ok to read, although he makes some strange claims about how (classical) music is unique in ways other arts and senses are not. Does not always make sense to me. I wonder how critical his editor was, or whether this suffered from fanboy issues.
Since historians can choose where to begin and where to end their stories, Hayden White invented the word "emplotment" – meaning the imprint of dramatic structure onto what he saw as the randomness of events.
What Wagner did was create a set of short musical motifs that are presented at important moments in the drama and seem to represent those moments, characters, objects, and emotions. The brain links the melody with a visually and dramatically memorable moment. This procedure mysteriously creates a permanent relationship between the music and the object. From that moment onward, each time the melody is heard in the unfolding drama brings us back to its first iteration, and since the Ring takes place over generations, the sense of time and nostalgia become ever more emotive.
