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eruanto
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« on: 21:31:51, 01-05-2007 » |
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A question which has been nagging me for much of today.
If Wotan, perhaps while he was "wandering" around at the start of act two of Siegfried, had had a bitta foresight and sacrificed the waldvogel, then the thing wouldn't have been able to tell Siegfried about Brünnhilde...
and as a possible consequence, would not the "rolling wheel" have been stopped?
Or was Wotan's power too far gone even at that point?
I'm probably opening up a termite's nest here of things I had never contemplated, but it's always good to understand things.
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #1 on: 21:43:26, 01-05-2007 » |
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Any thoughts on what type of bird she might have been? Might have made for an appetising dinner afterwards, if 'wood-roasted'?
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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eruanto
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« Reply #2 on: 21:46:33, 01-05-2007 » |
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well the first possibility that comes to mind is a woodpecker (i have strange thoughts sometimes) but i can't imagine a woodpecker having that type of voice.  |
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eruanto
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« Reply #3 on: 21:53:48, 01-05-2007 » |
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i wish messiaen were still with us and a contributor to this board
he could probably tell us straight away
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #4 on: 12:32:33, 02-05-2007 » |
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And Messaien would have told us which catholic dogma it embodied as well.
I don't think Wagner meant that. The song is too fluid for a woodpecker. It is clearly related to the Rhinemaiden's music. Is it a wandering water bird, Pied Wagtail for example?
Call
It has a distinctive high-pitched 'tschissik' or 'tschissip' and, also a ' tschik'. Their song is a combination of repeated twittering call-notes uttered both in flight and when perched.
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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time_is_now
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« Reply #5 on: 12:42:12, 02-05-2007 » |
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Isn't it a wood-pigeon (wood-dove)?
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #6 on: 12:46:29, 02-05-2007 » |
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The RSPB site does not give details for a wood dove, only a wood pigeon. Details and sound at http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/w/woodpigeon/index.aspNo need to go into the woods, plenty in Trafalgar Square or your local equivalent. However it was presumably a proper German wood dove, which may have a different sound. How was Wotan to know the bird would spill the beans, and indeed that Siegfried would be able to understand it? |
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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perfect wagnerite
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« Reply #7 on: 12:48:33, 02-05-2007 » |
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A question which has been nagging me for much of today.
If Wotan, perhaps while he was "wandering" around at the start of act two of Siegfried, had had a bitta foresight and sacrificed the waldvogel, then the thing wouldn't have been able to tell Siegfried about Brünnhilde...
and as a possible consequence, would not the "rolling wheel" have been stopped?
Or was Wotan's power too far gone even at that point?
I'm probably opening up a termite's nest here of things I had never contemplated, but it's always good to understand things.
Donnington argued that forces of nature in the Ring are diatonic, with chromaticism reflecting the corruption wrought by desire for the ring. So the woodbird represents nature, as it were, breaking through and providing some refreshing reality. The problem here is which woodbird should Wotan have dealt with at the start of Act 2 - there were probably loads around the place, and, as representatives of uncorrupted nature, any of them could have spilt the beans. Wotan would have needed to mount a sort of mass avian cull - not easy for a solitary God armed with a single spear (the mental images are quite Pythonesque). And even then nature would have found a way to bite back. Besides, by that point in the plot he's probably past caring anyway .... |
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At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
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martle
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« Reply #8 on: 12:58:35, 02-05-2007 » |
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Donnington argued that forces of nature in the Ring are diatonic, with chromaticism reflecting the corruption wrought by desire for the ring. [/quote] A small point, perhaps, but aren't the musics associated with the Rhine, its maidens and the woodbird (and maybe other 'natural' objects) pentatonic? That would line The Ring up with a fairly rich tradition of depicting 'the pastoral' in this way. |
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Green. Always green.
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time_is_now
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« Reply #9 on: 13:24:06, 02-05-2007 » |
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The problem here is which woodbird should Wotan have dealt with at the start of Act 2 - there were probably loads around the place, and, as representatives of uncorrupted nature, any of them could have spilt the beans. This sounds a bit like the leprechaun and the buttercups ... How did you do that, martle? |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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increpatio
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« Reply #11 on: 14:10:19, 02-05-2007 » |
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Aren't doves just white pigeons? |
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #12 on: 14:47:23, 02-05-2007 » |
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If the Waldvogel was a woodpecker then it wouldn't sing - it would peck, probably some fruity dotted-note tripletty thing like Mime's anvil-tapping motif.  Many people might think that one soprano less in a Wagnerian sound-world already overladen with them would be only to the good - I would be fully in favour of an entirely pecked role, personally [Gawd, you can tell when I've been doing Stanislavsky Method all day, you can't you? "Find the Inner Truth Of The Role - go and peck at a tree for an hour to understand the essence of being of a woodpecker... No, you can't have lunch in the canteen, we will put out bacon-rinds on a bird-table for you outside, to help you find your woodpeckerness...] |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #13 on: 15:13:58, 02-05-2007 » |
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Anyway, I have a bone to pick with the librettist here.... any good Assistant Stage Manager will be quick to point out to their boss the technical problems that a one-eyed man with a busted spear is going to have hitting a bird on the wing.
Anyone who remembers the hoary old ROH Wagner production in which a stuffed bird slid along a wire hung 3m above the stage - stuttering and jamming along the way - will remember why they tell you never to work with children or animals (even stuffed ones). In any case, Production will have come along by this time to tell you that you have already used 90% of your entire Ring budget on the special effect by which Alberich turns into a toad, and you now have fourpence to dress and decorate the remaining three parts of the Tetralogy... woodpeckers are out. You can have Penguin costume from the animals in The Magic Flute, or you can have Papagena, but let them know before the tea-break because the soprano's a heck of a size and it will need letting-out....
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #14 on: 15:41:59, 02-05-2007 » |
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If the Waldvogel was a woodpecker then it wouldn't sing - it would peck, probably some fruity dotted-note tripletty thing like Mime's anvil-tapping motif. You won't be surprised to be reminded, then, that the Waldvogel's music is indeed a fruity dotted-note triplet thing? (Notated in a quite bonkers rhythm, incidentally - 9/8 against 4/4 if I remember right.) |
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