Act I Die Walkure

I listened to Act I of Wagner's opera Die Walkure. Abit different orchestration and subject wise from Das Rheingold, this opera deals with the topics of incest and love. The orchestration is predominately strings (except for that dang sword motive that the trumpet just KEEPS on blasting...) The colors are very rich and melodic and probably the closet Wagner gets to actually writing songs in all four operas. The music is very passionate and emotional, but consistently moving and telling the story. This is Wagner's whole idea of Gesamstkunstwerke in that the music is supporting the actual show part and the show part is supporting the music. Wagner uses musical motivic cells to represent different characters, things, events, and emotions and these are heard throughout Act I. The Valhalla motive is played dicretely by the orchestra when Sieglinde is discribing the wandering man named Walse (who is really Wotan in disguise). The sword motive is played when Seigmund sees the sword in the ash tree. I think i said this before, but I never really had much of an appreciation for Wagner's music, but I think that is because I never tried to understand it. Now that I am studying it, I find it to be an ingenious masterpiece equivocable to great literary and art masterpieces. It's just amazing how every little piece fits together and flows to create this gargantuan work. Just brilliant, I am in awe.....