Götterdämmerung: Siegfried’s Funeral Music

Program notes

About the Work

Siegfried’s Funeral Music (or Funeral March) is one of the most overwhelming orchestral passages Wagner ever composed, a vast, tragic threnody marking the death of the hero. In Act III of Götterdämmerung, Siegfried, his memory of Brünnhilde erased by a magic potion and ensnared by the schemes of the villainous Hagen, is treacherously stabbed in the back. As his body is borne away from the riverbank in solemn procession, the orchestra erupts in this stupendous funeral march, a heart-stopping summation of Siegfried’s whole story and lineage. It is not merely background music for a stage procession; it is a symphonic eulogy, recalling in turn the great leitmotifs associated with Siegfried, his parents Siegmund and Sieglinde, the sword, the love of the Volsungs and the hero’s own valour, building to shattering climaxes of grief and grandeur.

What to Listen For

Listen for the hammer-blows of fate: the great, crashing chords and the relentless, tread-like funeral rhythm in the timpani that underpin the march. Then listen for the procession of leitmotifs, which Wagner deploys here like a series of memorial portraits: the themes of the Volsung race, of Siegmund and Sieglinde (Siegfried’s tragic parents), of the sword Nothung, of Siegfried’s love and his heroism, each rising up in turn, blazing out on the brass.

Listen for the way the music builds in wave after wave to two tremendous climaxes, the brass proclaiming Siegfried’s heroic themes in overwhelming splendour, before sinking back into desolate grief. This is Wagner using the orchestra alone to mourn a hero and to recall an entire saga in a few unforgettable minutes; it is music of crushing emotional power, and it leads directly toward the cataclysm of the opera’s final scene.