{"id":244,"date":"2003-12-15T14:24:53","date_gmt":"2003-12-15T19:24:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=244"},"modified":"2010-07-08T12:49:38","modified_gmt":"2010-07-08T16:49:38","slug":"battle-of-the-rings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=244","title":{"rendered":"Battle of the “Rings”"},"content":{"rendered":"

An extensive essay by Alex Ross in The New Yorker<\/i>, comparing and contrasting the two “rings” – Wagner’s “Ring of the Nibelung” and Tolkein’s Ring triology<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The essay is rather dense and I am not as familiar with Wagner’s work as I am with Tolkein’s. Nevertheless, it is quite <\/u>an interesting read. I highly recommend it.<\/p>\n

It starts thus:<\/p>\n

Early in \u0093The Fellowship of the Ring,\u0094 the first film in Peter Jackson\u0092s monumental \u0093Lord of the Rings\u0094 trilogy, the wizard Gandalf finds himself alone in a room with the trinket that could end the world. It lies gleaming on the floor, and Gandalf regards it with an attitude of fascinated fear. The audience feels a chill that neither Jackson\u0092s vertiginous camera angles nor Ian McKellen\u0092s arching eyebrows can fully explain. The Ring of Power extends its grip through the medium of music, which is the work of the gifted film composer Howard Shore. In the preceding scenes, an overview of the habits of hobbits, Shore\u0092s music had an English-pastoral, dance-around-the-Maypole air, but when the ring begins to do its work a Wagnerian tinge creeps in\u0097fittingly, since \u0093The Lord of the Rings\u0094 dwells in the shadow of Wagner\u0092s even more monumental \u0093Ring of the Nibelung.\u0094 J. R. R. Tolkien\u0092s fans have long maintained a certain conspiracy of silence concerning Wagner, but there is no point in denying his influence, not when characters deliver lines like \u0093Ride to ruin and the world\u0092s ending!\u0094\u0097Br\u00fcnnhilde condensed to seven words.<\/p>\n

Shore manages the admirable feat of summoning up a Wagnerian atmosphere without copying the original. He knows the science of harmonic dread. First, he lets loose an army of minor triads, or three-note chords in the minor mode. They immediately cast a shadow over the major-key music of the happy hobbits.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I found especially riveting Ross’ discussion of why chords in a “major” key make us feel happy, hopeful, and what it is in “minor” formations that makes us feel uneasy.<\/p>\n

Why does the minor chord make the heart hang heavy? First, you have to understand why the major triad, its fair-haired companion, sounds \u0093bright.\u0094 It is based on the spectrum of notes that arise naturally from a vibrating string. If you pluck a C and then divide the string in half, in thirds, in fourths, and so on, you will hear one by one the clean notes that spell C major. Wagner\u0092s \u0093Ring\u0094 begins with a demonstration: from one deep note, wave upon wave of majestic harmony flows. The C-minor triad, however, has a more obscure connection to \u0093natural\u0094 sound. The middle note comes from much higher in the overtone series. It sets up grim vibrations in the mind.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An extensive essay by Alex Ross in The New Yorker, comparing and contrasting the two “rings” – Wagner’s “Ring of the Nibelung” and Tolkein’s Ring triology. The essay is rather dense and I am not as familiar with Wagner’s work … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[262],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15771,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions\/15771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}