From: f1toyl@uta.fi (Topi Ylinen)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
Subject: Re: Fandom
Summary: A suggestion...
Date: 21 Jan 93 12:26:44 GMT
Organization: University of Tampere, Finland



Here's one recommendation for all of you who are interested in music...
try Richard Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen" opera 'tetralogy' consisting
of "Das Rheingold", "Die Walk~re", "Siegfried" and "G|tterd{mmerung".
(don't tell JRRT I said this, he'd strangle me! :) He always hated his Ring
being compared to Wagner's Ring despite obvious similarities)

The story is based on V|lsungensaga, Nibelungenlied, both Elder and Younger
Eddas and some other source which I cannot recall. Admittedly, as a story,
it does not come even near JRRT's genius, but on the other hand, you have
some of the most ingenious music ever composed here. Even people who scorn
at the word "opera" (I being one of them) might find Wagner's "Ring" very
interesting... the music is very different from typical "opera" breed music.
It has been called chromatic tonal music of the romantic period by some,
mindless amusical noise by more conservative musicians and so on... (Wagner
was the one who "destroyed" the "classical" era of art music and laid path
for atonal music and other newer forms of music). What JRRT achieves by 
superb storytelling, Wagner achieves by music. Following his marvellous
soundimages one can walk the Rainbow Bridge Bifrost to Valhalla, "see"
the Valkyries riding with the corpses of dead warriors, "meet" Fafner the
Dragon and eventually witness the destruction of Valhalla and gods.
The instrumentation and texture are superb (Wagner's aim was to conjure up
the supreme dramatism with his music, not caring a sh*t about the general
bass or other rules of his contemporary music theory  and in this he succeeded
- if not in making up great plotlines). He also composed "leading motives"
associated with persons, items, events, places and so on ("Valhalla", "the
Curse", "the Dragon", "the Sword", "the downfall of gods" and so), these
appear again and again and soon as the listener learns which is which even
the scenes which move more slowly become interesting to follow - at times
a "leitmotif" can pop up in a rather surprising context (for example, as
Siegfried wakes Br~nnhilde with his kiss, we soon after that hear the "Dragon"
motive - although the Dragon was killed in the previous act).

In the story there is an innumerable lot of connections to Tolkien's works.
Here also the story is centered around an omnipotent (oh well, very powerful)
cursed/evil Ring which all covet.
Oh yes, here too is a mighty broken sword which will be forged anew.
Wotan posing as the "Wanderer" reminds me of Gandalf in a very definite way,
and why is it that we have not eight or seven but nine Valkyries just as
there are nine Ringwraiths? (No answer expected). Both stories end with a
cataclysmic downfall (of something, old order, gods, Mordor, whatever) and
the restoration of the Ring into its prime elements (i.e. its destruction
as a ring).
The plotline itself is quite complicated and I think even synopsis would
be too long to post here (I have been writing one, it is 6 pages long and
incomplete).
As I said, if you are even nominally interested in music and worship Tolkien's
LOTR (as I have done since I was 9 years old), you should definitely give
give a try to with Richard Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen". Or some
of its orchestral excerpts first, if 15 CD's of music is too much to
start with :)... 
(It may be
difficult to find his music in a library, at least in Finland most libraries
have only a few records of his music and those are never available...)


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