I Saw the World End: A Study of Wagner's Ring (Clarendon Paperbacks)
by Deryck Cooke
List Price:
Our Price: $49.46
You Save: $20.54 (29%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $28.80 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Deryck CookeEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1992-03-12
ISBN: 0193153181
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of I Saw the World End: A Study of Wagner's Ring (Clarendon Paperbacks)
Book Review: SUPERB STUDY, CUT SHORT BY AUTHOR'S DEATH
Summary: 5 Stars
This book amply shows what a tragedy it was that Deryck Cooke died whilst still at the height of his powers. He was one of the most approachable and reliable of music critics and musicologists. No-one was better at tracing a path through the minefield of different editions of the Bruckner symphonies. No-one was more perceptive in elucidating Mahler's music and its interpreters. His performing edition of the 10th Symphony still stands as a paradigm for how these things should be done and how they should be presented to the world. 40 odd years later, his book, The Language of Music, remains a fascinating and significant exposition of the building-blocks of music, an exploration of how certain intervals and phrases which are the basic vocabulary of musical expression seem to retain a common 'meaning' across the work of very different composers from the Baroque era to the 60's.
But this monumental study of Wagner's Ring, which he left less than half finished at his death, would probably have been his greatest contribution to musical exegesis. What is left for us is an introduction which cogently dispenses with the narrow-minded interpretations proposed by the socialist, anti-capitalist Shaw in The Perfect Wagnerite and the Jungian psychology of Donington in Wagner's Ring and its Symbols. There then follows a tantalising look at the music itself in which he shows that one particular leitmotif misnamed by Wolzogen in his pioneering study as Flight, a mistake blindly followed by most subsequent commentators, is in fact the fundamental Love motif of the entire cycle. From this he draws the not unreasonable conclusion that this is, musically and philosophically, a crucial half of the essential dramatic conflict of the tetralogy between Power and Love. This particular chapter is especially frustrating in the glimpse it gives us of just how penetrating and perceptive his promised but unfulfilled analysis of the music would have been.
What we do get is a fascinating study of how Wagner bent the myriad of literary sources he used into a taut and coherent dramatic structure. And what parts of the final Ring libretto were entirely the product of his own imagination. It makes for a detective trail along the lines of John Livingstone Lowe's pursuit of all the sources for Coleridge's Kubla Khan in The Road to Xanadu. But even this part of the argument only takes us through the evolution of Das Rheingold and Die Walkure before it is cut off in its prime. However, it is still more than enough to leave us with and important study, written with all Cooke's familiar approachability and common sense.
This may be just the torso of the book Cooke intended to write. But anyone interested in how Wagner's enormous work came to take the form it did should derive enormous pleasure as well as elucidation from it. The title, by the way, is taken from some wonderfully evocative lines that Wagner wrote for Brunnhilde's Immolation Scene, but cut before he set them to music.
The blessed end
Of all things eternal,
Do you know how I reached it?
Deepest suffering
Of Grieving love
Opened my eyes:
I saw the world end.
Summary of I Saw the World End: A Study of Wagner's Ring (Clarendon Paperbacks)
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.Vocalists Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Getting into Wagner
Tristan und Isolde in Full Scoreby Richard Wagner
Dover Publications; Published: 1973-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $24.99
Price in other shops:
Rackham's Color Illustrations for Wagner's "Ring"by Arthur Rackham
Dover Publications; Published: 1979-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $106.33
Drama and the World of Richard Wagnerby Dieter Borchmeyer
Princeton University Press; Published: 2003-11-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $38.08
Price in other shops:
The Golden Ring - The Making of Solti's "Ring" (Wagner Ring Cycle)Release date: 2002-05-14; DVD
Best price: $65.99
LohengrinRelease date: 2000-08-15; Music CD
Best price: $155.73
Wagner - Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg / Kollo ? Donath ? Adam ? G. Evans ? Schreier ? Hesse? Riderbusch ? KarajanRelease date: 1999-09-21; Music CD
Best price: $39.74
Price in other shops:
Aspects of Wagner (Oxford Paperbacks)by Bryan Magee
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1988-11-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.60
Price in other shops:
Tristan Und IsoldeRelease date: 1997-11-11; Music CD
Best price: $24.00
Price in other shops:
Ring of the Nibelungby Richard Wagner
W. W. Norton & Company; Published: 1977-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.67
Price in other shops:
Wagner: (Revised ed.)by Barry Millington
Princeton University Press; Published: 1992-10-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.00
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Wagner - Der Ring des Nibelungen (Ring Cycle) / Sir Georg SoltiRelease date: 1997-10-14; Music CD
Best price: $124.99
Price in other shops:
Wagner's Ring: A Listener's Companion and Concordanceby J.K. Holman
Amadeus Press; Published: 2003-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.74
Price in other shops:
The Wagner Operasby Ernest Newman
Princeton University Press; Published: 1991-09-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $20.00
Price in other shops:
Decoding Wagner: An Invitation to His World of Music Drama (includes 2 CDs)by Thomas May
Amadeus Press; Published: 2004-12-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.67
Price in other shops:
Wagner: The Terrible Man and His Truthful Art (General Interest)by M. Owen Lee
University of Toronto Press; Published: 1999-09-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.97
Price in other shops:
Finding an Ending: Reflections on Wagner's Ringby Philip Kitcher, Richard Schacht
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2005-09-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.98
Price in other shops:
Wagner - Der Ring des Nibelungen / Levine, Metropolitan Opera (Complete Ring Cycle)Release date: 2002-11-12; DVD
Best price: $77.00
Price in other shops:
Wagner's Ring of the Nibelungby Stewart Spencer, Richard Wagner, Barry Millington
Thames & Hudson; Published: 2000-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $73.15
Wagner's Ring: Turning the Sky Roundby M. Owen Lee
Limelight Editions; Published: 2004-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.19
Price in other shops:
An Introduction to Der Ring des NibelungenRelease date: 2005-09-13; Music CD
Best price: $20.92
Price in other shops: