Peter Kjærulff and Richard Wagner

Back to the Front

"...it has been almost like a holy mission for me to break and stop the apparently generally accepted idea that Wagner was a despicable and ruthless person. His music speaks otherwise. Just Listen."

bulletIs there reason and purpose behind great works of art, or do they just happen? Do good and evil exist, or are they just concepts? And why did both Wagner and Tolkien go to such lengths in their description of a ring?
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In his book The Ringbearer's Diary Peter Kjærulff links together Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung with mighty consequences for both works. As the depths of these works are revealed, a logical and totally coherent interpretation of Wagner's mighty Ring results.
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Apart from the opposition Wagner met from musicians in his own century, he also felt as if he was carrying a burden of yet a different kind, as if fighting against a curse that threatened to overwhelm him any moment. He often stated that he cried almost every day 
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This burden, says Peter Kjærulff after 36 years of intense study, must be the weight (= the intuitive understanding) of 'The Cursed Ring', exposed in Part 2 of The Ringbearer's Diary'. It is the binding link between Wagner's and Tolkien's works - a totally destructive mechanism capable of blocking the entire system of human consciousness. A set of ideas so mean and yet apparently logical, that it has been able to deceive and degrade humankind for ages. 
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Beside the book The Ringbearer's Diary, Peter Kjærulff lectures on the entire Wagnerian musical universe (and that of other composers).These lectures are described on the courses page, and may be requested in english.
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For more information, please send a mail to: Peter Kjærulff. Mail-addresses will be handled confidentially.