1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:10,000 [MUSIC] 2 00:00:12,750 --> 00:00:15,822 ,. What we'll hear today by way of Wagner's 3 00:00:15,822 --> 00:00:21,055 music is indeed only a teaser, only the smallest sample of his great music, but 4 00:00:21,055 --> 00:00:25,115 I would like to share with you a bit of video that my colleague, 5 00:00:25,115 --> 00:00:30,192 Steve Milanowski, and I, mostly Steve, if truth be told, have created for 6 00:00:30,192 --> 00:00:33,960 Wagner's famous, Ride of the Valkyries. 7 00:00:33,960 --> 00:00:38,640 This is an overture to the final act of the second mu, 8 00:00:38,640 --> 00:00:43,460 music drama of the ring cycle, the Valkyrie, 9 00:00:44,610 --> 00:00:48,520 here the women warriors, the Valkyries ride up from 10 00:00:48,520 --> 00:00:53,020 a battlefield toward Valhalla carrying the bodies of fallen heroes in battle. 11 00:00:54,080 --> 00:00:58,795 This is the music in instrumental form that precedes the next scene that 12 00:00:58,795 --> 00:00:59,670 we'll see. 13 00:00:59,670 --> 00:01:03,986 This is the music that opens the third and final act of Die Walkure. 14 00:01:03,986 --> 00:01:10,581 You'll recognize this music, and I'll comment as we go. 15 00:01:10,581 --> 00:01:14,699 Now we start out here in trills, mostly woodwinds, and 16 00:01:14,699 --> 00:01:18,739 each time a new one enters, it's up or down an octave. 17 00:01:18,739 --> 00:01:22,327 [MUSIC] 18 00:01:22,327 --> 00:01:28,060 Same music, up or down an octave, 19 00:01:28,060 --> 00:01:34,598 a rhythmic motion has now started out. 20 00:01:34,598 --> 00:01:38,883 Now of course the theme. 21 00:01:38,883 --> 00:01:40,285 It is in fact a lovemaking. 22 00:01:40,285 --> 00:01:42,250 [MUSIC] 23 00:01:42,250 --> 00:01:45,026 [INAUDIBLE] 24 00:01:45,026 --> 00:01:55,026 [MUSIC] 25 00:02:04,549 --> 00:02:05,685 Minor 26 00:02:05,685 --> 00:02:15,685 [MUSIC] 27 00:02:17,944 --> 00:02:18,989 [INAUDIBLE] Now. 28 00:02:18,989 --> 00:02:27,905 [INAUDIBLE] More low brass. 29 00:02:27,905 --> 00:02:29,309 [MUSIC] 30 00:02:29,309 --> 00:02:34,302 [INAUDIBLE] More trombones and tubas, as the texture builds. 31 00:02:34,302 --> 00:02:40,722 [MUSIC] 32 00:02:40,722 --> 00:02:47,200 Now, this part, in Wagner's original, he wrote this as an instrumental 33 00:02:47,200 --> 00:02:53,180 Wagner, The Valkyries, with their cries up above. 34 00:02:53,180 --> 00:02:57,768 Here there are, swinging through the air, 35 00:02:57,768 --> 00:03:03,602 in Wagner's stage, and singing cries to one another. 36 00:03:03,602 --> 00:03:10,205 [MUSIC] 37 00:03:10,205 --> 00:03:13,620 Once again King comes back, lightning speed. 38 00:03:13,620 --> 00:03:14,908 The brass is carrying the day. 39 00:03:14,908 --> 00:03:24,908 [MUSIC] 40 00:03:40,847 --> 00:03:43,831 [INAUDIBLE] Keep us there [INAUDIBLE] that climax and 41 00:03:43,831 --> 00:03:45,825 we're going to fade it out here. 42 00:03:45,825 --> 00:03:53,200 We're actually only half way through this exciting, driving overture, but 43 00:03:53,200 --> 00:03:59,160 let's move on, eventually Valkyrie Brunnhilde meets up with her father Wotan, 44 00:03:59,160 --> 00:04:02,870 he must punish her for suborning incest, 45 00:04:02,870 --> 00:04:07,670 we needn't go into the specifics of that, to inflict the punishment as said 46 00:04:07,670 --> 00:04:10,729 Volta will surround Brunnhilde with a ring of fire. 47 00:04:12,030 --> 00:04:15,020 Wotan knows that he is sacrificing and will never see again, 48 00:04:15,020 --> 00:04:20,870 his beloved child, his most favored of all children but 49 00:04:20,870 --> 00:04:26,050 the social order of the world, Wotan's world, requires that this be so. 50 00:04:27,280 --> 00:04:30,690 As we've seen, everything with Wagner is complicated. 51 00:04:30,690 --> 00:04:34,470 So, I've tried to simplify and explain this climactic scene. 52 00:04:36,430 --> 00:04:41,637 As we view it in a production from a Metropolitan opera performance, 53 00:04:41,637 --> 00:04:46,392 I try to provide a guide here with the synopsis of the drama, and 54 00:04:46,392 --> 00:04:49,564 I'm shortening the text, admittedly. 55 00:04:49,564 --> 00:04:53,457 And I tried to provide an identification of 56 00:04:53,457 --> 00:04:57,576 the light motifs as we proceed through this. 57 00:04:57,576 --> 00:05:04,541 Here, as we see Wotan say goodbye to Brunnhilde, here in Wotan's Farewell. 58 00:05:04,541 --> 00:05:14,541 [MUSIC] 59 00:09:50,931 --> 00:09:58,560 And then gradually, actually diminishes, rises by a pitch and continues. 60 00:09:58,560 --> 00:10:01,820 Well, that's extraordinary, that's extraordinary. 61 00:10:01,820 --> 00:10:06,920 What Wagner had really foreseen here, I believe, what we would call today 62 00:10:06,920 --> 00:10:12,580 an IMAX theater, sitting in the darkness with an unseen orchestra completely, 63 00:10:12,580 --> 00:10:16,400 surrounded by sound, and 64 00:10:16,400 --> 00:10:21,880 completely enveloped in the drama that's unfolding before us. 65 00:10:21,880 --> 00:10:26,669 As I say, as the most original, most transformative force in 66 00:10:26,669 --> 00:10:32,486 the history of western theater, it's difficult to deny Richard Wagner.