Rhinemaidens - Rhinemaidens' Music

Rhinemaidens' Music

The music associated with the Rhinemaidens has been portrayed by the Wagner commentator James Holman as "some of the seminal music in the Ring"; other descriptions have noted its relative charm and relaxation. Its impact is immediate because the first music heard as the curtain rises on Das Rheingold is Woglinde's signature "Weia! Waga!" melody, which influences many themes and motives throughout the Ring cycle. Broadly, the Rhinemaidens' music falls under four main headings, all sharing melodic characteristics redolent of the river and the maidens themselves.

• Woglinde's song to the Rhine: "Weia! Waga! Woge, du Welle,..." (Das Rheingold, Scene 1): The melody is pentatonic, using just five notes: E flat, F, A flat, B flat and C. The song begins with a two-note falling step (F followed by E flat), a figure which recurs in many musical motives throughout the Ring. The melody itself is reprised during Fricka's denunciation of the Rhinemaidens in Das Rheingold, Scene 2 and, dramatically, at the end of Götterdämmerung when, after Brünnhilde's immolation, the Rhinemaidens rise from the river to claim the ring from Siegfried's funeral pyre. Its first five notes, with an altered rhythm, become the motive of the sleeping Brünnhilde in Die Walküre, Act 3. A variant of the tune becomes the Woodbird's greeting "Hei! Siegfried" in Act 2 of Siegfried. The Rhinemaidens and the Woodbird, in Deryck Cooke's analysis, are related through nature, as "fundamentally innocent allies of the natural world".

• Rhinemaidens' joy and greeting to the gold: "Heiayaheia, Heiajaheia! Wallalallalala leiajahei! Rheingold! Rheingold!..." (Das Rheingold Scene 1): The triumphant greeting song is based on two elements, which are developed and transformed later in the Ring and put to many uses. For example the joyful "heiayaheia" cries are converted, in Rheingold Scene 2, into a dark minor version as Loge reports the theft of the gold to the gods and the consequent rising power of the Nibelungen. The "Rheingold!" repetition is sung by the Rhinemaidens to the same falling step that marked the start of Woglinde's song. This figure recurs constantly in the later stages of the drama; in Das Rheingold Scene 3 a snarling minor key version is used as a motive for the evil power of the ring that Alberich has forged from the gold. It comes to represent the theme of servitude to the ring; in Götterdämmerung, enslaved to the ring by his desire for it, Hagen utters his "Hoi-ho" call to his vassals using the same minor two-note figure.
• Rhinemaidens' lament: "Rheingold! Rheingold! Reines Gold!..." (Das Rheingold Scene 4): The lament, which is sung at the end of Das Rheingold as the gods cross the Rainbow Bridge into Valhalla, begins with the "Rheingold" repetition from the greeting, but develops into a haunting song of loss, which becomes ever more poignant before it is drowned by the fortissimo orchestral brilliance that ends the opera. A slow version of the lament is played on the horns in Siegfried, Act 2, as Siegfried enters Fafner's cave to claim the gold—the lament serves to remind us of the gold's true ownership. The lament is played exuberantly as part of the orchestral interlude known as Siegfried's Rhine Journey, during the Götterdämmerung prologue, before a shadow falls across the music as it descends into the minor key of the servitude motive.
• Interlude with Siegfried: "Frau Sonne..." and "Weilalala leia..." (Götterdämmerung, Act 3 Scene 1): Newman describes the Rhinemaidens' scene with Siegfried, at the start of the last act of the Ring cycle, as a "gracious woodland idyll". The musical elements associated with the Rhinemaidens in this scene are new; Holman describes them as alluding to the maidens' seductive nature, as well as conveying a sense of nostalgia and detachment, as the drama approaches its conclusion.