I Saw the World End: A Study of Wagner's Ring (Clarendon Paperbacks) [Paperback]

Deryck Cooke (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0193153181 | ISBN-13: 978-0193153189 | Publication Date: March 12, 1992

Long considered a masterpiece, Wagner's Ring has baffled and confused critics because of the highly complex meaning of its text and music. The diverse range of commentaries written on the subject since the first performance over one hundred years ago reveals just how little critics have understood The Ring. Deryck Cooke displays his masterly common sense in this study of how and why The Ring took the shape it did. This volume represents only a portion of the enormous book he had planned--his untimely death prevented him from writing a full analysis of the music. Even as it stands, I Saw The World End will give fresh understanding and appreciation to every lover of Wagner's music.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An important contribution to Wagner studies."--John Warrack, Times Literary Supplement

"Extremely valuable for tracing the relationships between Wagner's sources and his libretto."--Choice

About the Author

The late Deryck Cooke, author of The Language of Music, completed Mahler's Tenth Symphony.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (March 12, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0193153181
• ISBN-13: 978-0193153189
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #550,736 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #14 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( W ) > Wagner, Richard
  • #30 in Books > Arts & Photography > Music > Theory, Composition & Performance > Sheet Music & Scores > Composers > Wagner

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a definitive reference, June 6, 2000

By 

Ray Barnes (Surrey, British Columbia Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I Saw the World End: A Study of Wagner's Ring (Clarendon Paperbacks) (Paperback)

This book was to have been the first of a two-volume set, but sadly Deryck Cooke passed away before his monumental exposition could be fully realized. It is a great tragedy that this work was left unfinished, but we should at least be thankful for what we have. Rather than take a theological, political or sociological position and try to make the Ring fit, as many authors did, Cooke chose instead to focus on the actual construction of the libretto and orchestral score. Although there is insightful analysis on all 4 operas, this volume is devoted mostly to the realization of Das Rheingold and Die Walkure. The author presents a very convincing thesis that far from being a disjointed, poorly conceived work, Rheingold, by comparison to the extremely disparate and incoherent nature of the source material, is in fact a very compact and concentrated story. When one looks at the Nibelungenlied, the Eddic poems, and the various pieces of Norse mythology, Cooke unequivocally demonstrates that Wagner had enough material to compose a stage work requiring much longer than 4 evenings to perform. The process of refining, editing, compressing, and modifying (within reason) to adapt the writings for the stage is explained in thorough and exhaustive detail. Somehow Cooke accomplished this without the narrative dragging on or becoming too difficult, a masterly effort in exposition. He then goes on to explain how the leitmotives were conceived and transformed from one character and/or event to another. The depth of analysis is worthy of the subject matter. Anyone who reads this book should have a much greater appreciation of Das Rheingold than before.

This work offers many rewards to the serious Wagner enthusiast and also to the casual music lover, and cannot be too strongly recommended. Let us hope it comes back into circulation.

39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterly Exegesis, August 7, 2004

By 

R. Albin (Ann Arbor, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: I Saw the World End: A Study of Wagner's Ring (Clarendon Paperbacks) (Paperback)

This book is a model of thoughtful interpretation. Cooke begins by setting out why interpretation of the Ring cycle has been so difficult. This is seen as due partly to the enormous complexity of the work, partly due to the fact that prior major interpretations have been based on somewhat unrealistic preconceptions, for example, Bernard Shaw's social-political interpretation, and partly due to prior major interpretations bypassing close analysis of the music itself. Cooke develops a set of explicit criteria for an accurate interpretation of the Ring and applies them to prior major interpretative efforts. His critique of Robert Dornington's Jungian analysis, for example is moderate in tone but devastating in effect. Cooke defends Wagner against the charge that the plot and characters of the Ring are a shoddily assembled hodge-podge of myth. Cooke performs a careful analysis of Wagner's sources, using the same editions that Wagner drew from. Cooke demonstrates Wagner's careful and artful selection and modification of elements from German and Nordic mythology into a sophisticated and well integrated drama. Cooke's recurring term for Wagner's craft is masterly and he is correct. With this background, Cooke moves to a careful analysis of the plot and characters of the first 2 operas, Rheingold and Valkyrie. An essentially step by step analysis shows how Wagner used plot and character to advance his theme of the conflict of power versus love.
The only defect of this book is that it ends with the conclusion of Valkyrie. Though this book is over 350 pages long (in a small but not miniscule font), this would have been only the beginning of Cooke's projected opus on the Ring. Presumably, there would have been an equivalent amount of enlightening text on Siegfried and Gotterdamerung. Cooke then apparently planned a major work analyzing the development of musical aspects of the drama. Listeners who have heard Cooke's excellent introduction to the leitmotivs of the Ring will have had a taste of what Cooke planned. Its truly unfortunate that Cooke didn't live to complete this project.

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars extraordinary book, October 27, 2002

By A Customer

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This review is from: I Saw the World End: A Study of Wagner's Ring (Clarendon Paperbacks) (Paperback)

This really is an extraordinary book - it is the most comprehensive, insightful, and consistent study of Wagner's Ring des Niblungen. It offers some musical analysis of the leitmotivs, and is one of the first books to begin a revision of von Wolzogen's grossly erroneous analysis of the leitmotivs; it provides a plethora of highly organized information about the stages of Wagner's sketches and librettos and the original myths/legends/sagas from which he drew; and a scene by scene analysis of Rheingold and Walkure.

This book actually makes sense of Der Ring des Niblungen - no easy task, as anyone familiar with the opera tetralogy is well aware. If you are interested in the tetralogy and want to know more about it, this is THE book. There are, however, two tragedies associated with this book: the first is that the author's untimely death prevented him from finishing the book (though the material printed is itself finished). The whole book should have been about three times the length of the printed material. The second tragedy is that it is OUT OF PRINT - this is absolutely disgraceful...hopefully this title will come in to print again.

Get a hold of a copy of this book if you can.