Richard Wagner: A Life in Music
Page 26
But the contradiction turns out to be merely apparent, at least when we dispense with dogmatic and naïvely one-sided statements, for Wotan can no more be reduced to the role of a man obsessed with power politics than Wagner can be reduced to the role that he himself created. The mystery of great art consists in the fact that no matter how great the part played by calculation in an artist’s work, that art is neither calculable nor capable of being equated with his own life. This is true not just of Wagner. Take Bach’s The Art of Fugue, for example: although it can be ascribed to a particular theoretical canon and dated with some plausibility to the final years of his life, this says little about the work’s true essence. Bach’s sovereign command of the rules of counterpoint is no more than the starting point for a method of composition that includes disjointed, playful ideas, surprises, and irregularities of every kind, the composer’s ingenuity revealing itself in the dialectic interrelationship between the underlying rules and the arbitrary manner in which they are then applied.
This is even more true of Wagner’s music dramas, in which the attempt to merge the different elements of staging, language, and music was bound to lead to contingent processes that may not be entirely illogical but which cannot be controlled by intellect and which therefore have the ability to excite and agitate us. As an astute political scientist, Bermbach does not deny that it is impermissible to write about Wagner without taking account of the music, and yet he cannot gainsay his own nature. For how is it possible to draw a picture of Wotan without examining his music? If we ignore the music, we shall have no difficulty in observing that Wotan appears in Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, and Siegfried, but not in Götterdämmerung. But as soon as we turn to the music, we shall see that he is an even greater presence in Götterdämmerung than before, for time and again the motifs associated with the sword, the treaties engraved on the god’s spear, and Valhalla are woven into the musical fabric. In short, these are the motifs most closely associated with Wotan in the course of the three preceding works. And this list ignores the many other motifs that listeners will likewise have learned to associate with Wotan’s actions in the Ring. Of course, Wotan does not appear with his own motif in Götterdämmerung, but that is because he does not have one.
In the most general terms, the “career” that Wotan pursues between Das Rheingold and Götterdämmerung can be grasped only through the music, for it is the music that in Das Rheingold reveals the chief of the gods’ pursuit of power, most notably in the form of the Valhalla motif. This motif is heard in all its glory at the moment when the spectator is confronted by the sight of a “castle with glittering battlements” both at the start of scene 2 and at the end of scene 4. This doubling of onstage image and music is one that Wagner’s enemies are fond of criticizing, even though it is far from being the rule in the Ring. But in the present case it makes good sense: the Valhalla motif is used in a consciously affirmative way here for it serves as a symbol of power. When the gods enter the castle at the end of the work, it is entrusted to the winds alone, suggesting festive music that Wotan has organized in his own honor in the tradition of the medieval praise of rulers. However much Loge may look forward to the gods’ downfall and however heart-wrenching the Rhinedaughters’ lament at the loss of their gold, Wotan sees himself as a ruler at this point, a ruler, moreover, in possession of a “grand idea” symbolized by the sword motif that is heard just before this point in the orchestra, implying his hope of a free and fearless hero who will atone for the guilt that weighs on him after he has flouted his own treaties in his ruthless pursuit of power.
A production detail from the 1876 performances of Das Rheingold makes clear the extent to which Wagner was keen to have Wotan seen as a man of action, for whereas the libretto and score indicate merely that when the sword motif rings out in the trumpets just before the gods set out for Valhalla, Wotan stands there “very resolutely, as though seized by a grandiose idea,” the stage directions indicate that in the course of the rehearsals Wagner decided to spell this out in rather more concrete terms: when the sword motif is heard, Wotan was to “flourish a sword, which Fafner has contemptuously thrown out of the Nibelung hoard because it is not made of gold.”10 We may choose to see this as a meaningful visualization of Wotan’s grandiose idea, as a problematical attempt to clarify the action,11 or as a concession to the naïveté of the audience.12 But we could also trust Wagner’s instinct here and argue that he wanted to show Wotan one last time as a man of action motivated by power politics, in which case the sword motif would no longer imply just the idea of the human race freed from the curse of gold but also a continuation of Wotan’s power games using a hero who is to blaze a trial with a sword called Nothung—possibly identical to the one that Wotan flourishes at the end of Das Rheingold.
Before examining Wotan’s subsequent career as it is reflected in the Valhalla motif, I need to describe the action of the Ring in greater detail. When the curtain rises on Die Walküre, Wotan still appears to be the very embodiment of youthful vigor. Although invisible, he still seems to be an onstage presence when Siegmund and Sieglinde, whom he himself has sired, in turn produce the new hero—Siegfried—who “lacking godly protection breaks loose from the law of the gods.” Although this flies in the face of marital rights and morality, it may well reflect Wotan’s own plan for the world’s salvation. At the start of act 2, he is still brimming with energy when, “armed for battle,” he calls to Brünnhilde, who is “likewise fully armed”:
Nun zäume dein Roß,
reisige Maid!
Bald entbrennt
brünstiger Streit:
Brünnhilde stürme zum Kampf,
dem Wälsung kiese sie Sieg!
[Now harness your horse, warrior maid! A furious fight will soon flare up: let Brünnhilde fly to the fray; for the Wälsung let her choose victory!]
But the situation changes in a trice when Fricka enters to insist on her rights and on traditional morality:
Von Menschen verlacht,
verlustig der Macht,
gingen wir Götter zu Grund,
würde heut’ nicht hehr
und herrlich mein Recht
gerächt von der muthigen Maid.
[Derided of men, deprived of our might, we gods would go to our ruin were my rights not avenged, nobly and grandly, by your mettlesome maid today.]
As a result, Wotan has to agree—albeit “in terrible dejection” and “gloomy brooding”—to betray his own son in the coming fight with Hunding, even though all his hopes rest on Siegmund. Only moments earlier he had instructed Brünnhilde to fight for the Wälsung, but now he has to explain why she must fight for “Fricka’s slaves” and in doing so fly in the face of his own deeper wishes.
In the course of a lengthy monologue that Wagner had approached with great “fear” at a time when he felt “discouraged” and “disillusioned,”13 Wotan justifies his betrayal of Siegmund, a betrayal that goes hand in hand with his decision to abdicate: he has acquired power over the world through cunning and breach of contract, with the result that he no longer has right on his side. In turn, this means that he is at the mercy of Fafner and Alberich, his greatest fear now being that Alberich will regain the ring that confers world power on its wearer and which Fafner is currently guarding, unused. In order to break free from the present vicious circle and create a new world order based not on power but on love, he needs a hero who, untrammeled by his past, is free to act as he pleases. Wotan had wanted to create such a figure in the person of his son Siegmund, but Fricka exposes his “cunning” in manipulating his son by placing his own sword at his disposal. In spite of his spontaneous love for Sieglinde, Siegmund is not a free hero, then, but a product of Wotan’s own lack of freedom. All that is left for Wotan is a sense of self-hatred and the decision to abdicate:
Zum Ekel find’ ich
ewig nur mich
in Allem was ich erwirke!
Das And’re, das ich ersehne,
das And’re erseh’ ich nie;
Knechte erknet’ ich mir nur!
[. . .]
Auf geb’ ich mein Werk;
nur Eines will ich noch:
das Ende—
das Ende!—
Und für das Ende
sorgt Alberich!
[To my loathing I find myself alone in all that I encompass! That other self for which I yearn, that other self I never see; for the free man has to fashion himself—serfs are all I can shape! [. . .] My work I abandon; one thing alone do I want: the end—the end!—And Alberich will see to that end!]
In recalling these events in act 3 of Siegfried, Wotan tells Erda how “in furious loathing” he bequeathed the world to the Nibelung dwarf. His actions, then, are the result of a sudden fit of rage.
At this point in the action, an enormous gulf opens up: in Das Rheingold, Wotan had still been in control of the situation, in spite of the many crises he had to endure, and he had successfully played his power games, but in Die Walküre he changes abruptly from a man of action to a failure with practically no scope for action any longer and capable of conversing only with himself: the world refuses to respond to him. True, he discusses his life with Brünnhilde, but as the libretto makes plain, she is the embodiment of his will, which is why, at the start of his monologue, he says: “With myself I commune when I speak with you.” When Wagner dismisses this lonely figure of Wotan as “the sum total of present-day intelligence,” this says it all: driven by circumstances, Wotan can do no more than reflect on the hopelessness of his situation and brood on a suitable way of stepping down. In Das Rheingold, he had still been able to engage with Alberich and force him to do his will, but in Die Walküre he is reduced to calling after his absent successor with bitter irony: “So take my blessing, Nibelung son!”
The radical shift in Wotan’s position is one that we can understand only if we take seriously Wagner’s description of Das Rheingold as the cycle’s “preliminary evening,” for only then can we imagine that a lengthy period of time has elapsed between this “preliminary evening” and the “first day” of Die Walküre, a period during which Wotan’s withdrawal from the world’s stage has taken place only gradually. At the same time, his monologue in act 2 would seem abrupt and overloaded with arguments if it were part of a spoken drama, for unlike Hamlet, for example, in his monologue “To be or not to be,” Wotan does more than offer an insight into his current frame of mind. Rather, he tells a complex tale extending over a mythologically protracted period of time, with the result that it would be impossible to convey its contents to an audience’s emotions through the medium of the spoken theater.
Moreover—and notwithstanding our respect for Wagner’s inspired ability to tell the story of the Ring—it is impossible to avoid noticing that this story leaves many questions unanswered, including ones about Wotan’s actions and character. Quite apart from the fact that his past is shrouded in obscurity and his actions generally contradictory, it is unclear how we are to interpret his great narration: is it tragic or merely lachrymose? Is he weeping crocodile tears? Or does he really possess true greatness?
Whenever he wrote about Wotan, Wagner invested him with a high degree of dignity. Even the dismissive remark that we have just quoted is incomplete without its surrounding context, in which Wagner asks Röckel to show greater understanding for the character:
He is the sum total of present-day intelligence, whereas Siegfried is the man of the future whom we desire and long for but who cannot be made by us, since he must create himself on the basis of our own annihilation. In such a guise, Wodan—you must admit—is of extreme interest to us, whereas he would inevitably seem unworthy if he were merely a subtle intriguer, which is what he would be if he gave advice which was apparently meant to harm Siegfried but which in truth was intended to help not only Siegfried but, first and foremost, himself: that would be an example of deceit entirely worthy of our political heroes, but not of my jovial god who stands in such need of self-annihilation.14
Even toward the end of his life, Wagner was still striking a similar note during a walk through Bayreuth’s Hofgarten:
I know no other work in which the breaking of a will [. . .] is shown as being accomplished through the individual strength of a proud nature [. . .] as it is in Wotan. Almost obliterated by the separation from Brünnhilde, this will rears up again, bursts into flame in the meeting with Siegfried, flickers in the dispatching of Waltraute, until we see it entirely extinguished at the end in Valhalla.15
Wotan would be a cardboard cutout if his actions were predictable. The German philosopher Herbert Schnädelbach is not wrong to speak of the “fascination of the incomprehensible” in the Ring, even if his language is a little crass:
It is astonishing that a modern work like the Ring, planned and realized with such rational resolve, should reveal this quality, constantly tempting us with the promise of a deeper meaning that no one has yet managed to fathom, only to send us away again empty-handed. On the other hand, the whole thing is not simply the sort of nonsense that we can just ignore. In this sense the Ring has a mythic quality that will fascinate only those people who have mythic needs, that is, people who are interested in stories that can be endlessly interpreted and never definitively exhausted.16
This also applies to the figure of Wotan. On the one hand, his unpredictability and inconstancy make him the character that Wagner wanted him to be, while on the other hand—and this brings us back to the music—it is the function of the music to turn the myth of the Ring into a compelling work of art. Wotan’s monologue provides the best possible example of this, not least in terms of the category of time: whereas Wotan’s radical volte-face between Das Rheingold and Die Walküre would inevitably be disconcerting in the spoken theater, the music has no difficulty in bridging vast distances in time. A sung monologue seems to slow down the action not least because in real time it takes much longer than spoken dialogue to convey the same amount of information, while at the same time it is typical of “symphonic” music in the widest sense that it blurs the distinction between past and present: within the fabric of a symphony, the notes that have already been heard are still present in the notes that are currently sounding.
This is especially true of Wagner’s own orchestral melody. Take Wotan’s great monologue. Most of the leitmotifs that occur here are familiar from Das Rheingold—they include the motifs associated with the ring, fear, renunciation, the curse, the sword, Erda, and Valhalla—but these now appear in new guises, sometimes rendered unrecognizable, giving us listeners the impression that we are being drawn into familiar, ancient events but interpreted from Wotan’s present point of view. And Wagner’s art ensures that these motifs—no longer presented in detail one after the other, as they had been in Das Rheingold, but suddenly striking us like individual flashes of inspiration—are fully integrated into a meaningful compositional context. As Bernhard Benz has noted in the context of bars 891 to 950 (from “So nimmst du von Siegmund den Sieg?” to “und für das Ende sorgt Alberich”), this is achieved in part by the “common harmonic feature of an extended third–based relationship in which all the motifs are bound together and, as it were, sucked in.”17
In his essay “On the Application of Music to the Drama,” Wagner himself stressed that his aim was not to clarify Wotan’s sequence of associated ideas by means of a “glaring” combination of motifs but to “conceal the strangeness” of such combinations, “either by a suitable slackening of the tempo or a preparatory dynamic compensation.” Wotan’s feelings were to be brought home to listeners in ways that would allow those listeners to identify with them in spite of all their inherent contradictions. It was not without a certain pride as a composer that Wagner singled out the example of “Wotan’s transfer of power to the owner of the Nibelung hoard” at the embittered words “So take my blessing, Nibelung son!” Here, he explained, he had harnessed together the “simple nature motifs” of the Rhinegold and the “gods’ citade
l of Valhalla, shimmering in the red of dawn, [. . .] with the help of a remote harmony so that, more than Wotan’s words, this tone-figure should grant us an insight into the fearful gloom in the soul of the suffering god.” At the same time, however, it was important to Wagner to ensure that this process “takes possession of our willing feeling as an artistic element in strict accordance with the laws of nature.”18 Music example 21 is taken from Wagner’s essay and shows the passage in question transposed a semitone higher in order to make it easier to read.
21. The Valhalla motif as transcribed by Wagner in his 1879 essay “On the Application of Music to the Drama”: GS 10:187; PW 6:186.
In modulating from A-flat minor to E major within the shortest possible time, Wagner uses the device of an enharmonic change. And it is no accident that he does so, for—like such a change—there is something unreal about Wotan’s state of mind at the embittered outburst “So take my blessing.” At the end of Das Rheingold, the Rhinegold motif had accompanied the gods as they were seen entering their magnificent castle, whereas it now appears in a distorted context that makes it clearer than any words could do that Wotan is resolved to hand over Valhalla to his enemy, Alberich, as a possession that has become worthless in his eyes, a mere backdrop to his present concerns. In a silent film, the distance between Wotan’s ostentatious entry into Valhalla and his present “grim” renunciation of it would have been bridged by a title link such as “100 years later,” but music’s circular approach to time allows it to span even greater distances.