≡ PDF Gratis Wagner Ring of the Nibelung A Companion Stewart Spencer Barry Millington Richard Wagner 8601300299709 Books

Wagner Ring of the Nibelung A Companion Stewart Spencer Barry Millington Richard Wagner 8601300299709 Books

Download As PDF : Wagner Ring of the Nibelung A Companion Stewart Spencer Barry Millington Richard Wagner 8601300299709 Books

Wagner Ring of the Nibelung A Companion Stewart Spencer Barry Millington Richard Wagner 8601300299709 Books

I honestly don't know where else one would five such a handy and complete translated libretto of such a massive operatic corpus. Of course, you can enjoy the opera without a libretto, especially now with the hand above stage subtitles, but I have found a little study with this text has helped me enormously in connecting word to music. Definitely recommend for anyone.


Tags : Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung: A Companion [Stewart Spencer, Barry Millington, Richard Wagner] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <strong> An important work for Wagnerites and musical scholars. ―<em>Choice</em></strong> There had long been a need for a modern English translation of Wagner’s <em>Ring</em>―a version that would be reliable and readable yet at the same time be a true reflection of the literary quality of the German libretto. First published in 1993,Stewart Spencer, Barry Millington, Richard Wagner,Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung: A Companion,Thames & Hudson,0500281947,History & Criticism,Operas,Wagner, Richard,GENERAL,Genres & Styles - Classical,Genres & Styles - Opera,Germany,History,History & Criticism - General,LIBRETTOS,MUSIC Genres & Styles Opera,MUSIC History & Criticism,MUSIC OF THE 19TH CENTURY,Music,MusicGenres & Styles - Classical,MusicHistory & Criticism - General,MusicSongbooks,Non-Fiction,Opera,ScholarlyUndergraduate,United States,Western Europe

Wagner Ring of the Nibelung A Companion Stewart Spencer Barry Millington Richard Wagner 8601300299709 Books Reviews

Essays were disappointing, but leitmotif list is useful and translation is excellent.
i bought this because I am a theatre director and am getting ready to direct the farce DAS BBQ which is VERY loosely based on Wagner's Ring Cycle. This book was a good review to give me some background.
This book is great for Wagner scholars or people interested in the Ring Cycle. It's an in-depth look at the creation, process, dramatic works themselves (not "operas" but "dramas"), and all the things that have made the Ring Cycle one of the most celebrated pieces of music history.
This is great not only for the German text, which is handy for those many moments when you can't make out what words are being sung, but then of course (to native English speakers) also for the English translation to clarify meaning.
**Update I recently contacted the publishers, who wrote they are scheduling a late summer 2010 reprint.**

I teach the Ring Cycle, and I recommend the Spencer/Millington English translation over all others, including the Porter. As an English teacher, I am primarily concerned in a translation's literary value, and I confidently aver this translation as the best in English (I also have a background in German language and literature study). In his poetry, Wagner proves himself a literary genius. Like other masters of language, he deftly balances storytelling, emotion, and philosophy. There are also musicological benefits to this publication, such as notations for motifs where they occur in the text.

Wagner draws from the major medieval versions of the legend, including the Saga of the Volsungs, the Prose Edda, and the Nibelungenlied. Studying these works is crucial to a literary appreciation of the libretti, much as appreciation of Plutarch biographies informs the reading of Shakespeare's plays of antiquity.

Wagner's ambitious work was composed under the nationalistic fervor of 19th Century Germany. He believed "The Nibelungenlied" to be for Germany what "The Iliad" is for Greece or "The Aeneid" is for Rome. Wagner populates his German forests and rivers with mythological gods and faeries, and his human heroes are imbued with heroic courage and strength reminiscent of Achilles and Beowulf.

I highly recommend this translation. There are seldom times a book will inspire aesthetic chills, and it happened several times when reading these libretti. And if you are interested in contextualizing the Siegfried literary tradition, your first stops should be the Nibelungenlied, the Saga of the Volsungs, and the Prose Edda. See also Wagner's libretto for "Tristan and Isolde," another brilliantly written libretto based on a medieval German text, Gottfried von Straussberg's Tristan.
There is not great deal that can be said about this book. It is by far the best translation of the Ring librettos I have seen, and I have many. You get both the English and German poems. You cannot go wrong with this translation if you of are the privileged human beings who has entered the magic kingdom of Wagner.
I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that this sturdy paperback reprint edition (2010; printed in Slovenia) has a sewn binding. I heartily commend the publisher for eschewing the subtracted value of a "Perfect" or otherwise non-sewn binding. (The annoying crumbly gummy labels that US-ified the UK-specific info on the back cover came off tidily with a couple of sparing cotton swab applications of lighter fluid.)
In his introductory note on the text and his translation, Stewart Spencer writes "Whether or not there is any truth in the anecdote that Wieland Wagner used to insist that his singers translate the text of the Ring into German before beginning work on the stage production, the story has a certain poetic truth to it." In addition to being a delight in itself, Spencer's translation is helping me immensely in deepening my understanding of Wagner's German.
I honestly don't know where else one would five such a handy and complete translated libretto of such a massive operatic corpus. Of course, you can enjoy the opera without a libretto, especially now with the hand above stage subtitles, but I have found a little study with this text has helped me enormously in connecting word to music. Definitely recommend for anyone.