# Favorite micro-excerpts from Wagner



## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Not bleeding chunks (ie. "Wotan's farewell"), but favorite bite-sized micro-excerpts. Basically, cool things Wagner does.

"Longing for holy night". The Puccini-esque soaring strings underlining "longing".






"To reach you, to _release _you." The hair-raising emphasis on "release".






Lower brass rips during Hagen's watch:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Interesting idea for a thread. The most obvious aspect of Wagner may be the sheer size, the crushing weight and epic sweep, of his works, but I always think of Nietzsche's remark in _The Case of Wagner_, where he calls the composer "our greatest miniaturist in music, who crowds into the smallest space an infinity of sense and sweetness. His wealth of colors, of half shadows, of the secrecies of dying light, spoils one to such an extent that afterward almost all other musicians seem too robust."

Wagner's technique of thematic transformation, combined with his mastery of the subtleties of harmony and orchestration, resulted in musical narratives so sensitive to the fleeting nuances of meaning implicit in his texts that the scores of his operas can be experienced as aural tapestries woven of arresting and unforgettable moments. When, as a teenager, I was first getting to know them, I would sit at the piano and apply my rudimentary sight-reading skills to the task of working my way through the music, slowly and laboriously, enabled (or compelled) by my very incompetence to savor one detail at a time. It was a revelation of a musical and theatrical mind at work the impact of which has never left me, and which informs my sense of Wagner's achievement to this day.

It also leaves me with an unmanageable dilemma in choosing individual moments to cite as favorites. I may as well throw darts blindfolded.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Lohengrin Prelude... when the lower strings enter with a triumphantly reassuring "dah dah", almost as if to comfort the unease of the melodically ambiguous higher strings, then pulling back just a bit as to indicate that while nothing is for sure, not everything can be known, but it will all work out in the end.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Having just come from commenting on the Furtwangler recording of _Tristan,_ I can cite a favorite moment from the opening scene of Act 2: the effect in the orchestra where the distant horncalls are subtly transformed into the murmur of the brook, provoking Isolde to say:

"The calling of horns
does not sound so sweet,
it is the stream's gently
murmuring waves
flowing along so gaily.
How could I hear that
if horns were still calling?"

It's exquisite magic, especially as performed by Furtwangler and Flagstad.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> Having just come from commenting on the Furtwangler recording of _Tristan,_ I can cite a favorite moment from the opening scene of Act 2: the effect in the orchestra where the distant horncalls are subtly transformed into the murmur of the brook, provoking Isolde to say:
> 
> "The calling of horns
> does not sound so sweet,
> ...


Yes, definitely a highlight even amongst the incredible richness of Act 2.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

I've always enjoyed the following segment towards the end of Goetterdaemerung:

"Alles, Alles, Alles weiß ich,
Alles ward mir nun frei."

There's something about it that feels so certain, so confident and definitive (and the musical point comes across no matter who is singing).

N.


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## brunumb (Dec 8, 2017)

Mine is also from the final scene of Götterdämmerung: Act III, Scene III. 
When Brünnhilde gently sings _"Ruhe, ruhe, du Gott!"_ I just hold my breath.

At about 8:05 in the following clip:


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Wotan's melodic line and the tremolos underlying Wotan trembling with a mixture of anger and woe when he casts Brunnhilde out of Valhalla:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

An entertaining bit is the way the horns imitate the movements of an annoyed horse when Siegfried hands Grane over to Hagen in _Gotterdammerung._ I imagine Wagner was hoping to cast an intelligent and highly musical horse in the part.


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

This short excerpt from Parsifal gets me every time. Such an emotional moment.
Hmm... how do I share video starting at correct timing? embedding does not work for me...

Here is the direct link:


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