The Mentor: The Ring of the Nibelung, Vol. 3, Num. 24, Serial No. 100, February

Henry Theophilus FinckProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0

Word count: 57K words
Chapters: 6

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Mentor: The Ring of the Nibelung, Vol. 3, Num. 24, Serial No. 100, FebruaryAuthor: Finck, Henry T., 1854-1926,Language: English, Class: ML: Music: Literature of music, Release Date: Mar 19, 2016

Editor's review

This book is the third volume, twenty-fourth number of Henry T. Finck's series of introductory articles on Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung written for The Mentor magazine, a typical sample of American music popularization writing of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its value lies not in modern scholarly score analysis or stage-production history, but in showing how the English-speaking world of the time explained a vast music drama to ordinary readers: the author unpacks the plot, motifs, and character relationships in serial installments, in language aimed at non-specialists, with a distinctly period explanatory style. For readers studying Wagner reception history, early music criticism as a genre, or American music popularization publications, this material can serve as a primary document; for readers simply wanting to understand the music of the Ring itself, it needs to be paired with a modern guide or full score. It should be read as a historical text rather than a contemporary guide, taking care to distinguish plot summary from the author's evaluative statements.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Scholars studying Wagner reception history and early English-language music criticism
Publishing-history readers interested in late nineteenth-century American music popularization publications
Wagnerians already familiar with the Ring plot who want to see how early guides were written
Writers needing samples of nineteenth- and twentieth-century music criticism as a genre

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking modern scholarly score analysis or stage-production research
Complete beginners unfamiliar with the Ring plot who need a systematic introductory guide
General readers expecting a Chinese translation or bilingual edition

Reading tips

Read a synopsis of the Ring plot first, then follow the serial order, avoiding confusion from character-name renderings and period phrasing.
Mark the author's explanations of motifs and scenes as you read, and compare them with modern guides to observe the period differences in critical perspective.
Read it alongside other numbers in the same series to grasp The Mentor's serial format of music popularization.
If using it for research, note evaluative wording in the text as material for Wagner reception history.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book the complete libretto or score of the Ring of the Nibelung?

No. It is one installment in Finck's serial introductory articles for The Mentor, aimed mainly at ordinary readers explaining the plot, characters, and musical motifs; it is criticism and popularization, not the libretto text or a score.

Can readers with average English manage this material?

The text is late nineteenth- to early twentieth-century English popular writing, with sentences longer than in modern English and many German names and operatic terms. Readers with college-level English can get through it with reference tools, but beginners will find it hard going.

Is this guide suitable as an introduction to the Ring?

Not very, on its own. It assumes some basic familiarity with the plot and carries clear period evaluative biases. Beginners should first read a modern standard synopsis and musical guide, then return to this book as historical comparative material.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Henry Theophilus Finck Author · American · 1854–1926

Henry Theophilus Finck (1854–1926) was an American music critic and writer. Born in Missouri and raised in Oregon, he graduated from Harvard University in 1876. From 1881 to 1924 he served as music critic for the New York Evening Post and as an editor of The Nation, championing Romantic composers such as Wagner, Liszt, and Grieg. He wrote more than twenty books, five of which are held in this collection, spanning musical essays and the cultural history of love. Notable among them are Chopin and Other Musical Essays and Primitive Love and Love-Stories, alongside popular works on famous composers, Russian music, and Wagner's Ring cycle. His writing addressed general readers, combining a critic's judgment with a popularizer's clarity.