瓦格纳完整的《指环》周期

In order to describe scenes and characters with as much precision as possible, Wagner sometimes added instruments not typically found in a symphonic formation. Even before Tchaikovsky scored part of his 1812 Overture for actual cannons, Wagner called for 18 real anvils in Das Rheingold. (You can hear them in the haunting transition from Scene II to Scene III during the descent into the Nibelheim, a sort of underworld inhabited by dwarfs enslaved as blacksmiths.) \n\nBut that’s not all! For Wagner, in order to depict the fortress of the gods known as Valhalla, none of the instruments of his time seemed to fit the bill exactly — so he went to Adolphe Sax, the creator of the saxophone, to commission a tuba-like horn/trombone hybrid known today as the Wagner tuba! The instrument was later used by other composers like Bruckner, but it made its first memorable appearance in the heavenly notes at the beginning of Das Rheingold’s Scene II.