cooke
London
Oxford University Press
New York Melbourne
1979
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Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford ox2 6dp
OXFORD LONDON GLASGOW NEW YORK
TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON CAPE TOWN
IBADAN NAIROBI DAR ES SALAAM TOKYO
KUALA LUMPUR SINGAPORE JAKARTA HONG KONG
DELHI BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI
ISBN 0 19 315318 1
© Jacqueline Cooke 1979
First published 1979
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechani¬
cal, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford
University Press
Text set in 9/IO2 pt VIP Palatino, printed by photolithography,
and bound in Great Britain at The Pitman Press, Bath
Preface
Deryck Cooke's death in October 1976 deprived us of over half of
his monumental study of The Ring - not only the entire second
volume, dealing with the music, but also the detailed study of the
sources, texts, and action of both Siegfried and The Twilight of the
Gods. But what was completed at the time of his death is of such
importance for Wagner studies that its publication was essential.
In his 'Introduction' to the Decca recording of The Ring (a spoken
commentary, with music examples, on three records), Deryck
Cooke said that:
[Wagner's] themes - or leading motives as they have come to be called - are
not mere identification tags; nor is the score a simple patchwork made up
by introducing each motive at the appropriate point in the stage-action ...
Wagner's motives have, in reality, a fundamentally psychological signifi¬
cance, and his score is a continuous symphonic development of them,
reflecting the continuous psychological development of the stage action. In
consequence, a comprehensive analysis of The Ring would be an enormous
task. It would involve clarifying the psychological implications of all the
motives, and tracing their changing significance throughout the whole of
their long and complex development.
This was the 'enormous task' that Deryck Cooke set himself, and
which would have constituted the second volume. But, fortu¬
nately, the introductory section of the first volume goes into
considerable musical detail, so that the basis of the second volume
is at least present, even if its loss is thus the more acutely felt.
In editing the text of this book most of the forward references to
unwritten sections have been retained, though it has been neces¬
sary to omit a few which are not self-explanatory; one or two other
similar adjustments have also had to be made, but otherwise
nothing has been changed. The 'Second summing-up' - the
conclusion of the section on The Valkyrie - has, however, been
omitted as too fragmentary.
It should perhaps be stressed that, in considering the texts of The
Ring, Deryck Cooke was not attempting to follow the chronological
sequence of their compilation (i.e. from Siegfried's Death back¬
wards). This he considered to have been adequately covered by
other commentators, and to be largely irrelevant to this study.
Colin Matthews
Grateful acknowledgement is due to the Society of Authors, on behalf of
the Bernard Shaw Estate, for permission to quote from George Bernard
Shaw's The Perfect Wagnerite, and to Faber and Faber Ltd and St. Martin's
Press, Inc. for permission to quote from Robert Donington's Wagner's Ring
and Its Symbols.
Contents
The Unsolved Problem 1
1. The puzzle of The Ring 1
2. Objectivity in interpretation 14
3. Comprehensiveness in musico-dramatic analysis 37
The Text and the Sources 74
1. The nature of the text 74
2. The nature of the sources 88
The Rhinegold 132
Scene 1 134
Scene 2: The gods 143
Scene 2: The action 176
Scene 3 194
Scene 4 219
First Summing-up 246
The Valkyrie 277
Act 1 282
Act 2 313
Act 3 343
Bibliography 354
Index 356
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