The Rhinegold and the Valkyrie by the great German composer, Richard Wagner
Gorgeously illustrated throughout by the legendary Arthur Rackham, one of the most important illustrators of his time, with a color frontispiece, monochrome headpieces and tailpieces and vignettes and 23 colored plates.
Published in 1939 by Garden City Publishing in New York. In original buff/light tan cloth with blind tooled cover design and spine gilt lettering and decoration. In original dust jacket with pictorial illustration by Rackham. Quarto, 10” x 7.5” - 160 pages. Pictorial endpapers.
OVERALL CONDITION: VG+/VG
ABOUT THE BOOK
The Rhinegold is the first of the four epic music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen (English: The Ring of the Nibelung). It was performed, as a single opera, at the National Theatre Munich on September 22, 1869, and received its first performance as part of the Ring cycle at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, on August 13, 1876.
The Valkyrie is the second of the four epic music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen (English: The Ring of the Nibelung). It was performed as a single opera at the National Theatre Munich on June 26, 1870, and received its first performance as part of the Ring cycle at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on August 14, 1876.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR/COMPOSER
Wilhelm Richard Wagner (22 May 1813 – 13 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"), by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung).
CONDITION: VERY GOOD+/VERY GOOD
The spine is square, firm hinges and joints and tight pages. Colorful, unfaded boards. Light rubbing to extremities. Some darkening between spine and covers on rear cover and a faint smudge. Small puncture to front cover. Interior is clean with no writing, stamps, ex libris marks or foxing. Darkening to endpaper gutters. Lightly age toned pages.
The dust jacket is in VERY GOOD condition. Flaps are clipped. Beautiful colorful panel art. Rubbing. Edge wear
creasing, rubbing, light chipping and small tears. Dust soiling to rear panel (per normal given its white!). Blind side of jacket with tape reinforcement in places.
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