Richard WAGNER (1813-1883)
Der Ring des Nibelungen - Explorations
Devised, presented and produced by Peter Bassett
CD 1: Das Rheingold [62:04]
CD 2: Die Walküre [55:10]
CD 3: Siegfried [70:25]
CD 4: Götterdämmerung [69:49]
Peter Bassett (speaker)
With musical illustrations from Der Ring des Nibelungen, soloists,
Wiener Philharmoniker/Sir Georg Solti. ADD/DDD
DECCA ELOQUENCE 480 7311 [4 CDs: 257:28]
Based on a series of pre-performance lectures by
Australian Wagner enthusiast and author Peter Bassett, this is essentially
a narrative commentary serving as an introduction to Wagner’s
great tetralogy. This 4 CD set does not really duplicate the famous
Deryck Cooke’s 2 CD “Introduction” (Decca), being
somewhat less technical and concentrating more on the way events inter-relate
rather than the equally illuminating but more specific analysis of Wagner’s
“Leitmotiven” that Cooke provides. Indeed the two are complementary,
although I would say Cooke’s scholarly survey is musically and
intellectually considerably more demanding. The booklet for Cooke’s
“Introduction” provides snippets from the score to illustrate
his points whereas the booklet for Bassett’s contains brief essays
on the composer and his Gesamtkunstwerken, the origin of the
names of characters and places in them, “Drama and Reminiscence”,
“Dramatic Irony”, synopses of all four operas and a biography
of the speaker - so it is fairly comprehensive.
Bassett is a genial commentator, his soft, refined Australian accent
being very easy on the ear. Although the more seasoned listener might
become a little impatient with his - albeit succinct - summaries of
the action, as well as giving an authoritative overview, he frequently
provides interesting insights into the significance of characters’
behaviour. For example, he makes us think about how the outsider Loge
is the only god who regularly suggests that Wotan return the Ring to
the Rhine maidens - or more properly, as Bassett points out in the booklet,
“the Rhinedaughters”; the confusion arose by conflation
with the “Flower Maidens” in Parsifal. Again, he
submits an excellent explanation of how the orchestral Prelude to the
“heroic comedy” Siegfried is a kind of portmanteau
piece that presents with extraordinary economy all the main themes of
the action to come before a note is sung. He emphasises the fairy tale
origins of the opera, unpacking the signs, symbols and allegorical aspects
of a work whereby nothing is quite what it appears to be. An interesting
observation, which I had certainly not really mentally formulated previously,
is how spectacularly unheroic the hero Siegfried is. As Bassett, points
out, he is a naive babe in the woods, manipulated by everyone and failing
to achieve anything of note beyond killing Fafner.
However, Bassett also makes many musical points, particularly concerning
Wagner’s use of instrumental colour and musical illustrations
are judiciously selected. He, like Cooke, draws these from Solti’s
complete pioneering Ring. He explains how Wagner’s music
conveys things about which the text remains silent - for example, how
it tells us that the Wanderer is Wotan - and adduces some apt biographical
conjecture to illuminate musical points, such as how the heart-breakingly
poignant cello motif that represents Sieglinde’s yearning for
love might reflect Wagner’s infatuation with Mathilde Wesendonck
and how in depicting the unhappy marriages of both gods and men Wagner
must have drawn upon the experience of his own unfortunate union with
Cosima. He elucidates the meaning and origin of central symbols such
as the Ash Tree. He debunks the too mechanistic interpretation of Wagner’s
leitmotifs and considers how foolish critics and commentators such as
Hanslick were to ignore the context of myth and voice outrage at the
twins’ incest in Die Walküre, comparing it with the
“Adam and Eve” biblical account and giving the modern listener
plenty to think about.
There are a few niggles; Bassett’s constant mispronunciation of
“Siegfried” as “Sig-fried” rather than “Seeg-freed”
is irksome. There are a few slips in his narration that needed a re-take
and his pronunciation of the word “scion” as “skee-on”
is simply quaint.
This is an enterprise that springs from a deep love and familiarity
with the music and a desire to communicate its richness accessibly to
a wider public. Bassett places Wagner’s music in the context of
a German Romantic historical tradition deriving from ancient folk-tales.
He is careful to explain Wagner’s indebtedness to Beethoven and
Weber. His focus is more often upon the lyrical and expressive side
of Wagner’s score than the better-known, Big Bow-wow “bleeding
chunks” like “The Ride of the Valkyries”, and is all
the better for it.
Ralph Moore
