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Tonality in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen: how is the harmonic direction of the music determined by non-musical considerations

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LaingAH_1973redux.pdf (7.070Mb)
Date
1973
Author
Laing, A. H.
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Abstract
 
 
The thesis examines the extent to which considerations other than those derived from "purely musical" concepts of harmonic architecture determine the movement of tonalities in the Ring.' Reference is made to Wagner's. own theoretical and biographical^ writings and to his correspondence, and extensive reference is made to the original sketches of the Ring music (now housed in the Richard-Wagner-Archiv, Bayreuth). Although reference is made to other Wagner works, the thesis is concerned particularly with the Ring; the structure of complex Motiv manipulation and the Stabreim-verse construction being peculiar to that work. The examination is divided into five sections. In the first of these, the relationship between particular-musical Motive and particular tonalities is exhaustively investigated. From this investigation it is evident that certain Motive do have a very close link with a particular tonality, and that the use of these Motive (particularly in response to mention of an object or character in the text) is instrumental in the determination of the harmonic direction of the music. Other Motive display relationships of varying consistency and type; and these are classified accordingly. The second section examines the Ring for similar relationships between characters or emotions', and tonality. Less conclusive and more variable relationships are here established. The third section is concerned with the way is which these various relationships are used to influence the harmonic structure of the Ring beyond the simple device of direct object-Motiv association. Hare extensive reference is made to the technique of "Foreboding and Remembrance" expounded by Wagner in Oper und Drama (1851), by which musical Motive not explicit in the text would be introduced to form a musical drama complementing and extending that on the stage. This section also examines the use of dramatic recapitulation of more extended sections of music in the same terms. The fourth section examines the ways in which variation of the relationships established in the preceding sections may lead to further situations in which the drama can be felt to be influencing the harmonic architecture. In particular, the dramatic significances of diatonicism and chromaticism are discussed. An examination of Wagner's technique of underlying the drama by combination of two or more Motive into a single musical unit (as suggested in his Ueber die Anwendung der Musik auf das Drama of 1879) reveals little of significance in terms of the drama itself influencing harmonic direction. The final section is concerned with the influence of the verse of the Ring poem itself upon the harmonic architecture. Wagner's adaptation of the Old High German Stabreim verse is related to his concept of the "poetic-musical-period" (introduced in Oper und Drama),. and sections of the Ring are analysed to illustrate the extent to which this procedure, in which musical modulation is determined by the movement of emotions and changing of alliterative sounds in.the text, was applied. A comparison is made with the major analysis of the Ring made by Alfred Lorens in the 1920's which, though concerned with the "poetic-musical period", approach the analysis more from a musical' than a dramatic standpoint. The material of the preceding four sections is here utilised to illustrate the way in which predetermination of tonality, and even actual moments of modulation, were already implicit in the verse of the Ring poem, independent of any considerations of abstract, "purely-musical" harmonic architecture.
 
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/1842/34934
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