''The loneliest heroes in all the cultures''

From Spengler, The Decline of the West, Vol. I, 1922:

Infinite solitude is felt as the home of the Faustian soul. . . . Valhalla is something beyond all sensible actualities floating in remote, dim Faustian regions. Olympus rests on the homely Greek soil, the Paradise of the Fathers is a magic garden somewhere in the Universe, but Valhalla is nowhere. Lost in the limitless, it appears with its inharmonious gods and heroes the supreme symbol of solitude. Siegfried, Parzeval, Tristan, Hamlet, Faust are the loneliest heroes in all the Cultures. Read the wondrous awakening of the inner life in Wolfram’s Parzeval. The longing for the woods, the mysterious compassion, the ineffable sense of forsakenness—it is all Faustian and only Faustian.

-trans. Charles Francis Atkinson

(Illustration is Carl Gustav Carus, Faust in the Mountains, 1821.)

Wagner's Leitmotifs

This video, from a PBS Great Performances broadcast in 1995, provides an accessible and entertaining explanation of Wagnerian leitmotifs, with a specific discussion of "Siegfried's Funeral March" and "Brunnhilde's Immolation" from Götterdämmerung, the final opera in Wagner's four-part "Ring Cycle," Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Great Castles of Europe: Neuschwanstein

This episode from the 1990s TLC series Great Castles of Europe spotlights the fairy-tale Bavarian castle Neuschwanstein, one of the most beautiful castles in the world, and tells the story of its visionary builder, the tragic King Ludwig II, including commentary about his admiration for the great German Romantic composer Richard Wagner. The video also features views of the nearby castles Hohenschwangau and Linderhof.

The video is split into three parts. Part one:



Part two:



Part three:



Schloß Neuschwanstein: Official Site

Great Castles of Europe: Rhine Castles

This episode from the 1990s TLC series titled Great Castles of Europe spotlights some of the famous castles along the Rhine (which figured so prominently in German Romanticism), including the Marksburg, Pfalzgrafenstein, Burg Katz and Burg Maus, and recounts some of the greatest legends associated with the river, including those of Siegfried and of the Loreley (Lorelei).

The video is split into three parts. Part one:



Part two:



Part three: