Deryck Cooke, Georg Solti, Wiener Philharmoniker, Anita Valkki, Berit Lindholm, Birgit Nilsson, Brigitte Fassbaender, Christa Ludwig, Claire Watson, Claudia Hellmann, Dame Gwyneth Jones, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Eberhard WA¤chter, George London, Gerhard Stolze, Gottlob Frick, Grace Hoffmann, Gustav Neidlinger, Hans Hotter, Helen Watts, Helga Dernesch, Hetty Plumacher, Ira Malaniuk, James King, Jean Madeira, Joan Sutherland, Kirsten Flagstad, Kurt BA¶hme, Lucia Popp, Marga HA¶ffgen, Marilyn Tyler, Maureen Guy, Oda Balsborg, Paul Kuen, RA©gine Crespin, Set Svanholm, Vera Little, Vera Schlosser, Waldemar Kmentt, Walter Kreppel, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra - An Introduction to Der Ring des Nibelungen

When Wagner set the Ring to music, he intended the orchestra to act in the fashion of a chorus from a classic Greek tragedy--setting the mood and commenting on the action. In order to allow a nonverbal musical line to reflect on the plot, Wagner developed a psychologically and musically complex symbology to communicate his thoughts to the listener. From the beginning the Ring has spawned numerous written commentaries on the relationships of the motif structure, but by using examples from the Decca Ring recording, Deryck Cooke's thoughtful spoken commentary is by far the most accessible guide for either the fledgling Ring enthusiast or the seasoned veteran. --Christian C. Rix Amazon.com

Essential and Unsurpassed

There's no other way to put it. Beside Cooke's landmark musical analysis, all other examinations of Wagner's Ring Cycle shrink to insignificance. This work is absolutely vital to anyone who'd genuinely grasp the unique musical language of this greatest of operatic masterpieces. Before Cooke, musical commentary was limited to pitiful motif lists. Analysts seem to have quite ignored Wagner's own belief the musical language of his vast tetralogy evolves organically. Cooke is the first to grasp and investigate this concept and, to this day, the only one to fathom it in so complete a manner. He presents his brilliant discoveries with succinct easily-grasped verbal explanations illustrated by sonic examples either from the great Solti recording, or created specially for this analysis, an unmistakable gauge of how much Sir Georg believed in Cooke's work. And rightly so, for it is the most revealing window ever opened onto the inner workings of Wagner's towering achievement. October 18, 2008

An introduction to music themes

In order to understand Wagner's ring you may simply listen to his work, about 15 hours, but some explanation can be of great help. And that is the purpose of these CD's, where a narrator uses short music examples (motifs) to give an insight of how it all fits together. In books, you often get only written music scores, and the author expects you to understand them. Here, the music itself is used. Again, this is a spoken book on 2 CD's presenting and explaining some of the ring's music themes. It was a great help for me. February 27, 2008

Ring introduction critique

This is very worthwhile, at the same time it requires time, patience and attention, but it does provide some keys to better enjoyment of a sensational piece of music. November 4, 2006

FASCINATING STUDY FOR NOVICES AND AFFICIONADOS ALIKE

This may look an intimidating, daunting and dull prospect - a 2+ hour lecture on the motifs in the Ring. Don't be put off. Whether you're a relative novice to the Ring and want to find out what it's all about, more experienced with a desire to understand the composer's methods better or an afficionado who thinks he knows it all inside out, there is great pleasure as well as elucidation to be had from this set. Originally made to accompany the Decca Solti Ring, it contains a multitude of musical illustrations taken from those recordings as well as some specially recorded by Solti just for this Introduction.

It wasn't the first time this has been tried. The famous HMV sets from the late 20's also included recorded examples of over 100 motifs. (These, by the way, are available as part of the Pearl reissue of those wonderful HMV recordings). What that set lacked was the wonderful insights as well as the approachability of the talk by Deryck Cooke. Cooke was a great and much missed musicologist - a Mahler expert responsible for the performing edition of the Tenth Symphony still most played today, a fascinating explorer into the nature of music's basic building-blocks in his excellent book, The Language of Music, and an inspiring and elucidating critic of Wagner's work as shown by the fascinating book he left unfinished at his death, I Saw the World End.

On these CDs he does much more than list the leitmotifs and identify them as calling-cards. He shows the amazingly integrated and organic growth of the musical material that Wagner uses throughout his vast work. He demonstrates how motifs can change their sense and meaning as they evolve through the drama. And he shows how the complex combinations of motifs can radically advance both the musical and the dramatic narrative of the piece. There are even places where he corrects the misinterpretation of some of the motifs that had become ingrained from early commentators' false labels.

This set should engage and enlighten anyone with an interest in Wagner's huge and inexhaustible tetralogy. Do give it a try - no matter how far down the road to Wagnerianism you are.
August 16, 2006

Welcome back to a classic analysis

Deryck Cooke's lecture series upon THE RING is almost as much a classic by now as the Solti RING cycle, with which it was originally issued on LP, and from which it derives its musical examples. The difference is that whereas the Solti RING has been continuously in print ever since it was completed, and was among the first opera sets to benefit from the CD revolution, the Cooke analysis was for long almost totally unobtainable. Now we have it back. It should be welcomed: it is a classic. Cooke's mellow, deep voice with the hint of a Celtic burr - which made him ideal on BBC radio - patiently explains Wagner's melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic metamorphoses to such good effect that if you own this recording, you really require no other RING analysis. (A pity about the abrupt beginnings and endings of too many vocal and orchestral illustrations, though.) Musicology lost a fine, sensitive thinker with Cooke's premature death in 1976.

If all you want is dilettantish baby food, there are plenty of dumbed-down Wagner commentaries on the market, stretching from Anna Russell's famous monologue (which doesn't pretend to be anything other than a parody aimed at morons) to the latest standard-issue "Wagner-was-a-Nazi-boo-hiss" feuilleton (which, unfortunately, does). Without reasonable score-reading skill you will find Cooke useless, however diligently you have ploughed through Marx, Jung, Freud, or other gurus purportedly relevant to THE RING. Cooke expects you to use your brains and your musical sense. Quelle horreur. At today's BBC his "elitism" would render him unemployable. May 28, 2006

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