The Musical Motifs of Wagner's Ring Cycle

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In the post about Star Wars, I referred in passing to Wagner's great Ring cycle, and have blogged about it before:  Der Ring des Nibelungen.  The most detailed —and accessible, I must add— analysis of the musical themes of the opera cycle is by Deryck Cooke, who has not only written a respected book on the subject, but made a double-CD set containing all the musical examples.  I recommend Sir Georg Solti's complete opera sets for the operas, and the companion Deryck Cooke analysis.  (Do please first try to get your small hometown bookstore to order the items for you, before you add your mite to Amazon's profits!!  Amazon will doubtless agree with my plea.)

I have just discovered, a few seconds ago, that Cooke had begun a book on the subject, but died before it was completed:  I Saw the World End.  More appropriately, it should have been called "I heard the world end!"

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