ld
immolates herself. There is of course an excuse for it, inasmuch as both
women have an impulse of self-sacrifice for the sake of Siegfried; but
this is really hardly more than an excuse; since the Valhalla theme
might be attached to Alberic on the no worse ground that both he and
Wotan are inspired by ambition, and that the ambition has the same
object, the possession of the ring. The common sense of the matter is
that the only themes which had fully retained their significance in
Wagner's memory at the period of the composition of Night Falls On The
Gods are those which are mere labels of external features, such as
the Dragon, the Fire, the Water and so on. This particular theme of
Sieglinda's is, in truth, of no great musical merit: it might easily
be the pet climax of a popular sentimental ballad: in fact, the gushing
effect which is its sole valuable quality is so cheaply attained that
it is hardly going too far to call it the most trumpery phrase in the
entire tetralogy. Yet, since it undoubtedly does gush very emphatically,
Wagner chose, for convenience' sake, to work up this final scene with it
rather than with the more distinguished, elaborate and beautiful themes
connected with the love of Brynhild and Siegfried.

He would certainly not have thought this a matter of no consequence had
he finished the whole work ten years earlier. It must always be borne
in mind that the poem of The Ring was complete and printed in 1853,
and represents the sociological ideas which, after germinating in the
European atmosphere for many years, had been brought home to Wagner,
who was intensely susceptible to such ideas, by the crash of 1849 at
Dresden. Now no man whose mind is alive and active, as Wagner's was to
the day of his death, can keep his political and spiritual opinions,
much less his philosophic consciousness, at a standstill for quarter
of a century until he finishes an orchestral score. When Wagner first
sketched Night Falls On The Gods he was 35. When he finished the score
for the first Bayreuth festival in 1876 he had turned 60. No wonder he
had lost his old grip of it and left it behind him. He even
tampered with The Rhine Gold for the sake of theatrical effect when
stage-managing it, making Wotan pick up and brandish a sword to give
visible point to his sudden inspiration as to the raising up of a
hero. The sword had first to be discovered by Fafnir among the Niblung
treasures and thrown away by him as useless.