No, no! It lives, but only at its primal source and sole true dwelling-place, within the deepest, holiest inner chamber of the Individual [Wotan’s unconscious mind Bruennhilde, and its language of aesthetic intuition, music]; there whither never yet has surged a conflict of the rationalist [Alberich] and supranaturalist [Wotan], the Clergy and the State. For this is the essence of true [P. 30] Religion: that, away from the cheating show of the daytide world, it shines in the night of man’s inmost heart … . (…) Profoundest knowledge teaches us that only in the inner chamber of our heart, in nowise from the world presented to us without, can true assuagement [redemption from Alberich’s curse on the Ring] come to us.” [705W-{64-2/65} On State and Religion: PW Vol.IV, p. 28-30]
“As Christianity stepped forth amid the Roman civilisation of the universe, so Music breaks forth from the chaos of modern civilisation. Both say aloud: ‘our kingdom is not of this world.’ And that means: we come from within, ye from without; we spring from the Essence of things, ye from their Show.” [790W-{9-12/70} Beethoven: PW Vol. V, p. 120]
{{ Returning now to our passage under discussion, just before Wotan adds that he now performs this formerly bitter task – of willing the end of the gods - in gladness, we definitely hear a #133 Variant, but also what sounds like the cadential figure which followed the introduction of Siegfried’s Motif #92ab in V.3.1, which we may call #92c, but which is sometimes called the “Hero Motif,” and regarded as a variant of #71. The importance of this motif is that it may constitute the vocal line for the final words Bruennhilde sings just before she immolates herself and her horse Grane on Siegfried’s funeral pyre, “… in bliss your wife bids you welcome!” The consequence of Bruennhilde’s self-immolation is the restoration of the Ring to the Rhinedaughters and its dissolution (along with its curse) in the Rhine’s waters. }} Though it might seem from this motif’s presence both here and just prior to Bruennhilde’s self-immolation, that Wotan is contemplating Siegfried’s and/or Bruennhilde’s eventual restoration of the Ring to the Rhinedaughters and the ending of Alberich’s curse on the Ring, when he announces he now gladly wills the end of the gods Erda once taught him to fear, this is not so, because Waltraute, during her visit to Bruennhilde in T.P.2, will make it clear that Wotan’s hope that Bruennhilde will restore the Ring to the Rhinedaughters is an afterthought, the result of his recognition that his hope to be redeemed by Siegfried’s and Bruennhilde’s loving union has been thwarted, since Siegfried has betrayed their love.
{{ Furthermore, there seems to be an intriguing hint of #15 and/or #59a as Wotan says that Siegfried will be freed from Alberich’s curse because he has never learned the meaning of fear. What makes this intriguing is that chord changes which seem to reference these motifs are also heard in V.2.2 just after Bruennhilde’s remark to Wotan that she is his will, and just before he acknowledges this and says that in that case, in speaking to her he speaks to himself, and thus all he imparts in words to no one will remain forever unspoken. These two motifs are also heard during the finale of Twilight of the Gods as Bruennhilde tells Wotan that he can now rest from his wandering because the twilight of the gods is imminent, and Bruennhilde is about to end the Ring curse by restoring the Ring to the Rhinedaughters, who will retrieve it from her ashes. If our current reference can be confirmed in the score it would simply remind us that Bruennhilde’s love offers Siegfried protection from Wotan’s foresight of the end predicted by her mother Erda, and thus from
