RICHARD WAGNER.
From the painting by H. Herkomer at Bayreuth.
It is on harmonic alteration that he chiefly relies again, in the latter stages of the Ring, to suggest the fateful gloom that is gradually closing in upon the drama; much of the tense and tragic atmosphere of the Götterdämmerung comes from this clouding of the simpler texture of the motives of the earlier operas. One of the most remarkable instances of this is his treatment of the "Servitude" motive, that is generally associated with Alberich. In the Rhinegold it appears in a variety of simple forms, such as this—
No. 30.
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and this—
No. 31.