…not always very satisfactory. We find the great musician whose private life was a complete problem. We find a man like Richard Wagner, who was one of the great musical geniuses of all time, whose physical life was simply unbelievably confused. He never did…

…that it is scarcely necessary to re-identify them. For practical purposes, we of course realize that the Grail Cycle, as Wagner took hold of it, was a scattered group of works, several, particularly the titular stories, arriving in Germany and actually…

…are not directly related to Parzival but they belong very closely with the story the actual story itself as developed by Wagner is like the ring an interesting combination of the legends of the troubadours and a private personal brand of Wagnerian mythology…

…great student of these symbols and related matters said that in his estimation if ever an ancient troubadour was reborn it was Richard Wagner because he had the same strange wonderful gift as Achenbach and many of the others of creating what was useful to…

…in the possible account. Now, Percival occupies a rather complicated situation when you come to analyze him. The drawing of his character by Wagner is quite confused. In the early part of the story, he is presented to us as the guileless one. or as some…

…parts of the story she occurs in various roles I think we should note of course that her name is very interesting and reminiscent whether Wagner had this point in mind we do not know but he seems to have been the one who named her we are not able to…

…and tribulations to return to his own far distant native land. And in the legends, in the great cycles of legends, which Wagner does not attempt to use, of course, Parzival has countless adventures. Countless times he thinks he has found his way. Many…

…valley where once stood the ancient castle of Plingsor, the magician. We are reminded, therefore, by these two of a point that Wagner may very well have been aware of, namely that he is really setting up a bit of geography reminiscent of St. Augustine's…

…degrees of unfoldment finally takes upon himself the full attributes of the true hero of the world. And of course in this case Wagner is emphasizing the hero as the Christos or the symbol of the perfected human being. This is not The Jesus of Peter, but…

…different levels of understanding associated with it. From the most physical standpoint, or the most personal standpoint, perhaps the one which Wagner wished most to emphasize, was the creation of a new way of life for man, a way essentially founded in…

…and on and on until it seems as though actually the music carries you into another world it is a very exalting thing Wagner learned the tremendous power of music and consciousness and there is perhaps no one who has used music for the purpose of direct…

…music and consciousness and there is perhaps no one who has used music for the purpose of direct instruction more completely than Wagner has done so and what I mean in complete instruction I mean that he has taught or achieved the communication of idea…

…real thing. I think that any individual who has the opportunity to see the opera should do so, and perhaps many times. Because in Wagner, you have to see Tristan anywhere from 40 to 50 times before you even really hear it. And you probably will have to…

…and symbolism. with your own studies, because each time something new will be seen. I like to think of the Grail cycle, as Wagner gives it to us, as his contribution, as his New Testament, in the great sacred writing which he compounded out of the two…

…the glorious unfoldment of redemption. All of this, it seems, is contained in this wonderful double cycle, and perhaps for that reason we are strangely and profoundly indebted to the genius of Richard Wagner. I think that is our subject for this evening.

…But there are a few points which I think we should first make as clear as possible. The Ring, as presented by Richard Wagner, is perhaps his greatest literal drama. Critics are of the opinion, yet from a musical standpoint, the finest works of the…

…particularly to the preparation of a great epic work. And we must also at this point mention that the Teutonic mythology of Richard Wagner is more or less his own. He derived from a great many sources, but he combined, organized, and interpreted from a…

…important prologue, which sets the entire situation and gives us the beginnings and early developments of the great thematic structure which Wagner uses in order to explain his symbolism in terms of music. This prologue is called The Rhine Gold, and it is…

…existence was to maintain as long as possible this strange condition of self-existence. Now this ring then, as it is used by Richard Wagner, also has a second meaning. But this meaning is very close to the first and is actually dependent upon it. In…

…The third great step in the development of our story occurs in the 19th century with the rise of the Wagnerian music drama. Richard Wagner built his great cycle of the Ring of the Nibelung upon the Sigurd saga, the Nordic work relating to the hero of…

…upon the Sigurd saga, the Nordic work relating to the hero of the tribe of the Volsungs, the hero of the world. Yet Wagner was by nature not one inclined merely to perpetuate an ancient law. He was a man of very involved mental and emotional structure,…

…was finished, we have perhaps in the Nibelungen cycle one of the most powerful mythological developments in the entire history of man Wagner gave us a new mythology deeply involved in his own convictions but with some evidence within him that it is far…

…in his own convictions but with some evidence within him that it is far more than merely the ingenuity of a great artist Wagner in some way captured a spirit perhaps more effectively than the old bards and he brought it together one of the most unique…

…Eleusinian mysteries and rituals of Greece or the Osirian cycle of Egypt. what has not apparently however been generally considered is that Wagner had as his aim the creation of a Teutonic scripture and he divided this scripture almost as in the case of…

…way is no longer beautiful. We have this, of course, in musical speculation and the introduction of dissonances, for which Richard Wagner, for one, was extremely famous. He attempted to prove that the dissonant intervals are also beautiful. For a time he…

…we know probably one of the best examples of this is the story of the Meistersingers of Nuremberg in the opera of Richard Wagner. Here Hans Sack is the hero, a shoemaker, who was also a politician, was an artist, a musician, had his apprentices and…

…weeds out of a field and restore it for the harvest. A man whose life is intemperate and disordered may, like Richard Wagner, compose great music. Yet all the things which he does belong to the objective world, because without balance of temperament, man…

…of the various guilds and they incidentally were part of a great system of guilds. In the opera The Meistersingers of Nuremberg Richard Wagner presents Hans Sachs as a worker in the guilds. It's sometimes said that this opera is a comic opera but it…