Repeating motif (not sure if a leitmotif)

[chris.c...@worldspan.com]

Here's something that has always intrigued/bothered me:

Wagner uses a descending scale motif repeatedly in LOHENGRIN, usually around the King and/or Telramund. If you have the Schirmer score, a prime example is on page 33, just before the King's "Dich frag' ich, Friedrich, graf von Telramund!"

Yet Wagner uses the same (or at least similar) motif with Woton. Perhaps the most obvious example would be at the end of Walküre ("Loge hör'! lausche hieher!")

Discounting leitmotivs that exist solely within the Ring and the LOHENGRIN quote during the hero's entrance in PARSIFAL, did Wagner quote himself from work to work? Is there a conscious Woton/LOHENGRIN connection? Is this truly a leitmotif or something else? If a leitmotif, is there a common name used to describe it?

Any other thoughts? Opinions? theories?

[Mike Scott Rohan]

It can't really be a leitmotif outside the context of a through-composed work based on such things, and in Lohengrin Wagner's concept of motives was far from developed. Otherwise it's at best a recurring theme with an association, something many other composers have used -- the "calling card" which people often confuse with leitmotifs -- and at the least a recurring mannerism or a gesture.

I'd say that has to be the case here, because the actual use and form of the scale are very different, with a slight swagger wholly lacking from the Spear motif; so is the context. At most one could suppose that Wagner associated the sound of the descending scale with the assertion of command.

By the way, no wish to be rude or offputting, but it's slightly surprising that you're so deep in Wagner technicalities, yet consistently mispell Wotan's name.

[chris.c...@worldspan.com]

On Monday, June 24, 2013 2:00:19 PM UTC-4, Mike Scott Rohan wrote:

>
> By the way, no wish to be rude or offputting, but it's slightly surprising that you're so deep in Wagner technicalities, yet consistently mispell Wotan's name.

I can barely spell my own

[Johnno]

>
> Discounting leitmotivs that exist solely within the Ring and the LOHENGRIN quote during the hero's entrance in PARSIFAL, did Wagner quote himself from work to work?

I know this isn't quite what you're asking about, but one of my favourite moments in Die Meistersinger (my favourite opera) is where Wagner does that little quote from Tristan und Isolde. My heart melts ever time.

John

[@zonnet.nl Herman van der Woude]

Johnno schreef op 28-6-2013 het volgende:

I even feel tears in my eyes... I know it is sentimental - /I/ am a
sentimental person, but I do not feel ashamed about it when hearing
that opera.
I've got three favourite Wagner operas - Die Meistersinger, Tristan and
Parsifal, the last one is the least favourite. All three are so humane,
as all characters are in my imagination real people with real feelings
and acting in stories one could imagine to be real histories (not
Parsifal, therefore the least favourite for me). All other Wagner
operas - how ingeniously constructed, how fantastic the music may be -
do not deal with "real people". As I stated, Tristan and Die
Meistersinger do.

--
Met vriendelijke groet,
Cheers!
Herman van der Woude