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The Ring of the Nibelung
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Twilight of the Gods

(#@: C or D?)The Norns spin their rope of fate, Erda’s knowledge of all that was, is, and will be, and that all things that are, end

((#@: C or D?) is based on the diminished inversion of #3, the Rhine Motion Motif, and is often heard as a compound motif comprising #3 diminished inversion, and #19 (Alberich’s Ring)

[See #146 below for (#@: C or D?)’s dramatic context]

 

[image]

[[#146]] “World-Ash Tree” (The Tree of Life and Knowledge)

Wagner’s idiosyncratic variation on the Biblical Trees of Life and of Knowledge. Wotan’s primal act, the breaking off of the World-Ash Tree’s most sacred branch, to make his spear of divine authority engraved with the social contract, withers and kills the World-Ash. This is a concrete illustration of religious man’s sin of world-renunciation, Wotan’s sin against all that was, is, and shall be.

(#146 is generally regarded as a rhythmic variant of #53, but it may contain #20 harmony; if it is a variant of #53 then this links it with #1, #2, and #57b, and also with the family of heroic motifs stemming from the last three notes of #53, namely, #71, #77, #88, #92, #95, and perhaps #152.)

“First Norn: [[ (#@: C of D?) #3 Inversion = Norns’ Spinning Motif: ]] For good or ill, I wind the rope and Sing. – (#2; [[ #146 ]] At the World-Ash once I wove (#3 Inversion) when, tall and strong, a forest of sacred branches (#2) blossomed from its bole; (#2; #20d; #3 vari) in its cooling shade there plashed a spring, whispering wisdom, its ripples ran: I sang then of sacred (#2) things! (#20d) A dauntless god came to drink at the spring; (#20abc vari; #20d) one of his eyes he paid as toll for all time: from the World-Ash Wotan broke off a branch; (#21; #146?) the shaft of a spear (#21 sounding like #115?) the mighty god cut from its trunk. – (#97 vari) In the span of many seasons the wound consumed the wood; (#53; #54) fallow fell the leaves; (#3 Inversion) barren, the tree grew rotten: (#53) sadly the well-spring’s drink ran dry; the sense of my singing grew troubled. [[ #146 ]] (#3 Inversion) But if I no longer weave by the World-Ash today, the fir must serve (#147?) to fasten the rope: (#15 Vari = [[ #147 ]] sing, my sister, - I cast it to you – (#88) do you know what will become of it?”

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