THE ULTIMATE EXPERIENCE
The articulation of the drama through musical analogues—Wagner, of course, would have called it the articulation of the music through dramatic analogues—and its uncanny psychological potency are perhaps sufficiently illustrated by the Götterdämmerung Prologue. We will not have room for another musico-dramatic exploration so detailed. But one more Wagnerian experience needs to be sampled if we are to have an idea of the composer's accomplishment adequate to its historical resonance, because its repercussions will be felt on virtually every subsequent page of this book. Though Götterdämmerung, the culminating work in the Ring cycle, could be fairly described as Wagner's crowning achievement, bringing to consummation as it did the largest musical entity ever conceived within the European literate tradition, it is not his emblematic work. That distinction belongs to Tristan und Isolde, completed (between the second and third acts of Siegfried, as it were) in 1859.
- Citation (MLA):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 10 Deeds of Music Made Visible (Class of 1813, I)." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2025. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume3/actrade-9780195384833-div1-010009.xml>.
- Citation (APA):
- Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 10 Deeds of Music Made Visible (Class of 1813, I). In Oxford University Press, Music in the Nineteenth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 21 Jan. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume3/actrade-9780195384833-div1-010009.xml
- Citation (Chicago):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 10 Deeds of Music Made Visible (Class of 1813, I)." In Music in the Nineteenth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 21 Jan. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume3/actrade-9780195384833-div1-010009.xml
